A great walk in the Woldingham area, through the forested hilltops and across rolling fields reminiscent of Ravilious drawings, straight away we saw a very big healthy fox walking down from a birch wood across the vivid green fields above the railway line, we also saw and heard many pheasants, saw Buzzards, a beautiful red male kestrel, badger's mounds, mistle thrushes, and two herds of wild roe deer, the first group had two adults and a young one, the second had 8 deer including a couple of young ones, coming out of a wood then skipping away from us wagging their small tails very fast. Huge white gliders flew above the fields near Kenley. The blue-bells were out and there were carpets of wild garlic as far as the eye could see in places, though not flowered yet, we saw many butterflies - brimstones, orange tips, peacocks, no St Geoerge's mushrooms today, St Geoerge's day, but evidence of tattooed enthusiasts at East Croydon station and the cross of St George flying from van windows. We saw hardly anyone else the whole day. This is lovely, quite dramatic countryside, one irritating aspect of it is the drone of the M25 from some of the Southern most high points of the circular walk. It's also astonishing to me to see such obvious affluence - side by side with purple UKIP signs, it's hard to understand what they imagine they are suffering from in a location which most people, I'm sure, would describe as an affluent paradise - everything looked so clean and perfect, the cars in the station car park were almost all top-of-the-range and new, the houses are vast and sparklingly well kept, there is no sign of material suffering here at all. So what is it all about?
The day was hot, contrary to all forecasts, with perfect blue skies, an utterly perfect day of walking and soaking up sun and green fields and forests...I'll definitly come back here again.
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