Sheep and Grass Snakes

29th June 2014

    Dee and Maisie were ready when I arrived on Pixot Hill at 6.30am. We drove to Cranbrook and parked with a clearing sky and a promising morning ahead. We left Cranbrook via St. Dunstan's churchyard (The Cathedral of the Weald). On the green, we watched a Sparrow Hawk chase a small bird which escaped. Dee said, good! I said, but what about the hawk's babies? Going north, we passed Angley Lake, and entered Gravel Pit Wood, signs of ancient excavation everywhere. The stream at the bottom of the hill once powered the old corn mill at Spratsbourne Farm. Maisie paddled and drank under the little bridge and we started the climb to Dogkennel Farm. We could hear a sheep, clearly in distress, on the other side of the hedge, bleating, 'help'! At the field gate, I climbed over and found the sheep was stuck with her head through a pig wire fence. I spoke calmly to her, pushed her head down and back and she pulled free, taking the skin of my thumb with her. As she ran off bleating, I said that I hope that meant thank you! I nursed my thumb and Dee put a sticky plaster on to arrest the leaking blood.
    Out at Harewood as we left the trees, a Buzzard circled silently in the azure sky looking for breakfast and we walked on to Hazelden Farm. Not a farm now, but the old farm buildings are now beautifully restored as homes and the footpath runs through the peaceful settlement, with just the old hopper huts left to show of industry. The path took us down to Friezley and to Hocker Edge where we followed the gentle stream again to have breakfast in the trees on the hillside in Pond Wood by a Badger set.
    Through the pasture, then into Saunders' Wood, along a grossly overgrown footpath through bramble, nettles and bracken taller than me (that's not difficult), we entered Home Wood, where somebody lives in a make-shift home of caravan and tarpaulin, cold and hardship. The short walk along the A229, is a dangerous task, and the relief is palpable when the footpath off is reached. Out of Foxearth Wood, the footpath had been mown and a quivering of the grass caused Maisie to pounce. A Grass Snake escaped with ease, luckily for Maisie, as they will bite! Several snakes were around us and perhaps there was a nest of these beautiful creatures with the yellow band about the neck. Then, at a nettle and bramble overgrown clearing, there were Loganberries hidden in the undergrowth and we feasted!
    When we came to Digdog Lane, Meadowsweet and Rosebay Willowherb crowded the bridge at the stream which flows through, with Himalayan Balsam on the banks. We left the lane and sat on a bench watching a Kestrel hovering over the fields. A group of elderly walkers came through. We decided to get ahead so we weren't delayed. They were like a gaggle of Geese and they were gaining on me. I said to Dee: don't leave me behind, I will be enveloped and perhaps become a part of a sinister cult! We made it to Sissinghurst Castle just in time for safety, coffee and cake.
    The final leg to Cranbrook took us through orchards of burgeoning fruit and shaded lanes and tracks. Butterflies surrounded us as we walked to a classic view of the Union Windmill and we arrived back to the churchyard at St. Dunstan's for tea and a rest in the shade of an Oak before returning home.