One foot in front of another…

We are very fortunate where we live that we have access to a large network of public paths through the countryside classified as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty right at our doorstep. We can walk in almost any direction for miles through a variety of landscape such as mixed farmland, forestry commission land, national trust land past historical buildings, ancient woodland, protected environments where rare orchids and snakes can be found but never too far from a civilising glass of something cold and refreshing.

We took an unexpectedly long walk a few weeks ago with a couple of friends and their dog. We started from home and by means of navigation first stopped at the Wotton Hatch in the parish of Wotton close to the historic St John the Evangelist church used by the Evelyn family who were based at the nearby Wotton House, birthplace of John Evelyn the noted diarist.

After a quick drink we forged on to the StephenLangton located in the quaintly named Friday Street. The pub is named after the Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of King John but perhaps more excitingly was the location for some of the early 80’s sci-fi television series the Tripods and can be seen in the early episodes of this programme.

After another sit down and drink we continued onwards to the Abinger Hatch located at Abinger Common where every year there is a medieval styled fair.

Again after refreshments we continued onto our final public house, The Volunteer, located at the nearby Sutton Abinger.

We had originally planned to get a taxi back from here but we realised that we did not have a number for one that would take us and the dog so we had to walk back home as the sun was setting, eventually reaching our humble abode several hours and about six miles after we had left it.

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More recently Sue and I took another longish walk, though this time it was only about three miles round trip. We did however go up the steep Ranmore Common encountering walkers, horse riders, cyclists and a group of young people who were participating in their DofE. The sun was shining as we saw the first of the vines that make up the large sprawling Denbies WineEstate (there were no pubs on this walk, but I guess a vineyard would do). After a brief browse around the farm shop we stopped at the café and had a cake and a glass of fine wine (Denbies make award winning wines and claim to have a climate and geology similar to that of the Champagne region), before we went to support our friend Mrs Mac who had a stall there as part of a local charity craft fair. Mrs Mac Makes wonderful craft pieces out of upcycled/recycled/repurposed materials and can create lovely unique items to your specification (we had her make a Christmas Sack for our friend’s son with his name on it), and she was one of the couple with the dog that we did our pub crawl - sorry ramble - described above.

More of wot I have read…

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce

I bought this book recently while bored one lunchtime wandering around the shopping mall near work, I think I might have read a positive review about it somewhere. Anyway it is an interesting read and I liked the idea that a belief in a fantasy world and mental illness might get mixed up by a rational world and I wonder if that idea could be worth further investigation (I might have to jot that down as another possible story to write).

‘It is Christmas afternoon and Peter Martin gets an unexpected phone call from his parents. It pulls him into a bewildering mystery. His sister, Tara, has come back home. Not so unusual you might think, this is a time when families get together. But twenty years ago Tara took a walk into the woods and never came back, and as the years have gone by with no word from her the family has, unspoken, feared that she was dead.

But now she’s back, tired, disheveled, but happy and full of stories about twenty years spent traveling the world, an epic odyssey taken on a whim. But her stories don’t quite hang together and the intervening years have been very kind to Tara . . . She really does look no different from the young women who walked out the door twenty years ago.

Peter’s parents are just delighted to have their little girl back, but Peter is not so sure. There is something about her. A haunted, otherworldly quality. Some would say it’s as if she’s off with the fairies. And as the months go by Peter begins to suspect that the woods around their homes are not finished with Tara and his family…’

Wired by Douglas E Richards

The first of two e-books that I have read that propose a possible man-made evolutionary step towards an enhanced human and the possible consequences should the technology and subsequent power it brings fall into the wrong hands. Although the ideas are interesting (I have often thought I would like to be able to take something that would make me smarter) I found the characters to be lacking in depth and the plot line to be quite naive in execution, nevertheless it was an easy read and quite entertaining.

‘Kira Miller is a brilliant genetic engineer who discovers how to temporarily achieve savant-like capabilities in all areas of thought and creativity. But what if this transcendent level of intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania?

David Desh left the special forces after his team was brutally butchered in Iran. Now he has been reactivated for one last mission: find Kira Miller, the enigmatic genius behind a bioterror plot that threatens millions. But when Desh learns that the bioterror plot is just the tip of the iceberg, he is thrust into a byzantine maze of deception and intrigue, and he becomes a key player in a deadly game he can't begin to understand. A game that is certain to have a dramatic impact on the future course of human history.’

Amped by Douglas E Richards

‘Kira Miller is a brilliant scientist who discovers how to temporarily boost human IQ to dizzying levels. But this transcendent intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania. Determined to use her discovery to propel human civilization to a higher plane, despite this side effect, Kira and ex-special forces operative David Desh recruit a small group of accomplished scientists, all of whom are safely off the grid. Or so they think . . . 
Soon Kira and her team are in a desperate battle for their lives. And to make matters even worse, while on the run and being relentlessly attacked from all quarters, Kira comes across evidence of savage acts that the enhanced version of Desh kept hidden, even from himself. Now both she and Desh must question everything they think they know. Can they trust each other? Can they even trust themselves? 
And all the while, the greatest threat of all may be coming from an entirely unexpected direction. A threat that could lead to devastation on a global scale. And time is quickly running out . . .’