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Beating The Bounds

Blasdale Home Posted on by

16th May 2023

Beating the Bounds is a tradition where members of a parish walk around their parish boundary. In the case of Grendon Underwood this is around 15 miles. The walk is performed once every 7 years, and has a number of strange customs. Crosses are chopped into the bark of prominent trees on the boundary, failing a tree, a cross is cut into the soil.. Children are supposed to have their bottoms smacked with a spade at these locations. This is to remind them of where the boundaries are. In our woke society this becomes men and women having their turns at being beaten. Thankfully the police were not around, with their new arrest powers what would they have made of us, carrying spades ands axes along and across the HS2 line.

I have done the walk once before, twenty one years ago, in 2002., Yes I have pictures and a write up on this blog, Beating the Grendon Underwood Bounds 2002.

As you can see there were a couple of detours which added to the distance. Nesting birds neccesitated us to walk around the perimeter of the BBOWT nature reserve and not along the Tetchwick Brook. Because of newly laid concrete by HS2 we had to take a detour around the incinerator to cross HS2.

The day was an ideal walking day. No rain, a breeze and not too hot. The ground was wet underfoot, the recent sunny weather had not yet dried the land out,

We started the walk at Gallow’s Bridge, walking around the perimeter of the reserve, being led by the BBOWT warden, Ilona. (As I said, the walk along the bounday of Tetchwick Brook not being allowed because of nesting birds.)

There were a further couple of short detours from the route before we reached Edgcott, these because of unsympathetic landowners.

We stopped at Prune Farm for tea and cakes and then headed onwards to the Energy from Waste incinerator and HS2. A large detour around the incinerator, because of newly laid concrete, back on track we headed to Finemere Hill House for our packed lunches. Lovely views, but spolit by the Incinerator and the workings of HS2.

After lunch we headed on down the hill and across HS2, almost on the correct path. In all these crossinsg we were helped by four HS2 employees to ensure we didn’t tie ourselves to the trees. After that, we were back in wild Buckinghamshire walking through Grendon and Doddershall woods, stopping to view the King Tree. We met up with the Waddesddon boundary walkers at Ham Home Wood. Another welcome stop was in store for us, beer and sandwiches at Canaletto. The sandwiches kept on coming!

Now the final couple of miles and we were back at Gallow’s Bridge. in all we walked 25.4km, taking 9 hours and 20 minutes. We started at around 51 meters, and rose to a maximum altitude of 135 meters.

Google Map of the Walk

Beeating the Bounds Route on Google Maps

Link to the Google Map.

OS Map of the Walk

This is useful view, you can see where we strayed from the parish boundary. There is one tracking error in the route. I some how turned off the tracker as we exited Doddershall woods, and failed to reenable it untilwe had walked a 100 meters along the road. The Google maps track is correct.

Beating the Bounds Gallery

Fox, Badger, Muntjac, Magpie and Rabbits living in harmony

Blasdale Home Posted on by

A couple of videos of our foxes from Christmas until April. We believe these are the same two foxes starring throughout both videos. The Fox with the bushy tail is a dog fox, while the fox with the skinny tail is the vixen.

Hopefully the next video will be some fox cubs. Now the sun is out, I am assuming they will be venturing out from their den.

Foxes at Christmas
Foxes from January to April

Cambridge Folk Festival the Sunday

Blasdale Home Posted on by

31st July 2022

The tolilets and showers were holding up at the campsite. The new generator, and waste water pumps were working well. Today we headed in early because R wanted to do a craft course and weave some willow into a shape. When she arrived she was disappointed in that most of the work had been done already. There did not seem to be much opportunity to tailor the course to your own needs. We moved on to the arena, stopping by the wild flower gardens.

Sunday Performances

We sat again in a similar place to before, but a little further back. There appeared to be rules depending on where you were located. In the tent/marquee area you could only stand or sit on the ground. Outside the tent you could or were expected to sit on chairs. These had be aligned in rows. If you created a round circle group, you were reprimanded and had to align your chairs in a row. Further back, behind a line, you could group your chairs in circles. There was one such group near us. We heard about the rules only when this group was told to line up their chairs. They refused and reminded the usher that they were behind said line at which she apologised and moved on.

I am not sure if this group actually saw or heard music, they spent their time chatting and drinking.

Programme

We watched and listened to all the bands on this stage. Enjoyed listening to Billy Bragg and N’famady Kouyaté. The Gypsy Kings were definitely very popular. I did not make any attempt to get near the front. They performed a good rendition of the Leaonard Cohen classic of Hallelujah. After they left, the crowds significantly thinned for the finale of St. Paul and the Broken Bones. I managed to get to front of the stage to watch them.

Main Stage 1

St. Paul and the Broken Bones – Gipsy Kings featuring Nicolas Reyes – Billy Bragg – Legend Slot: Clannad – N’famady Kouyaté – The Spooky Men’s Chorale – Billie Marten Katherine Priddy

Main Stage 2

Orchestra Baobab – Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram – Sam Lee – O’Hooley And Tidow -Lilith Ai – The Mary Wallopers – The Honest Poet – Mishra – Kids Show: Jason Maverick

The Club Tent

The Mary Wallopers – Trials Of Cato – Nick Hart – Flo Perlin

The Den

Fuzzy Lights – The Drystones – The Ocelots – Siv Jakobsen – Angeline Morrison – Judy Blank – Tape Runs Out – Daisy Chute – June Road

N’famady Kouyaté

St. Paul and the Broken Bones

Gallery

Kilimanjaro Trek – Day 12

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Today I was flying home. My two travel companions left at 4.00am for their flights. They were flying by Kenyan Airways, flying to Nairobi and then on to the Heathrow and would be home today. I had a 6pm flight with Ethiopean Airways to Addis with a 7 hour stop over before continuing to Heathrow, arriving on the morning of the next day.

A lazy day, a limited number of beers, reading a book, taking photographs of the weaver birds and ear wigging on the next group of Kilimanjaro trekkers who had arrived yesterday. Jimmy appeared and told me that I mustn’t leave it long before I attempt the climb again. Not sure if he meant that I mustn’t wait years, or months. If I did attempt again, I must do some strenuous practice trekking in the French and UK hills.

Elvis appeared at 2pm to take me to the airport. At the airport, I had some lunch and then boarded the flight. Addis was a pain, 7 hours waiting, and the flight was a little delayed. The duty-free shops did not sell the alcohol I wanted, so I was unable to take advantage of Boris Johnsons, ‘most generous duty-free allowances in the world’ of four litres of spirits. There was also only one terribly busy food outlet, so I was bored, bored and more bored.

Airline meals were fine, along with their wine. Arrived in Heathrow, not enough of those passport scanning machines, so long queue in the immigration hall. At least the luggage was waiting for me. The Piccadilly Line was good, so much cheaper than the rip off Heathrow Express, and gets you where you want to go. I was wondering if the Heathrow Express will disappear. The Elizabeth Line will get you into London as fast as the Heathrow Express. Will there be a premium on the Elizabeth Line? Heathrow passengers will pay a premium, but those Heathrow passengers who continue to use the tube on the same day will not pay more than the daily Zone 1-6 cap.

Arrived at Bicester village where I was met by Rosemary.

Kilimanjaro Trek – Day 8

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Millennium Camp (3790M) – Mweka Gate (1653M)

Today we had a five-hour walk (12km) walk down to Mweka Gate. We split into two groups, the fast group (mine) making it down 20 minutes before the rest. We sat around with some Internet and a drink. Pictures at the bottom. When the group was together, we visited a restaurant / tourist shop for lunch. The lunch was cooked by our chef. There was also singing (loudly this time).

After lunch, there was a drive back to Weru Weru River Lodge. On route we stopped at the bank for Jimmy to change the tip dollars into shillings. Finally arrived at the hotel for showers and supper. Before I could shower, arrangements were made with the Safari driver who was taking three of us on for a mini safari to see the Big Five.

Tonight, we sat and drank Kilimanjaro beer and ate a hot buffet supper in the bar.

Certificates were handed out to those who had completed the climb of Kilimanjaro. (I actually got one, but it wasn’t as ornate nor in colour as were those of the others.)