A cold and frosty morning.

12th January 2014

    I ventured into out to the cold darkness and birdsong, across the Bourne at Bourne Mill, and into frosty fields. At High House Lane, looking back, Hadlow Tower was silhouetted black against the reddening morning. My footprints snaked across the whiteness. I walked the lane gingerly over the ice and was relieved entering the footpath for a more reliable foothold at Poult Wood. The golf course was deserted but for a groundsman raking a bunker in the low light, and ducks voiced their disapproval at being disturbed from the pond there. Grange Farm still had to be skirted. Work on the old farm buildings and oast houses continues. The tiles have been stripped from the roofs and some groundwork done. Five white Doves, perched in a line on the finger of a cowl atop an oast, cooed gently. I passed Carrotty Wood north of Tonbridge, then walked down Horns Lodge Lane, still icy, and a woodpecker drummed. The Sun, that perfect orb, rose behind me into the blue. At Coldharbour, I took the old bridlepath to Tinly Farm, then onto the frozen sods through winter wheat to Shipbourne. The five bells of St Giles Church were ringing out a jolly tune as I walked up the fields and was ear-splitting going by. I sat on a bench in the Sun on the village green for tea and passers-by greeted me with a smile, and the bells rang on.
    I left the bench for Dunks Green through Home Farm at Fairlawne, then stumbled across the frozen plough into the little wood where a stream flows through. The moss-covered trees and undergrowth there gives the place a primeval air. The lane to the village was very slippery and my walking pole kept me upright. Sitting on the bench at the front of the Kentish Rifleman Inn, the sky began to cloud over, and I ate hot leek and potato soup.
   From there, I left for Oxen Hoath, over the Bourne again at Roughway Mill and zigzagged up through the orchards, just recently pruned, and down again to Hamptons. In the wood there, Mr Reynard came with a hen Pheasant gripped between his jaws. Head up and purposeful, he crossed my path without seeing me and continued on his way, perhaps to offer to his vixen. At Oxen Hoath, I sat on Joan Bray's bench for a final cuppa. Hadlow Tower was again before me in the valley and shafts of gentle white light burst through the cloud to embellish the Weald. Fieldfare chattered and Rooks cawed about me and a bitter South-easterly cut into my face and my hands froze. The ground was beginning to soften as I walked through the parkland for home; maybe rain is on its way.