Picture an apple.
Picture a large, red apple.
Picture the largest, reddest, shiniest, roundest apple you have ever seen.
Picture this apple hanging from a small apple tree in the middle of a great orchard. It is surrounded by much grander, well-established trees; in fact, this tree is something of a tiddler. And yet, it has its one apple. It has worked so, so, so hard to grow its solitary fruit. It has the best apple in the whole orchard. Well done tree.
Before this tree, sit two travellers on their blue sit-mats, in the midst of a very gusty day indeed. This is where you join us; in the middle of a discussion. It was an otherwise beautiful day, however when the gusts came through (at a fairly regular rate, too), they really did blow. Beth was unsettled, and so we had pulled over into the orchard to pause, take a breath and work out whether we wanted to carry on into the day. We had yet to cover a mile, so far along familiar paths out of Rolvenden. Fortunately, a large herd of loudly mooing cows had already been moved out of a wide field which we crossed moments later, thanks to a well-timed farmer, yet even this stroke of good fortune had not been enough to rally spirits against the wind. And so, we sat, and admired the marvellously red apple grown by the little tree, of which it should be very proud. After a good sit, we finally rose back to our boots. At the end of the row, back on the path, we turned left; and onward, t’ward the rest of the walk. Having decided that it would be worth persevering, we carried on through the wind, feeling more positive in our decision. The gusts still came through, but step by step, they seemed to bother us less and less.
Continuing along footpaths which we knew, we left the orchard, passed beneath some trees and through a flock of sheep. This brought us to a quiet lane, along which we came across one particular path to our right. This is where we would ordinarily walk if we were on our way to Benenden. However, this is where we would be venturing onto new paths, so we ignored it and took the next one instead. Unfortunately, this initially meant a small patch of woodland (not good on a windy day). Fortunately, where it was a managed wood and regularly coppiced, the trees here were not large, mostly spindly with only a few years of growth, so it turned out to be not so scary. After passing through this and another orchard beyond, we popped out onto a small road. A beautiful smell suddenly filled our nostrils, and we turned to see the Woodcock Inn on our right. We did not stop; however, that is the direct reason that we are now having a roast dinner this evening.
After another stretch of quiet country lane, we headed back out across farmland, being sure to keep a reasonable distance between us and the tree-edged fields. All was reasonably smooth, until we crossed a small stream and went to climb back up the bank on the other side. However, this little patch was very overgrown. The path was not very clear, and we wandered about for a few minutes looking for the way through. Eventually, I found the steps out, and we clambered back out into the open. We crossed the short distance to the next stile out of the field, and found that to be quite thorny and un-user-friendly as well (Beth would like to lodge a formal complaint with this particular farmer).
By now, we were getting hungry. Ordinarily, we would find a nice spot at the side of a field beneath a tree, but today – well, yeah. Trying to find a suitable spot that was not beneath the life-threatening branches or at the side of the road was trickier than you might think, on this particular walk. After a stretch of climbing lane and passing along stony farm tracks, we came across what looked like a likely stretch of pastures. Once we had crossed the first (with the help of a man indicating from his back garden, after spotting us wandering around looking for the path) and then the second, we found a nice open field, with a small flock of sheep staring at us from the neighbouring paddock; great! We got our sit mats back out, and plonked ourselves down to look at the sheep, as they looked back at the strangers.
Having refuelled, we got back up, and noticed that the light was already waning. The autumnal afternoon was turning golden as we set off again, passing some large mushrooms, which were followed by a short, steep climb with a beautiful view at the top. After this, we came out onto what was the worst bit of road walking of the day, along the busy and fast A28, a few minutes later, searching for and eventually finding our next path on Wassal Lane, which in the end turned out to be down someone’s driveway. This really marked the beginning of the end, with nice, clear, long paths through open fields ahead, and very little between us and Rolvenden. We both agreed that we were surprisingly tired for what had been a relatively short walk, and were pleased to almost be back. The only obstacle came in the form of Frog Lane (great name), which naturally required us to hop across whilst ribbiting. Finally, across the glowing fields, the top of Rolvenden Church came into view above the trees. Gratefully, we made our way through the churchyard, and finally back to the car, after what had been a harder day’s walking than we had expected – but we had done it!
I am glad that we persevered because, apart from anything else, it had been well over a month since we had last gone for a walk. We had no idea when we were taking our boots off at the end of our Yorkshire epic that it would be so long until our next venture, yet thanks to birthdays, rain and unsuccessful fishing trips, the weekends had slipped away. This is the longest we have gone between walks in some years – certainly since we started blogging! This may go some way to explain why a seven miler somehow felt harder than any of the days on the Herriot Way, as they warmed back up to regular working temperatures. In the weeks that have passed, autumn has truly arrived. The ground is littered with shells and trees decorated with colour. It only seems like five minutes ago that we were sweating through cracked, parched land, yet already the mud is reappearing. I am glad to be back at it, and, hopefully, returning to our more regularly scheduled programme, just in time for the most beautiful bloom of autumn to begin.
