Saturday 4 June 22
DH, RW, BFS, TO, DL, IP, Sully, Scrumpy & Nimbus
As we arrived at a busy car park in Mere it was not immediately obvious why, but I suppose having had 2 days of a long jubilee weekend already I should have guessed that there may be something happening in town. It was another day when the choice of coat or not was needed, but the biggest choice had already been taken earlier that morning when Trevor decided for the first time since joining the walks, that his trusty shadow, Bill, was not well enough to join us today. We hope it’s only a temporary measure and we’ll see him back again soon.
Our route today was going to be the same as “Gone with the wind” back in April ‘21, as we headed off westwards by the church, where tents and stalls were slowly being assembled and erected for what looked like the annual church fete. No sheep to contend with in the first field, although once passed the greenhouses and the dog training area (which all our well behaved dogs clearly don’t need), we were soon over the road and into the large grounds of Old Park, where with sheep running loose the dogs were back under close control.
Passing through the cottages and to the rear of Zeals House, they were soon back running free as we traversed a slight ridge line towards Wolverton. The views southwards were as good as ever but we soon had a new challenge as a large stately tree had been brought down in recent storms and was blocking our path. Brian immediately choose a lower route through long grass but Deryck was convinced there would be a route past the upended rootstock. Despite having Sully’s close attention, they both quickly retired defeated, although I’m sure if we were all 40 years younger we would seen it as a challenge back then!
Having eventually found the well hidden route out of the field we turned left on the minor road as we approached the hour mark of the walk. A further half mile down the road, the plan was to head back into fields, but some re-fencing had obscured the entrance point, and so after the obligatory lolly stop we opted to stay on the tarmac up to the main road. A short walk along the verge and we quickly got back into fields for our return to Mere, where it was clear that it was more than just a church fete going on as along the whole street down to the square more and more stalls were being set up. 4 miles in just under 2 hours- about our average pace.
Once back at the cars it was only a five minute drive to The Hillbrush cafe, or so we thought! Turns out it was closed (probably for jubilee weekend celebrations), so off to the Hunters we went. Only to find out that breakfast was finished, and the all day breakfast last seen on the menu was no longer being offered. So after a quick phone call to check availability we headed for Kimbers where despite the usual slow service, we all had a standard or large breakfast to round off the morning in our customary manner.
