It didn’t look promising early on Sunday morning with rain tapping impatiently on my window pane and a weather warning glowering at me from the safety of my ipad.   But it turned out to be a fine breezy autumnal day in the end with plenty of sunshine and no rain.   Four of us met at Walthamstow and waited and waited for a rail replacement bus to Chingford which grudgingly appeared and then as if to make up for the delay whisked us off to Chingford fairly rapidly.   We started on our walk though Epping Forest around 11am,  picking our way between some pretty large puddles and being met by riders out on their horses enjoying the fresh air.   We stopped to enjoy the views at Connaught Water

and then made our way along High Beach to the King’s Oak Public House were we had lunch Al fresco.   There weren’t many other diners around unlike two weeks ago apparently when the club last visited here and it was still summer time.   We had an enjoyable walk back through the woods and past the lakes avoiding more large puddles.  We saw a herd of longhorn cattle grazing contentedly and then thought we would have some refreshments at Butler’s retreat.   From there it wasn’t that far back to Chingford which we reached by 3pm.    I forgot to ask my fellow ramblers whether there actually had been a battle in Epping Forest between two rival clans of gangsters in the 1970s as the ballad by the prog-rock group Genesis made out.  Oh well, maybe I will remember to ask next time…

Chris Maslen

Many thanks to Jackie for organising the walk