16 of us met outside the Fox and Hounds pub, Tillingham, eagerly waiting to place our orders for lunch. Sadly, the landlord had failed to look at his calendar and had hightailed it to the bank!

Undaunted we set off through the churchyard and followed a part of St. Peter’s way. We were lucky with the weather – Carol Kirkwood hadn’t predicted the pleasant sunshine we experienced! There were no stiles or hills – just views of open fields and the odd homestead miles from anywhere. The first part of our walk took us to the east of the village and back round to the bottom of South Street. We took a minor detour to see if the landlord had returned (no such luck!) and then headed off to the west. Again it was a mixture of open fields and minor roads until we came to Stowe Farm. Here previous gravel pits had been turned into ponds where a few water birds were seen. Even more unusual was the presence of a windsock as one of the fields was a grass runway – not sure what kind of plane could land there; we didn’t see one.

We reached the pub at 12.15 but had a rather long wait for food – there were 2 other parties there (a group of nursery nurses and some cyclists) and the pub was heaving! We did finally all get fed but it was long lunch!

Thank you to Jan van der Schans for being the official photographer.

Sue Bridgman.