Walk 19/2008 – Look over Lilley.

Sunday 24th August 2008

Today’s walk was in the vicinity of the delightful village of Lilley, Bedfordshire. We parked the cars near to the pretty church, and on arrival were able to immediately spot the village’s attraction with its red brick and stone cottages with thatched and pan tile roofs.

The landscape in this area is of rolling chalk scrub and flatland fields, fringed by old beech trees. We passed through some very picturesque nature scenes to include several wooded glades and avenues of trees. The sunlight luminated the trees delicate light green leaves and reflected the silver grey from the trunks of the beautiful beech trees. We sat in an example of one of these wooded glades at the top of Telegraph hill for coffee, and sheltered from some rainfall whilst enjoying our snacks and the most peaceful environment.

Other scenic delights of this walk included fine views from the top of Galley Hill over Luton town and Warden Hill Trig point where we could have 360 degrees views over typically English landscape of the grassland hills and flatland fields.

Simon attempted to give us a sermon from the Trig (a triangulation) point, but as often is the case on these walks there was too much female gassing for him to be heard! One of the topics of conversation shared today was how Chris again had to let her Snails out before she could leave for the walk – Which type of visitor do you prefer Chris – Maurice, The Frog or The Snails?

Other views today were those of undulating crop fields. Beautiful golden wheat fields, and the mysterious black cattle beans, both ready for harvest. The beans resembled a charred/burnt field but our farming lesson from Nigel explained that it is there natural appearance. Another plant spotted in these fields were the clumps of Borrage. It attracted the attention of walkers as they puzzled with its identity for some time before concluding it to be the herb.

Crossing over the crop fields provided us with thick mud layers to our boots, with an extra workout of weights to our thigh and calf muscles, and an end result of “Wurzel Gummidge” look a likes – straw on the boots but thankfully not between our teeth.

A leisurely lunch was enjoyed by all under a large tree overlooking a wheat field but again the peace was abruptly ended by a visitation from spiders. This seems to becoming a regular occurrence over our lunch stops, but this time with an added striptease from Chris as she checked that Sammy Spider had departed!

This area of chalk allegedly attracts a selection of butterflies, but unfortunately we were not so lucky today and only observed the beautiful Yellow Brimstone and the Common Blue. Other aspects of nature enjoyed today included a hedgerow of very plump and shiny red and black berries, picturesque but unidentified; a little vole / field mouse/ shrew, again not universally agreed on identification amongst the group. Bird life was more easily identified as a beautiful blue budgerigar perched himself in the bushes! Unfortunately escaped from domestic captivity – we hope he found his home again.

The final laps of our walk bought further interests, but more of city life than the tranquil delights of the hedgerows and English countryside. We spotted a gate sign warning potential drug dealers of CCTV, clearly an activity in the lane but we also then passed a car where Sunday afternoon activities were colourful! As 8 walkers descended on the occupants of the car, perhaps it was not the quiet lane that they had been hoping for, for their smooching! [Ed – is a “smooch” a name for a type of dog, then?]

We concluded our full day at the Lilley Arms where a most hospitable landlord served our selection of beverages (bitter shandy, ginger beer and some lagers) we supped our welcome drinks over tales of a most enjoyable day.

Report – Cathy

Pictures – Alan

Walk rating – Very good

Our coffee stop in a woody glade.

The view back as we walk up Galley Hill.

Thistles on Galley Hill.

A view towards Luton.

View over the golf course.

More views over Luton.

At the top of Warden Hill.

Our lunch stop where panic erupted after Carol spotted a spider on Chris’s top. The spider disappeared amongst the commotion and a search of Chris’s top was required. Alan offered to help with this but Chris decided she wasn’t that scared of spiders!

Some berries that we could not name.

An interesting sign outside this waterworks gate.