Berkeley: A Bit of a Bitter Pill

Having dropped Son the Elder off in Berkeley at six in the morning for some extra work, and with three hours to spare before I had to take my father to an appointment back in Bristol, I decided to go for a walk along Berkeley Pill from the village to the River Severn and back - an excursion of around three and a half miles. 

It was just over five years since Ted, my dog, and I had last walked this route, as part of a longer walk. It was good seeing familiar landmarks again, like the old mill on the opposite bank of the pill ... 

... and the massive cattle, this time the other side of a fence. Phew. 

They reminded me of a ditty I wrote about Ted that day, while I was walking along. It's at the end of this post. 

Two months later in the season and instead of cattle and mud, there was an excess of vegetation to contend with. It didn't look like anyone had maintained the footpath at all - if, indeed, there was a footpath in there somewhere. 

In no time, Ted and I were soaked. But being intrepid jaunters, we weren't about to abandon a walk on account of dew - oh no. 

Here's something you don't see very often - a wooden squeeze-belly. 

There were plenty of birds about - I saw a family of goldfinches taking off from a thorn tree, a skylark on a post, and a heron in flight, all trailing legs and looking just like that lanky nine year old girl at primary school who not only won every running race going but also turned out to be effortlessly good at high jump the very first time we were made to try it.  

The sheep weren't that impressed by Ted.

In fact, this one only bothered to wake up when we were almost on top of it. It did have the good grace to move off, looking a little ... sheepish.

Meanwhile, Ted and I were encountering padlocked gates ...

... and nettle-infested stiles - which I managed to negotiate on both legs of the walk without getting stung, while Ted, who doesn't know he can jump, was reduced to crawling on his belly under the gates. 

This gate leading to Berkeley Nuclear Power Station wasn't very welcoming either but we didn't care to go there. 

The tide was in at the estuary, but it had taken me twice as long to get there as I'd envisaged, on account of having to wade through long grass, so there was no time to hang about. 

On the return leg, as the narrow path wound along the very edge of the pill, I mistook the grass, brambles and stingers to one side for solid ground and found myself falling into a hole that must have been almost four feet deep. It took me two attempts to climb back out, clinging onto handfuls of tussocks, while Ted grunted at me in consternation. 

Nothing broken, thankfully, but I was badly stung by nettles, covered in scratches, and my big toe, already plagued with arthritis, was quite badly strained. All smugness gone, I limped and squelched back to the car while Ted slid me withering collie glances.  





   

A Jaunt to Sharpness and bark-bark-Berkeley

Ach du lieber Gott, I am way behind with my bloggerei about my jaunterei.  Must rectifei.

It’s almost three weeks since I asked Ted where he wanted to go for our first proper walk of 2011.  He said ‘Sharpness and bark-bark-Berkeley’, so that’s where we went.  It suited me, anyhow – an easy, six-mile stroll on the Severn flood plain to test my ribs and hip and find out how they were mending. 

Having passed the museum to Edward Jenner, local pioneer of the smallpox vaccine, our first stop was Berkeley’s Church of St Mary the Virgin, which has a very odd-looking exterior as its tower is situated the opposite side of the churchyard from the rest of the building, this having been done for strategic reasons, apparently. 

I am a bit of a late convert when it comes to Berkeley Castle, having spent a good 40 years assiduously avoiding the place, after visiting at an impressionable age and being terrified by stories of a jester falling from the balcony to his death and the gruesome fate of people imprisoned in the dungeon at the bottom of a 36-foot deep shaft in the incongruously well-appointed King’s Gallery.  (I’m relieved that no one took it upon themselves to reveal to my five-year-old self how the hapless Edward II allegedly met his end.) I love it now, although in mid-March it was still closed for winter and Ted and I only saw it from adjacent fields. 

The church itself is exceptional, its most striking feature being the survival of such a lot of its mediaeval paintwork. 

I especially liked this corbel of two female heads surmounted by a toad, a sermon in stone to reinforce the message that gossip is poisonous …  

  

… and this Tudor rose, believed to relate to Edward VI. 

Here, the intricately carved tomb of Thomas Berkeley, the 5th Baron, and his wife Katherine.

After leaving the church, we wandered along Berkeley Pill towards the estuary.  It was a bright day and the sun had real warmth in it, so after we had negotiated a field of cows the size of caravans, I sat down in a patch of teasels and composed an ode to my faithful and fearless(!) canine companion. 

There was loads of mistletoe in the trees.  Why do we only put it up at Christmas?  The world would be a better place with more snogging.

Eventually we reached the Severn, with sunny views up to the dock at Sharpness, and a gloomier vista downstream towards Berkeley nuclear power station, with Oldbury in the distance.  The post-earthquake problems at Fukushima might be half a world away, but there was a catastrophic tsunami in this estuary in 1607.  The next one promises to be far worse, thanks to our idiocy.

   

The return leg of our walk took us inland from Sharpness to Berkeley.  As is so often the case, the very last section, just prior to getting back to the car, involved negotiating the muddiest lane of the day.  I was rather more careful, and thus considerably less besmirched, than Ted, who needed a stern rubbing down with the old towel I keep in the boot for just such eventualities. 

All in all, though, my ribs and hips held up pretty well and it was a good opening to our jaunting season.  Looking forward to many more forays over the year.