Showing posts with label UK-England Walking-Cannock Chase. Show all posts

Monday 19 December 2016

Cannock Chase Mild and Dry - So Much Better: The (N + 6)th Annual Fish and Chip Walk

From The Cutting to Stile Cop, then from Seven Springs back to The Cutting

The Briefest of Introduction

Staffordshire

I wonder how many annual Chip Walks I have been on? It may be as many as twenty - Francis and I have the honour (?!) of having walked every one of them - but this is definitely the seventh on this blog. Brian, an ever-present until 2011 but now removed to Torquay, kindly commented on last year’s post that I was still finding new things to say. Well that was last year, this year I am struggling...

Cannock Chase is the perfect place for a winter walk; a pile of pebbles a hundred metres high is always going to drain better than the surrounding Staffordshire clay. Unfortunately the Chase is not very big, at 68km² it is England's smallest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and as we all live west of the Chase and the lunchtime stop is fixed at Longdon (or the Chetwynd Arms, Brocton, when the Swan with Two Necks was closed) available routes are not numerous. [Update 2023: Another Chetwynd Arms, this time in Upper Longdon, and The Horns at Slitting Mill have since been added to the lunching list. We have not visited the Swan with Two Necks since this walk.]

From The Cutting to Coppice Hill

We met at the Cutting Car Park at Milford on the Chase’s western edge, just like last year only this time it was not raining. Six participants is a healthy turn out and it was good to see Alison C and Sue who had been unavailable last year. Anne who has been with us the last two years was unfortunately unavailable and Torquay-based Brian, must be regarded as a permanent absentee from this, though not other walks.

Sue, Mike, Alison, Francis and Lee
Cutting Car Park, Milford

As usual we walked towards the Cutting itself (I wrote about it in ((N + 3) Jan 2014) and, again as usual chose the path along the top, avoiding the muddy bottom.

Choosing the path along the top rather than the one with a soggy bottom

I rarely look into the Cutting, but I did this year and was surprised by its depth.

Looking down from the top of the Cutting, Cannock Chase

At the end we passed Mere Pits and, again as usual, walked along the lip of the Sherbrook Valley to the largely empty Coppice Hill car park. [Update 2023: In 2016, when I was young, I hardly noticed that it is a long, steady climb from Mere Pits to Coppice Hill. In recent years to appears to have become steeper.] A small diversion took us to the bird feeding station. In last year's rain there had been many birds, but my attempts at photographing them were as dismal as the weather. This year there were fewer, but I got a reasonable shot of a great tit.

Great Tit, Coppice Hill feeding station, Cannock Chase

Into and Out of the Sherbrook Valley and up to Rifle Range Corner

As on all these walks we eventually turned down into the valley and equally inevitably crossed the brook. There is not much of it this far up and some of us eschewed the stepping stones and strode through the inch deep water.

Down into the Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase

From here we turned onto Pepper Slade. 'We don't often come up here,' Francis remarked. Had a cheery Black Country musician appeared among the pepper vines and yelled 'It's Christmas' it really would have been different, but this is the Chase, where most paths look like every other path - and that includes Pepper Slade. I don't want to sound grumpy - it was great to be out in the fresh air on a mild, dry December day - but I am just struggling for something new to say, and I discussed the local use of 'slade' back in 2011.

Pepper Slade, no Noddy, no spice

Near the top was a plantation of ‘Christmas trees’, though they were obviously not, as they were still there in late December - and a bit spindly too.

Not really Christmas trees, Pepper Slade

Progressing to Rifle Range Corner (though the WW1 rifle range has long gone) we paused while some thought was given to the route, not that there was much choice.

That's clearly not Santa getting advice from a couple of dodgy looking elves
Rifle Range Corner, Cannock Chase

Rifle Range Corner to Fairoak Pools and Coffee Break

We followed the minor road (Penkridge Bank) for a couple of hundred metres before turning right down towards Fairoak Lodge. Well off the road and deep in the woods is a clearing with a few houses. We had intended turning left down to Fairoak Pools but missed the path, arriving in the yard of the last house just as the owner came out. 'I think Santa's lost his way, ' he said cheerily, which was odd as though Lee and Alison were impersonating elves Santa himself was not actually with us this year. He directed us back up the path where we found a small track descending in the right direction. Sue set off down it.

Sue heads off down the narrow track

There was no sign and it was so small I wondered if we were on a deer trail, but it soon widened and we quickly reached the path past the pools.

The path widens as it heads down to the Fairoak Pools, Cannock Chase

Our coffee stop was at the same seat as last year. Although the continuous drizzle was mercifully absent this time everybody except Alison decided the bench was too wet to sit on.

Coffee break by one of the Fairoak Pools

Last year the water fowl had been pleased to see us. This year they ignored us - perhaps they remembered that we had not fed them. We fed ourselves though, Mike generously sharing a tray of mini mince-pies.

One of the Fairoak Pools, Cannock Chase

Fairoak Pools to Stile Cop

Refreshed, we continued along the bed of the River Budleighensis (see last year's report) past the two Fairoak pools and then turned right between the Stony Brook pools to cross the brook on the day’s second set of stepping stones.

Across the stepping stones between the Stony Brook Pools, Cannock Chase

After following the path to the minor road, we walked under the railway bridge to the Hednesford Road, crossed it and started the long drag up Miflins Valley. Every time we come here I describe it as a 'long drag'; it is a steadily rising path which seems to return little for the effort made. I am also irritated by my inability to discover the origin of the unusual name. The only notable Miflin I can find was Thomas Miflin, Governor of Pennsylvania in the 1790s, but his family came from Wiltshire.

The long drag up Miflins Valley, Cannock Chase

Despite my dislike of Miflins Valley, I must admit it has some fine beech trees. I photographed one last year and some different ones this year.

Beech trees in Miflins Valley, Cannock Chase

The path eventually runs into the continuation of Marquis Drive. It is difficult to believe that on such a well-worn track we could make the second navigational error of the day, but we did. The Chase is not an easy place to navigate; the rights of way shown boldly on the map are sometimes barely visible on the ground and the often substantial forestry tracks are faint on the map. We headed too far south and reached the wrong side of Wandon caravan park. I have never been to Wandon before but now know it is not worth the detour. The result was a slightly longer than expected walk along the minor road to the Stile Cop car park from where Lee drove us to Longdon and the Swan with Two Necks.

Arriving at the Stile Cop car park

Lunch at the Swan with Two Necks

The object of the walk is fish and chips. They tried to palm us off with their 'Festive menu' but we stood firm. 'We only have five small fish and chips,' the six of us were told. Sue, who in 2011 disgraced herself by eating chicken and pasta on a chip walk (‘I don’t like the greasy batter’) looked smug but redeemed herself anyway by ordering scampi and chips which has been deemed acceptable since at least 2014. Then Alison was informed that, despite earlier suggestions, none of the five remaining fish were gluten free. She had gammon steak, but under the circumstances escapes censure.

Lee, Sue and Francis get stuck into their fish (or scampi) 'n' chips
Swan with Two Necks, Longdon

The fish was described as ‘small’ which clearly involved some use of the word previously unknown to me; I was well stuffed and failed to finish.

Stuffed, Swan with Two Necks, Upper Longdon

There was no question about whether there would be an afternoon walk - unlike last year when the atrocious weather was a terminal discouragement - but as lunch arrived just before two it was three o'clock before Lee had driven us through Rugeley and past the now redundant power station to the Seven Springs car park. My map does not mark any springs in the vicinity, let alone seven.

From Seven Springs back to The Cutting

With sunset at 3.55 it was never going to be a long afternoon, but we left the ‘springs’ at a smart pace through an area of silver birches.

Through silver birches from Seven Springs, Cannock Chase

From here there is hardly any descent into the Sherbrook Valley and we crossed the stream on the third set of stepping stones for the day, but the first called The Stepping Stones.

Crossing the Sherbrook at the Stepping Stones, Cannock Chase

A very gentle climb up the other side brought us back to the Cutting car park just as the sun was setting. And so ended a very pleasant day’s walk.

And back towards the Cutting

Despite my misgivings I did find something to say - over a thousand words of something - though little of it was new (and the stuff about Thomas Miflin was deeply irrelevant!). I'll try again next year.

The Annual Fish and Chip Walks

The Nth: Cannock Chase in Snow and Ice (Dec 2010)
The (N + 1)th: Cannock Chase a Little Warmer (Dec 2011)
The (N + 2)th: Cannock Chase in Torrential Rain (Dec 2012)
The (N + 3)th: Cannock Chase in Winter Sunshine (Jan 2014)
The (N + 4)th: Cannock Chase Through Fresh Eyes (Dec 2014)
The (N + 5)th: Cannock Case, Dismal, Dismal, Dismal (Dec 2015)
The (N + 6)th: Cannock Chase Mild and Dry - So Much Better (Dec 2016)
The (N + 7)th: Cannock Chase, Venturing Further East (Jan 2018)
The (N + 8)th: Cannock Chase, Wind and Rain (Dec 2018)
The (N + 9)th: Cannock Chase, Freda's Grave at Last (Dec 2019)
The (N + 10)th: Cannock Chase in the Time of Covid (Dec 2020)
The (N + 11)th: Cannock Chase, Tussocks(Dec 2021)
Dec 2020 - no walk
The (N + 12)th: Cannock Chase, Shifting Tectonic Plates (Dec 2023)

Saturday 12 December 2015

Cannock Chase, Dismal, Dismal, Dismal: The (N + 5)th Annual Fish and Chip Walk

A Walk Truncated by Appalling Weather

Gathering at the Cutting from All Four Corners of the Earth

Staffordshire

The Chip Walk has been an institution since I don't know when. I first blogged it in year N, and this is now (N + 5) so I am running out of things to say. The participants and the route vary a little from year to year, but not much, while the lunch varies not at all (there is a clue in the title). The saving grace from the blogging point of view, the one uncontrolled variable, is the weather. This year's can be summed up in three words 'dismal', ‘dismal’ and ‘dismal’.

Anne, back from a lengthy trip to the USA, was again a very welcome guest and she drove me – just back from Thailand - through the drizzle to Haughton to pick up Mike, just returned from a nine week sojourn in Australia. Alison T questioned her husband's sanity and then she questioned mine. She was forthright and, as it turned out, entirely correct, it was a lunatic idea.

At the Cutting car park on the western edge of Cannock Chase we met Francis, just about to set off on a four week excursion to Australia and Lee, who is so young he still works for a living so hasn't been anywhere much since the summer. Brian was missing this year - he was in Hong Kong – but has re-located to Torquay anyway.

Anne, Lee, Francis, Mike
Ready to set off in the drizzle, Cutting Car Park, Cannock Chase

The Cutting to (Almost) the Glacial Boulder

It was drizzling when we arrived, the mist hung in the air and snagged on the trees forming larger droplets to splash down necks. We set off along the cutting, choosing to walk along the top to avoid the mud.

The 2012 Chip Walk, (N + 2)th, is subtitled, 'in torrential rain'. In fact the rain, which had been torrential for the previous ten days, eased off during the walk. This year the preceding week had been mild, as Staffordshire December's go, and largely dry - we avoided the deluge that drowned half of Cumbria.

Reaching the top of the Cutting we could see Brocton lurking below us in the mist. For the last three years the Chip Walk has centred on Brocton’s Chetwynd Arms. The food has been fine, the service efficient and the prices good but its location limited the scope of our wanderings. This year we were heading for the walk’s original focus, the reopened and revived Swan with Two Necks at Longdon.

Brocton down in the mist to our right

Leaving Brocton behind, we passed a bird feeding centre. Blue tits, coal tits, great tits, blackbirds, dunnocks and several species I have forgotten were busily helping themselves. The old tree stump was festooned with birds most of the time, but my photo only catches a bedraggled pair of tits (make your own jokes) and a blackbird - it was that sort of day.

Bird feeding station, Cannock Chase

We emerged onto the western edge of the Sherbrook Valley. A wooden sign pointed towards Freda's grave, but we ignored it. Freda, a Dalmatian, was the mascot of the New Zealand regiment stationed on Cannock Chase in the First World War. She died in 1918 and was buried here, while her collar and lead are on display in a museum in New Zealand. As we were not prepared to walk 50m to see her grave, there is little chance of any of us flying 18,000km to see her lead. Sorry, Freda. [Update 2019: We did visit Freda's Grave, eventually.]

Looking over the Sherbrook Valley

Progressing along the valley’s edge we passed, though again did not see, the glacial boulder. I include a photo from March 2006; perversely the boulder seems to have aged not at all, which cannot be said of the rest of us. The web sites of the Chase Chamber of Commerce and Walking Britain both quote the phrase ‘originating from Scotland it was placed here in the 1950s’ which could be read as suggesting it was brought on the back of a lorry some sixty years ago. Geograph confirm what I always thought (and I think the others mean); the boulder was carried here in a glacier – probably from the Dumfries area - during the last ice age. The largest of several erratic boulders on the Chase, it was placed on its plinth in the 1950s, though the concrete base dates from the First World War.

The Glacial Boulder, March 2006 on the Staffordshire Way walk
Geography teacher Francis appears to be delivering a lecture, Mike is not listening and Alison C (absent from today's drenching) might be enthralled - or not - there is no way to know.

From the Glacial Boulder to the Fairoak Pools

Further along we made a left turn and descended into the valley, though this far up it is only a fold in the land.

Descending into the Sherbrook Valley

Slogging up the other side through the unending drizzle Francis remarked that the weather was not that bad, it was at least mild and there was no wind. On cue we emerged into an exposed area where a cool breeze was made doubly chilling by our damp condition. We soon regained the shelter of the trees and, to be fair, Francis’ observation was largely accurate.

Lee makes light of the weather

We reached the top of the valley where Penkridge Bank meets Marquis Drive. The White House on the corner (both its name and description) was once a pub but is now owned by ‘One Another Ministries International’ who describe themselves as 'conservative evangelical Christians'. The notice on their rear gate to anyone with the temerity to use their premises to turn round struck me as being unwelcoming and, dare I say it, un-Christian.

We left Marquis Drive after a kilometre, descending towards the Fairoak Pools, a corner of the Chase I don't remember having visited before.

Starting the descent to the Fairoak Pools

There are two pools and as we approached the first the local residents - mallards, coots and moorhens - who connect humans with food, paddled over to greet us. On this occasion they were to be disappointed.

The first of the Fairoak Pools

We paused for coffee standing by one of the picnic tables, the seat was far too wet to sit on.

A damp coffee beside the Fairoak Pools

A moorhen ventured up for a closer look. When Mike lobbed his apple core in the direction of the lake all hell broke loose among the waterfowl, who seemed to recognise the throwing action. I have no idea if they ever found the core.

Inquisitive moorhen, Fairoak Pools

A sign board informed us we were standing in what may once been the bed of the River Budleighensis and the cutting enabled us to inspect the deposits it had laid down.

Cutting through the deposits of the River Budleighensis

250 million years ago a huge river is conjectured to have flowed north from Brittany across England to reach the Irish sea at the Solway Fifth. It deposited the river-rounded Bunter sandstone pebbles that form the Chase (and the plinth of the glacial boulder) and various other features across the Midlands and west of England, including one at Budleigh Salterton in Devon from which the river derives its slightly odd name.

Up Miflins Valley to Stile Cop

Fully informed we strode along the path above the small Stony Brook pools….

The path above the Stony Brook Pools

….and crossed the Stony Brook by stepping-stones before descending to the railway and the A460.

Anne and Mike cross the Stony Brook

Over the main road we took the path that ascends Miflins Valley. It is not steep, but it is a long and tedious drag through the drizzle…

Up Miflins Valley

… and we paused for breath beside a venerable beech before continuing upwards to the road that runs along the top of Stile Cop. From here it was a march along the road to the further of the two car parks (why the further? Ask Francis) where Lee had left his car. We reached Longdon and the Swan with Two Necks exactly on schedule at one o'clock and found Lynne waiting.

Beech, Miflins Valley

Fish and Chips at the Swan with Two Necks

The origin of the pub name may be well-known, but here it is anyway. The queen owns all unmarked swans on open water. The only other organisations entitled to own swans are two of the livery companies of the City of London, the Dyers’ and the Vintners. From the fifteenth century the Dyers’ Company swans were marked with a nick on the beak while the Vintners’ had two nicks. Over time, 'two nicks' has become 'two necks' perhaps because it makes for a more interesting pub sign, though there are, I have discovered, at least three pubs in England still called the Swan with Two Nicks.

A choice of two excellent beers, Sharp’s dark, malty, Doom Bar and Salopian Brewery's winter special, the light hoppy, very bitter Firkin Freezin’, (there must be a better name) accompanied fish and chips all round. The quality was high, the size exceptional. Whales are not fish, but I could have sworn I had a whole battered minke. I was one of several unable to finish - indeed I did not eat for the rest of the day, Lynne ate nothing for 24 hours.

Minke, chips and mushy peas (or garden peas for Lee)
Swan with Two Necks, Longdon

Capitulation

Outside the drizzle continued, there had been no let up all morning and no prospect of change. The bright spot of the day was discovering that The Swan with Two Necks, is again thriving. Perhaps we lingered longer in the pub than we should, but by the time we left the light was beginning to fade and with it our enthusiasm for further walking. Lee drove us to the intended start of the afternoon’s walk, but as we approached the car park and watched the windscreen wipers doing their work a group decision was made to call it off. Nobody dissented.

This has never happened before on a Chip Walk, and it was disappointing, but it is many years since we have attempted to walk on a day as dismal as this. Anne's ‘smart phone’ told us that in the morning we had tramped 6.5 miles and taken some 17,000 steps, so a walk was taken, fish and chips were eaten and tradition was maintained.

I expect I am not alone in looking forward to better weather for the (N + 6)th walk next year.

Saturday 20 December 2014

Cannock Chase Through Fresh Eyes: The (N + 4)th Annual Fish and Chip Walk

In the time honoured, if not quite yet ancient, tradition, a coalition of the willing met on Cannock Chase for yet another annual Chip Walk.

As in 2012, we started from the Punch Bowl, but this time not in torrential rain but on a mild December day that started overcast, though sunny spells were promised later. Everybody else looked cheerful, but I was worried - this was (roughly) the fifteenth chip walk and (exactly) the fifth to appear on this blog. How could I possibly find anything new to write?

As before, we made our way round Hart's Hill and veered left towards the Sher Brook. Four of the usual suspects were present, Francis and myself as ever-presents, Brian, just back from Hong Kong (as usual) and Alison C, up from Cheltenham for her first Chip Walk since 2011. We were also joined for the first time by Anne. Lynne (my non-walking wife) met Anne when they were colleagues in Warwickshire in the late 1970s and began a friendship which has endured for well over thirty years. Anne now lives in Cardiff and had stopped with us en route from Cardiff to County Durham for Christmas especially to take part in the Chip Walk.

Round Hart Hill, Cannock Chase

We reached the Sherbrook Valley and set off up it, passing the stepping stones. Having photographed them the last three years, doing it again seemed otiose.

The Sher Brook, but not the Stepping Stone, Cannock Chase

It was the first time Anne had been to the Chase and she was looking at it through fresh eyes. Brian and Francis live nearby and value having so much open country on their doorsteps. I live a little further away and visit the Chase a couple of times a year, regarding it as somewhere to go when alternatives are unavailable or unattractive - Staffordshire clay does not make for good winter walking, but a hundred metre high pile of pebbles inevitably remains well drained. In my head Chase walks involve straight forestry roads through ranks of dark conifers, but having Anne there as a visitor made me look at it again - and I discovered it isn’t like that at all.

I know that the Punch Bowl is an area of older, non-coniferous trees, but I had not realised, or had forgotten, how large that area is. We walked up the winding Sherbrook surrounded by silver birches.

Silver hair and Silver Birches, Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase

The valley flattens out as it reaches the plateau that tops off the western end of the pebble pile. 'It's different again,' Anne said as we crossed the open moor-like ground.

Near the top of the Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase

A swing right brought us in sight of the first conifers of the day, though we certainly were not walking through them. Views opened up to the north-east over the Trent Valley as a shaft of sunlight penetrated the clouds.

Continuing towards the minor road we reached the German War Cemetery, one of Cannock Chase's several oddities. During the First World War the Chase was used for training camps and also for a prisoner-of-war hospital. Those who died there were buried nearby and in the 1950s the graves of most German military personnel killed on, around or over British territory during both world wars were moved here, to a site administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in collaboration with their German equivalent. This year I photographed the outside....

The German Cemetery, Cannock Chase

.....but in the past I have photographed the inside. There are some 5000 graves, split almost equally between the two wars. There are is one Field-Marshall, a General and the crews of four airships downed in 1916 and 1917.

German Military Cemetery (Dec 2012)

I have visited the German Cemetery before, but I was oddly unaware that there is a Commonwealth Cemetery a little further on. In the spirit of the Christmas truce of 100 years ago Francis suggested we kick a football from one to the other; a good plan but with a fatal defect – we had no football. There are some 150 graves here, 50 of them overspill from the German Cemetery. There is a sad row of graves of men who died on the 8th and 9th of November 1918 - so near and yet so far - but the largest group are from the New Zealand Rifle Brigade who were stationed here and died not in the war, but from influenza. Anne pointed out that Phormium (New Zealand Flax) was prominent among the flowers between the gravestones.

Commonwealth War Cemetery, Cannock Chase

The flu pandemic, starting in January 1918 and lasting into 1920, killed more people than the war, some 50 to 100 million world-wide. The deaths were disproportionately among those who were young, fit and previously healthy, like the unfortunate New Zealanders here - and indeed Lynne's great-great uncle who survived the fighting, but still ended up in a military cemetery in northern France.

We drank our coffee sitting on the steps outside the cemetery, then walked down the other side and found, hidden behind the two cemeteries, a couple of benches that would have been far more comfortable than the cold marble steps.

We headed north towards the Katyn Memorial, for the only time in the day on an unfamiliar track. ‘I wondered where this path came from,’ Francis remarked as we approached the memorial. Staffordshire has had a sizeable Polish community since the end of WW2, long before the recent influx, but I still do not fully understand why they choose this spot to commemorate a massacre that happened a thousand miles away. Nonetheless here it is, and here is another photograph of it – very similar to the pictures I posted in 2012 and 2011.

Katyn Memorial (again), Cannock Chase

From the memorial there is only one route to the Chetwynd Arms, our fish and chip providers for the last three years. We crossed the lightly wooded Anson's Bank and turned down Oldacre Valley. The valley has more topsoil than most of the Chase and can be relied upon to provide some mud - soft and black rather than the sticky grey stuff Brian and I slogged through in the Churnet Valley earlier this week. I do not recall if Anne remarked on this further change of aspect, but if she did it could not have been with pleasure - this is nasty stuff.

The muddy Oldacre Valley, Cannock Chase

The bottom of the Oldacre Valley is a place where the footpaths on the ground do not match those on the map. As usual it took us a zig and a zag to find our way past Brocton Pool and down to the road.

Anne passes Brocton Pool

We reached the Chetwynd Arms and Lynne arrived to share our repast - though without having done the work to earn it. I have long considered it unfair that she takes little exercise yet remains so trim while I ….. (see the well-nourished individual, left of next but one picture!)

The Chetwynd Arms, Brocton

It was the Fish and Chip Walk so everybody had fish and chips, except Lynne had scampi (which is acceptable) and Alison had gammon. With a medical reason for avoiding battered fish, this was forgivable - unlike Sue's perfidious bowl of chicken and pasta a couple of years ago. Whenever a group of over sixties get together there is always someone with a new medical condition to discuss. A day will come when we no longer bother with the walk, just meet in the pub to compare operations. Oh, the joys of getting older.

Me, Brian, Francis, Alison, Anne
Chetwynd Arms, Brocton (and Lynne took the picture)

We returned to the Chase via a track between houses and a field followed by an excursion round the back of Brocton where a grey wagtail was hopping from stone to stone in the stream. In the field we had spotted the first spring lamb of the year, though other signs of spring were conspicuously absent. It looked cute, as all new lambs do, but I suspect its life will be short and cold.

The climb up Tar Hill seemed easy, despite having to carry fish, chips and a couple of pints of Banks's Bitter to the top. The sun again peered out from behind the clouds, sparkling on the Argos distribution centre at Junction 13 and its mirror image at Junction 14. Sadly, they bracket the view of Stafford and rather define the town, though today the light also gave prominence to the small hill topped by the remains of Stafford Castle, the reason this unlikely, marshy spot had once been chosen for a settlement. The Wrekin was, as ever, a distant landmark, whilst, much further away, the bulk of the Long Mynd was clearly visible against the horizon. Unlike last year, I chose to point my camera into the near distance and at the gentle folds of the hill’s sparsely wooded summit.

Near the top of Tar Hill, Cannock Chase

The Chase is home to some 800 Fallow Deer, but so far we had seen none. Approaching Coppice Hill we glimpsed a small herd on the bank above us [As Brian points out in the comments, these were Roe Deer]. For the next kilometre or so there were deer in the forest on either side, dozens of them, always half hidden, but feeling little need to run; they are used to humans and do not expect to be harmed by them.

Deer on Coppice Hill
(I know its not a good picture, but it was the best I got, sorry)

A little further along we paused at a bird feeding centre. The trees were alive with a multitude of tits and finches, including a splendidly self-important bullfinch. 'All Britain's woodland birds in one place,' Francis remarked. We (or rather Francis and Brian) had earlier seen fieldfare and waxwings - though the mild Scandinavian winter has meant few have bothered to make the journey south this year - and a redwing or two. As we moved on, an ingot of goldfinches (no that is not the correct collective noun, I just made it up) fluttered busily past.

As we strode on towards Mere Pool the sun in the rapidly clearing sky brought out subtle colours in the bare tree trunks.

Subtle colours near Mere Pool, Cannock Chase

After the pool we turned right and descended back to the Punch Bowl and our cars, arriving just before the sun set at five to four. It had been a lovely day's walk. Anne had seen the Chase for the first time and her frequent remarks about how the landscape changed as we moved across it helped me look at the Chase with refreshed eyes. I am grateful; it is a beautiful place, and I have been undervaluing it.

Back down to the Punch Bowl, Cannock Chase

And that was not quite all. As we drove home under a clear blue sky, the light lingered long after the sun had set giving a summer-like twilight. From tomorrow the days start to lengthen promising that eventually summer will return. I look forward to it.