Harcourt Hill – Ewelme Park – Swyncombe – Ridgeway Path

23 July 2006

• Total distance: 7.5 miles
• Start point: Lay-by on A4130 between Nettlebed and Wallingford, at the first signpost for Ewelme. SU 657888
• Weather: Hot and humid, with thunder clouds gathering late in the afternoon.
• Temperature at start: 31C.
• Muddiness rating: * (*=dry, *****=awful)
• People passed: Four Indian ladies and their daughters, near the foot of Swyncombe Downs.
• Step counter: About 16,000. I lost my counter halfway round.
• Camera: Olympus C-5060W. Images taken before deletions = 76.

Yeurggh. If I’m to sustain my target of writing up a walk a month, I suppose I’ll have to learn to describe days like this.

The moment I opened the car door I knew it was madness. The cooled air leaked away in no time and in its place came not air, but an almost unbreathable hot vapour which stuck my shirt to my chest and had me grabbing at my water bottle. The sun was diffuse, and everywhere was stripped of colour and interest, a scenario not helped by my decision to go walking the middle of the day, ignoring the advice I’ve been dishing out for years. But hey, I thought, something’ll come up. It always does.

It didn’t.

As a rule I embark on a walk in a spirit of optimism, at ease with the world, happy to be out in the countryside and eager to see round the next corner, but today I was ratty and irritable, and had to force myself to move.

A crack in my morosity appeared, albeit fleetingly, when I happened on the stupidest animal I’ve ever seen, apparently a cross between a sheep and a giraffe. A flock of them stood quietly in a field, chewing (and probably thinking “Look at that weird-looking animal with the Olympus”). I think they were platypuses. I was glad to see a snap of them come up when I uploaded the photos: without it I’d have assumed it was a heat-induced hallucination.

I loped off through a big dry barley field north towards Ewelme Park. Walking up the hill was awful. Devoid of any shade, the earth positively hummed as it tried to shake off its heat. I went through a field with some stuff growing. Then another one, with some other stuff. The sweat was running into my eyes. I wasn’t enjoying it.

A lone man stood in the middle of a sun-baked field, gently swinging a metal detector. It seemed unlikely that he’d find anything apart from bits of tractor up there.

At Ewelme Park the mature decision would have been to turn along the scenic path called Potter’s Lane heading down the hill – where I’ve taken some nice landscapes in spring when the wind makes waves in the crops – but I punished myself by continuing north to Swyncombe. This old house has an impressive and unlikely history but the heat was playing tricks with my brain and all I could remember on the day was that it was once inherited by one Bartholomew Fettyplace. You’d have trouble leading a low-key life with a name like that.

It got hotter and hotter. When I reached the Ridgeway path near Britwell Salome, I turned for home and immediately saw a glint in the mud near my feet. I prised out a 1926 silver George V shilling. They’d cut the silver content from 92% to 50% a couple of years earlier - typical. If it was in Very Fine condition (which it wasn’t) it would be worth as much as £2. My jubilation was cut short by the discovery that my step counter had dropped off my belt. Now that was in Brand Spanking New condition and worth a lot more. I assessed the option of retracing my route, rated it somewhere below No 67 Having Your Toenails Jemmied Off, and carried on towards the car.

It’s difficult to take any landscape picture in Oxfordshire without accidentally including Didcot Power Station. It lurked in its usual place, but for once the sky above it looked more threatening than the cooling towers, as ominous darkening clouds heaped up on the western horizon.

The temperature in the car was indescribable. As I drove into Nettlebed I retrieved my second water bottle from the glove compartment and took three or four huge swigs. The hot plastic-flavoured water hit whatever toxic chemical was by then lining the back of my throat, triggering a thermonuclear explosion which led to me coughing the noxious mixture over the windscreen and dashboard. In the confusion the open bottle ended up in my lap, soaking the few bits of me that weren’t already saturated and dumping a litre of water into the driver’s seat.

I’ve had better days.

Click here for map > SwyncombeMap

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-- RodBird - 07 Aug 2006