Day 18 of the #GrandWalkOut started at Tring Station, a short walk from bridge 135. As we set off a group practicing for their DofE were assembling in the car park.
The walk was well stewarded by herons. We saw several including a boat called Heron. We met someone looking for kingfishers but we didn’t see any of those. We did see a pair of grey wagtails. All were enjoying the air.
We also met someone on a mobility scooter who was reminiscing about the old tramway to the gas works at Berkhamsted that he’d seen as a boy. Bob found some photos of it on his phone and we shared those with him before finding an information sign a little further on. The gas plant made gas by extracting it from coal, making coke, the whole cycle being just one contributor to climate change. It ceased at this plant in the 1960s when most of the UK converted to natural gas. But these are just some of the ways in which we are still heating up the climate.
At Berkhamsted there were some excellent fish and chips at the station and the news we were only 33 miles from London. Whilst I visited the castle and the shops, Bob walked onto Bridge 149 at Hemel Hempstead. We both caught the same train back to Tring.
We took a short detour to Aston Hill on the way back. Just one of the places near Tring that Bob enjoyed visiting in the Chilterns. A trig point in a field had us as high as Mouselow Castle in Glossop. So much for hills.
From my remembered bible : I look up at the hills from where I get help. God aids me day and night, never sleeping.
I breathe in, I breathe out.
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
Janet Lees, Aston Hill, 12.05.2022.