The Life of Shell: September 2011

So after a night on a blow up mattress that went down, but I was too sozzled and tired to notice, I woke up in Claire-Louise’s gorgeous sunny flat in Guildford. It was so nice a day we had brunch out on the balcony.

After a lazy morning, CL and I realized we didn’t have enough time left to do our day trip we had planned (as per usual Guildford Sundays) and as Simon and I had both lived in Guildford and loved it, I really just wanted to show mum around.

Me at sunny CL's planning our day

So we set off to walk thru town and then do one of CL’s and my favourite walks. I love Guildford it has all the high street shops, theatre, cinema, lots of pubs and even a few dodgy nightclubs but then if you walk in the right direction within 10 min you are out in the countryside. Oh and it even has a river running through town. The River Wey. Though I must say they haven’t made enough use of it, there are no restaurants or cafés and there are only two pubs that over look it and one of them is always in the shade!

Mum and I had packed for cold weather, somehow when we got to UK we realised we had both taken our shorts out at the last minute. It was hot outside! And we were going to be as the English call it rambling. So I would just like to say a big mention to CL for the size of her wardrobe and the fact it could fit both mum and I out in clothes for a ramble.

Guildford high st

After taking mum to the castle, she, as most people are, was surprised we had one, especially in the middle of town. We set off on our walk, we were starting it in a different spot, we usually start at the river but we decided we would show mum that on the way back. I had done a walk starting from the castle once before and both CL and I had looked up the walk before we left. We promptly started disagreeing on if we were going the right direction. But as per usual I was sure I was correct and then when we had walked a bit further and we were still in suburbia I had to apologise and agree we must have taken a wrong turn at the start!

But I was following my inbuilt compass (my fluke compass)... and we stumbled upon a walking track sign and followed that through some laneways. And ta da we found ourselves crossing a road and entering a carpark at the start of a walk. Having no idea how we got there or if it was the correct walk we congratulated ourselves anyway. It seemed to go the right direction, the other walk to newlands corner could be seen across the downs heading parallel to us and that matched the map we had seen.

We were heading to St Martha’s on the Hill church on top of St Marthas Hill along the Pilgrims Way which is part of the North Downs Way. A few years ago I convinced a few mates to go in the Oxfam Trailwalker and CL was one of our training partners for this trek, most of our walks took us along this stretch though we usually reached it from the River Wey along the Pilgrams Way. It had also been a few years since we had done a walk. (my fault I left Guildford for the big smoke) so our memories were a little bit sketchy!

Anyway we were on our way and mum was entering her first bit of English forest.

We were heading uphill though not really a track we recognised we thought we were heading in the right direction. I was conscious of the time though, we had headed off a bit late.

Finally just to confirm we were heading the right way, while mum was off chasing a squirrel with her camera, I asked someone coming the other way if St Marthas Church was this direction they said yes just keep heading the way your going.

We came to another car park and ‘a you are here’ sign, I love you are here signs… when they actually say you are here. This one didn’t. It was just a sketch showing the walk. I thought I knew where we were on it. And so we kept following the track we were on and heading up a steep hill there at the top was St Martha’s Church.

St Martha's on the Hill

This church was first built in 1100, it burnt down and then has been rebuilt numerous times by different people, but its tiny, still very old and lovely. All wood, white washed and un- decorated with a big bell attached to a rope that hangs down inside the church. The first day we came here we accidently ended up here on an open day. CL got to ring the bell and we had the history explained to us. The next time we came CL thought she could still ring the bell, man we got in big trouble apparently that means someone has died!

We sat in the sun on a wooden seat outside the church yard looking out at the view and ate left over strawberries from brunch.

I realised how turned around I had got when I was trying to work out which village was which in the view, the way I thought the sign had said we were coming in was actually opposite to where we had actually come in. I thought we had come to the church via the back way but infact we had come in the way we were meant to. I was soooo confused!

So back through the church yard we went, which meant through the graveyard but to be honest what a place to be buried, what a view!

We tried to make sure we were on pilgrims way, so we would walk back a different way and end up walking home along the river. We checked out the ‘you are here sign again’ and following posted signs.

Then the signs ended, as seems to happen all through Europe and we were just following the track. I began to worry, I had thrown my thermal jumper in my bag but CL didn’t have anything, mum only had a light jumper and we were all in shorts. It was 4pm by this time and we were not prepared in any way to be caught outside at night lost in the woods. I didn’t say anything though, It was a track and it was leading somewhere and unlike the australian bush, there were villages all around. It wasn’t going to be dark for a few more hours, I was just being a worry wart.

We then ended up on the same track that we had walked in on. I was quiet relieved to realise this. But we were disappointed to miss the walk to the river.

When we got to the end of the track we decided to head down the road instead heading up the laneway towards the top of town. We turned a corner and opposite the end of the road could be seen the playing fields of Shalford Park which is situated along the river. I started to get excited.. it was beginning to seem that we had walked the pilgrims way somehow after all.

Just before we crossed the road into Shalford Park we noticed the road we had just walked down was aptly named…. Pilgrims way.

We had planned to complete this section of pilgrims way and take mum up to the ruins of St Catherine’s on the other side of the river but we felt we were running out of time and not as fit as we thought we were. We left that for the next morning.

The River Wey

We wandered along the river and back into town. We watched a canal boat going through the lock. Something CL and I had never stopped to watch even though the system is located in town and near one of our favourite pubs.

We then headed back up to CL’s place via one of my fav walks in town, through the narrow passageway up onto the cobbled road of Quarry St and past St Mary’s and onto the High St.

St Mary’s is the oldest church in town. People have worshipped there for over 1000 years. Something I find hard to comprehend. There is a story told that the wall had to be moved a meter as Queen Victoria couldn’t fit her carriage down Quarry St. But I haven’t seen this confirmed anywhere.