Seven Polys plus leaders Sandra and myself  met at Hampton Court station. A surprising number of people got off the train, this due to a bank holiday fair in the palace grounds. We hadn’t seen each other in person for 6 months and comparing notes, we all seemed to be in the cautious category regarding the Virus.
It was a touch autumnal and crossing the Thames bridge towards the palace, some of us already wished we had brought our gloves. Turning down the towpath towards Kingston, we were amazed to see 3 women swimming in the river. They were towing orange markers, but seemed to wearing ordinary cozzies rather than wet suits. All power to them. A brief internet search suggests that this is the second best wild swim site in London (after Hampstead ponds obs) partly because of the easy sloping bank access on the Surrey side.
We were not alone in walking the riverside path but there was plenty of space and everyone was observing social distancing.
We turned into Home Park, the large space to the east of Hampton Court Palace. We walked along the Long Pond, with its lovely view of the Palace in the distance. Walkers were far outnumbered by Canada geese. Continue reading Hampton Court to Fullwell →

Five Polyramblers met at West Drayton Station with our organiser Val who lead the way down Drayton High street to Trout Lane and onto the canal. I was saddened to see the significant amount of rubbish in this area, however this did not detract from the interest of the canal. There were large numbers of narrow boats, and lots of coots and swans with their youngsters. We walked along to the Packet Boat bridge to detour onto the Little Britain lake. We wandered around the lake where there were a number of people fishing and it was lovely to watch the adolescent swans and other wildlife. We returned onto the canal towpath passing a working boatyard before reaching our lunch stop at the General Elliot pub. Continue reading Circular Canal walk from West Drayton via Little Britain Lake and Uxbridge →

Twelve ramblers met at Little Chalfont and Latimer station to begin our walk. It had rained the night before so unusually there was some mud underfoot.We walked through some woods and then followed the waymarked path over fields until we reached the river Chess. We admired a view of the tall gables of  Latimer House on route. We followed the Chess path stopping to admire a cormorant before stopping for some elevenses at Latimer village Green. Carol had thoughtfully made some ginger flapjacks for us. We continued to the Water Cress farm and climbed the one moderately steep hill of the day before reaching our lunch time picnic destination of Holy Cross church built of flint in the 12^th century. The church has a number of lepers buried there. I over heard a small child taking about Leopards leaping about the graves, a slight misunderstanding!A few of us had lunch at the Cock Inn near to the church whilst the rest of us joined them for a very pleasant drink following completion of our picnic. We were lucky as the rain at this point had stopped. Continue reading Saturday 15th August Little Chalfont to Latimer 9 miles circular walk →

On a rather muggy, grey day 12 Polys set off from Barnes Bridge station in two groups of six. The south Thames path was unusually quiet and there weren’t too many cyclists and joggers for once. The second group with Susan caught up with the first group lead by Danny at Hammersmith Bridge ( we later learnt that they had detoured to the Leg of Mutton reservoir). We passed  the Harrods Furniture Depository, now a residential complex, before reaching the boathouses at Putney. There was some discussion between a few of us as to which geese we were observing, Canada, Egyptian? The two groups caught up again and we stopped a moment opposite St. Mary’s Church where the Putney Debates on the English constitution were held in 1647, presided over by Oliver Cromwell. A few participants resisted the temptation of lunch at Wetherspoon’s and we all crossed the bridge and made our way, rigorously social distancing, through Bishop’s Park to Fulham Palace Gardens. There we were joined by another member who lives locally and was passing by. Oh dear! Now we were 6+6+1!  Continue reading BARNES BRIDGE CIRCULAR SATURDAY 15 AUGUST →