pumpkinstrokemarrow

Breakfasted off Irish farls from the baker at Cheam. Who had gone to the bother of printing use by dated labels for the little bags he sold them in. Plus an ingredients list - which included vegetable butter (presumably a polite term for margarine) and yogurt. These DIY labels must have accounted for a few pence of the 92p selling price. Farls not bad at all. A sort of fattish griddle cake, sold in quarters. According to OED, something which used to be baked in most of the remoter and poorer parts of the country, not just Ireland. Rather in the way that haggis did not used to be restricted to Scotland.

Then off for the second blackberry picking of the season and we now have nearly four pounds of the things, bagged up small in the freezer. Most of them will be used to gee up cooking apples over the coming winter. Both lots came from around Horton Lane but I do not suppose there will be that many more. The berries looked as if they had peaked early in the month and had been rather spoilt by the recent heavy rain. Didn't see anyone else at it, although we caught a French lady last year and a foreign language student earlier this year. It looks as if foreigns are more in touch with their berries than we are.

Next stop was a foot bath, the ford in Shere being the best place around here. Stopped off on the way at 'The Sheepleas', a pleasant but mainly young wood. Which included an unusual avenue of tall yews, presumably the relic of someone's drive. Also some quite big yews - one forgets that they can grow to quite a size - these ones maybe half the dimensions of a mature sycamore. Also lots of beeches, some quite big, some of rather fantastic shape. Pleased that there was no recent chain saw action, with all the deaths on view being of natural causes. On our next visit we must try the adjacent 'Effingham Forest'.

Onto Shere where we took a look at the church. Norman base but much restored by the Victorians. Runs to a brass on the chancel floor of a knight in armour on which I could not decipher any date. Important enough that we were asked not to walk on it. Fair amount of old stonework. The front door rates a mention in Parker and the church as a whole a page in Pevsner, who is a bit sniffy, as is his wont, about the village as a whole. Which had rather a messy layout and a lot of very old cottages as well as more recent stuff. Well worth a chocolate box or jigsaw. We settled for a cream tea which was not at all bad. Tea good, cream fresh and jam adequate. Scones large, warm and fresh. Not quite right although they tasted well enough. BH thought that maybe they had put a bit too much water in the mix; in any event the finish was not quite right with a bit too much brown crust. By way of compensation they could manage something both decent and gluten free for FIL.

Closed the visit with the visit to the ford for feet bathing. Passers by clearly did not understand the therapeutic value of chalk stream water and looked rather puzzled. It was quite cold.