Grazeley (Lambswoodhill Common and Brook Farm)

Late afternoon, feeling a bit jaded (wine at lunchtime), we decided on a short local walk. This one starts just by Grazeley Church (photographed recently when I did another short (3.5 miles) walk around Grazeley).

The route initially crosses Lambswoodhill Common - now, disappointingly, just a very large field. From here a series of pleasant lanes take you across the Reading-Basingstoke railway line and back again. Plenty of wild primroses and white celandine.

The next section involves a field side path and the drive to the very well set up Brook Farm. In this phase of the walk the most noticeable thing was the sky - first mackerel with distant rain ...




... and then just so big and varied .... with a little selective photography you could be on the great plains.



We also saw a wonderfully sculptural dead tree.



From here a short stretch along the Foudry Brook leads to a longer stretch beside the A33 and a cross-field section back to the start. We enjoyed the familiar sight of four deer darting across the field as we approached.

From: Rambling for pleasure around Reading (first series) by David Bounds for the East Berkshire Ramblers.

Map: Explorer 159 (Reading, Wokingham and Pangbourne).

Rating: two and a half stars. Too flat, too much traffic noise. But it did the trick in perking us up.


Reflections

There is usually lots to potentially see on a walk - but we've seldom been more conscious of the sky as one of those things.

And walking along one the primrose-strewn lanes we thought "primrose path of dalliance" - why? It turns out that it all derives from Shakespeare giving these words to Ophelia in Hamlet, accusing her brother Laertes of hypocrisy. So far so good, but why did he associate primroses with dalliance? Surely some deeper mythology is at work?