South into the Spring Afternoon

And all the Spring in this Sweet lane is seen

John Clare, ‘Sonnet’

I was starting after lunch today, as I aimed to finish my walk around 5.30 to be picked up by Stephen and dropped home before he had to return to work. This morning’s forecast gave me to understand that it would be grey and drizzly until the afternoon, when it would cheer up. This was a hopeful sign. I rushed around doing all the jobs: applying for parking permits, filling the bird feeders with seed, ironing back into function the water repellent membrane on my newly-washed waterproof trousers, assembling all the items on my tried and tested walking checklist. With half an hour to go, I sat and ate my lunch, now feeling rather dismal, looking out of the window at a downpour and texting my solo walking pal Jane, who commiserated. It looked as though I would be testing out the membrane on those trousers sooner than I had hoped.

But the downpour seemed to have been the back end of a cloud system that was racing past. Two minutes into the text conversation, I was unexpectedly flooded with the brightest of sunlight streaming through the window and I almost shot off my chair, eager to get amongst it.

Jane and I cut our texts short. I put my boots on, shouldered my pack, and went round the corner to say goodbye to Mum.

Almost immediately on leaving Bromyard city limits there is a section of a footpath that I knew was prone to flooding really badly, followed by a field full of cows which have a bad rep, so I decided to forgo the quagmire and an almost certain trampling, and take the road. It was fabulous to be out, squinting my eyes up against the glare of the sun on the wet tarmac, and enjoying the almost-forgotten sensation on my skin of being bathed in the light and warmth.

Much of today’s walk was to follow the Herefordshire Trail, which here snakes along the Valley of the River Frome and through its various villages (many ‘Fromes’: Bishops’s Frome, Castle Frome, Canon Frome and Halmond’s Frome, amongst others). The valley also passes through a string of ancient farms settled into the landscape over centuries, the first of which was Brookhouse Farm, erstwhile home of friends of ours who farmed it mainly for the Herefordshire hops which grow so well round here. The beautiful 18^th century house is surrounded by hop yards, impeccably strung ready for the hop vines to start clambering up towards the light. Later in the year the strings will be cut, and the entire length, with its twining hopbine, will be taken to the enormous state of the art barn to process and dry. Then the labour-intensive process of hand stringing must begin again. With the acreage that is dedicated here to hop-growing, it’s a colossal job.

The farms fell behind me – Brookhouse, Upper Venn Farm, and The Venn, once derelict and now restored to its former glory and screened from the path by blackberry thickets, today fluttered over by peacock and orange-tip butterflies.  It was such a familiar path and I reminisced on past walks, like the time we had thought to walk the 6km to another friend’s farm, one of the many in the complex that is the Medieval Paunton Court, and were listening to the pleasant sound of what we thought was the wind stirring the aspen leaves in the wood, but realised to our horror that it was a torrential downpour coming towards us over the tops of the trees.

Today there was no rain whatsoever — the first day it seems I can remember with wall-to-wall sunshine. A set of willows, pollarded over the years to create squat, bulbous forms, lined an outdoor arena where a graceful grey was being put through her paces.

Paunton Court is also home to the Frome Valley Vineyard, and I admired the wrought-iron gates with the still-skeletal pinot noir vines behind them, their tiny buds not risking anything but the tiniest of cracks until the weather settles fair.

The valley was so familiar to me that I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me to come off the signposted way over Frome’s Hill and visit my father’s grave in the churchyard of the ancient settlement of Castle Frome. I decided to remedy that. It entailed a bit of a road walk, not my favourite option as my feet have developed a disconcerting tendency to go numb when I walk on tarmac for any length of time (I will need to experiment to see whether gel pads can absorb some of the nerve shocks). The rerouting entailed a visit to the Hop Pocket, a surprisingly sizeable rural shopping centre in a series of old barns just outside Bishop’s Frome, and I decided since this was about half way I deserved and icecream: I sat under the embryonic shade of a whitebeam tree and enjoyed a pot of delectable damson and sloe gin ice cream. I thought Bishop’s Frome to be about half way (although I had neglected to restart my Strava recorder after a brief pause to check the map, and the distance I had recorded was nearly three km out). (Also, had I but known it, the walk was going to be longer than I had anticipated, so I was not quite half way.) (Although Dad was.)

Climbing the steps into the churchyard, I passed a colony of tiny black and white bees emerging and re-entering a series of holes in the earth around one grave. So industrious, and so peaceful. There are always larks climbing into the skies and singing above this churchyard (and today, one of the first swallows also, calling, perhaps for its mate).

I gave dad a sprig of lilac I had picked out of a hedgerow. I often think how much he would have enjoyed hearing about my walks —and how interesting he would be to talk to about the places I pass through.

Now I had to regain height: Frome’s Hill is the end point of a limestone spine (cue ropes of old man’s beard in the trees edging the churchyard as I climbed the stile to get into the field at the back of the church) which rises steeply up out of the river valley and leads south. I looked back halfway up the hill and got good views over to Hay Bluff, but the church itself, which I though would have looked fine in that landscape, was screened by trees.

Now I had to do a little trespassing.

This was not the first trespass of the day: that had been much earlier, because of a field of cows that were definitely eyeing me up aggressively. I could see the field I needed to get into, and a gap to get through. The gap turned out to conceal a little stream, with a steep bank on the other side, about one and a half times my height. I managed to haul myself up by jamming my boots into the soft ground and pulling on great handfuls of grass and praying that it wouldn’t rip out of the ground.

Here, rather than a stream and bank to negotiate, there was a field of wary sheep and impossibly tiny lambs.  I was keen not to disturb them, so tiptoed past. Some were clearly only a day or so old.

Soon after this the Herefordshire Way began to deteriorate. A hill taking me up through a scrubby coppice was thick with brambles just starting to put forth new growth, and I huffed and puffed my way up hill — then down — then up again, walking fast at one point to discourage some overly-interested sheep from following me. Three of them had quite admirable horns spiralling out at the sides which I didn’t want to see any closer up.

I was wondering whether I might cadge a cup of tea from a friend at a farm in Catley. But when I got near I realised that her farm was in a different part of the spread-out hamlet. Here instead I had threaded a more direct route southeast to get to Wellington Heath and the day’s end, abandoning the Herefordshire trail for some more esoteric footpaths.

This was a different kind of farmland: where the hop yards and orchards had previously been immaculate, here was an orchard which had just been left to choke under its own overgrowth, and the weeds which had grown up unchecked around the apple trees.

The footpath should have gone through the orchard but I picked my way around the field edge. When I got to the stile at the end, I had to fight my way through to it.

And then on the other side… another field of suspicious and jittery cows! I was not having much luck.  This was a huge field and there was nothing for it but to go through: I thought I might creep round, hugging the field edge where it was bordered by a stream and some old willows dividing it and the next field.  I didn’t much fancy my chances.  As soon as my foot touched the ground though the cows started to move towards me. I made straight for the stream.  With a threatening low mooing coming from behind me I threw into the stream a log which I reckoned I could use as a makeshift stepping stone, and launched myself on to it.  Not pretty or graceful, and my boots were marginally damp, but I was soon out of sight of the cows who kept up their warnings but didn’t cross after me. Unfortunately, I did not feel I had the time to record either the wouldbe marauding cows or the stream crossing for posterity.

I was approaching Bosbury, now.  I’d run out of water a while back so after agreeing a plan with Stephen for the pickup, I repaired to the Bell for a glass of water and a couple of packets of crisps.  There were five locals in the bar, with their dogs and a set of pints in front of them, all miserable as sin and not going to even glance at a stranger, let alone make conversation.  The barmaid was harried and flustered, serving two bars simultaneously and being hassled by the miserable clientele.  What a dreary evening they were all in for!  It wasn’t even six o’clock yet.

I shook the dust of the Bell off my feet as I left, but did admire Bosbury church on the way, which has a bell tower unusually quite separate from it. We went to a concert there a very long time ago, in which our friend Helen was playing the French horn.

The hills which I had to climb to the day’s end were now in sight and I tried to keep the pace up although I was actually quite drained. Fields were full of knee-high thick grass and there were a series of stiles it was increasingly hard to climb over. I threaded my way to the foot of the final hill across farmland, field edges difficult to negotiate because tractor tyres had created deep tread ruts in once-soft mud, which had hardened over the last week in the drier weather to create a treacherously pitted and uneven path. I was not encouraged to see a ‘Beware of the Bull’ sign.

There was in fact no bull that I could see, but I scuttled over this last flat field as fast as I could, nonetheless.

The last hill. I disturbed a buzzard roosting on a fence post as I toiled upwards through the lush grass that surely would be having its first cut for silage soon. I was inexpressibly glad to get to the road, and find myself able to walk at a smooth and more energetic pace once more, able to enjoy the views west of the sun as it sank towards the horizon.

This was perhaps the most beautiful part of the day, and ample reward for my labours.

I was concentrating so hard on walking that I almost missed Stephen. He’d gone home to change into black tie for an evening meal at school, and had driven out to pick me up on the way back in for the dinner.

Last night at home! I have yet to reconstruct my cancelled accommodation. Sufficient unto the day, and all that. For now I needed to go back home, soak my tired muscles, wash my clothes, feed myself, and write this first day up. Bigger pack tomorrow! And not nearly so much sun, I fear.

Stats for the Day

Distance: 24.65km

Number of tramplings by bulls averted: 3

Spectacular crossings of watercourses: 2

Trespassers will: 2

Blackbird’s egg: 1