Walk, Marston Vale, 13 miles

24 March 2018

I suggested this walk, which I’d cut out of The Times’ ‘Weekend’ supplement a while back, as it explored countryside to the east of Milton Keynes, which is not a side of the town I’ve explored much since living here. Hai, Matthew and Rebecca were also up for it, which was nice, so I collected Rebecca and Hai early on the Saturday morning – Matt, in typical hardcore fashion, reckoned he was going to walk from his home in Willen Park to the Marston Vale Forest Centre, where we were starting off - a distance of around 11 miles before the walk even started.

Drove via Marston Moretaine – whose dismal Travelodge¹ I stayed in during the Travelodge Year, though I seem to have confined myself to reasonably positive comments about the neighbouring Little Chef – to the Forest Centre, and parked.

The Forest of Marston Vale seems to be being established on around 60 square miles formerly occupied by a brickworks and some landfill sites. This walk followed the Timberland Trail.

We started by walking south west from the Forest Centre to the village of Lidlington, over an irritating freshly-ploughed field. Then turned east – quite hilly – passing the boundary of Millbrook Proving Ground, which I hadn't known anything about but Matt filled me in. It's the circular area on the map below.

Matt crossing the ploughed field

Part of Millbrook Proving Ground

After stopping for a sandwich, walked through Ampthill Park past Katherine's Cross. After that, through Laurel Wood and past the ruins of Houghton House. Hai and I slowed down a bit on the second half of the walk, while Matt and Rebecca continued to power on - Matt did reassure me afterwards that it wasn't a race, which I guess was comforting.

Ampthill Park

Laurel Wood

Ruins of Houghton House

Then a longish final trek across country to the model village of Stewartby, and from there around Stewartby Lake back to the Forest Centre, where we had tea and cake.

According to Matt, you used to be able to walk around the disused Stewartby Brickworks, but they've now been closed off. There seems to be a move afoot to demolish the remaining chimneys on the site, though according to this BBC News article they are listed structures.

Matt and Rebecca walking through Stewartby

Map of the route in red, showing the start and end point at the Forest Centre:

¹ In fairness, it looks from the hotel's website as though it has now been upgraded. Good thing too.

Feast days; gas; assorted spam

Today’s ‘Trending now’ section on Twitter has the following:

From the ‘World Bee Day’ website, this would seem to be the first World Bee Day. 20 May was apparently chosen because it’s the birth date of a renowned Slovenian authority on bees (it was apparently Slovenia who proposed having a World Bee Day).

Today is also, apparently, Pentecost, which marks the Holy Spirit descending upon Christ’s apostles. It’s also known as ‘Whitsun’ (for Whit Sunday). ‘Whitsun’ is one of those calendar dates that has never meant anything to me, though either Ruth’s mother or aunt (or possibly both) have referred to it as a time when they apparently got a holiday from school. Tomorrow is marked in my Google Calendar as ‘Whit Monday’ – apparently this was a holiday in the UK until 1971, when it was replaced by the Spring Bank Holiday on the last Monday in May. 

Pentecost/Whitsun is determined by the date of Easter – it’s the seventh Sunday after Easter, apparently – and thus moveable.

Changing the subject: I hate dealing with utility providers, due to my own lack of patience and the inherent boringness of the topic, though I appreciate it's a really good thing to fully engage and research best provider and tariff, etc. Did have an online chat with npower a month or so ago, to draw their attention to the actual reading on my gas meter, which was nothing like the inflated estimate on the bill. The conversation led to my being put onto a different tariff which I was assured was the best one available to me, though as my monthly direct debit has since gone up from £5 a month to £118 a month, I’m not convinced of this, so will have to have another conversation with them in due course.

The following suggests an admission that they may be over-charging me somewhat:

On to some communications I have received recently. Mr Liu Jun gets straight to the point:

While Mother Teresa Stang is more circumspect:

This one, purporting to be from PayPal, was more convincing, but fell down on the salutation:

Baffled as to why anyone bothers sending these things. Surely no one actually replies to them?

Lido; gums; stiff rabbits

Earlier this year tried out the fabulously renovated Thames Lido (as it is now). Formerly the King’s Meadow Baths, it closed in the mid-1970s and had stood unused and increasingly derelict ever since. There had been various attempts over the years at fundraising and at trying to get the local council to do up the baths and re-open them, though it became increasingly clear in recent years that council money was never going to be spent on this. Reading is very poorly off for public swimming pools¹, though if council money were going to be spent, it would be more usefully spent (IMO) on refurbishing the dilapidated Central Baths rather than a small open-air pool.

Thames Lido. New extension on the left housing the restaurant

Anyway, the pool has been restored by the same people who did Bristol Lido, and it opened last October. I treated Ray to a trip as a late birthday present, booking us both in for a weekday morning ‘Swim & Breakfast’ package, at a cool £35 each. It’s pricey but the refurb is stunningly beautiful. We did a bit of swimming and then I did a bit more swimming while Ray basked in the hot tub and sauna. Our swim was followed up by a two-course breakfast in the restaurant that overlooks the pool. I had the toasted fruit bread and maple butter (what a wonderful concept) followed by the Turkish poached eggs; Ray had the sourdough toast followed by a vast kipper. Very nice indeed. Given the cost it’ll be an occasional indulgence, but I’d definitely like to go again.

The pool from the restaurant

Man and kipper

The baths apparently started out as the Ladies' Open Air Baths; there are some interesting bits and pieces here including a pic of the baths in use for a water polo match in 1904. There was evidently also a men's pool nearby - that's not there anymore but it looks as though it was on the opposite corner to the surviving baths. According to this it was closed in the mid-1950s. This interesting photo, nicked from https://www.lostlidos.co.uk/2002/04/07/kings-meadow-ladies-open-air-baths/, shows both pools (the men's pool is above the ladies' pool in the picture; there's now housing on the site):

Have paid two or three visits to my new dental surgery Dental Works since the beginning of the year, partly because of some trouble with a wisdom tooth – these have been partially erupted since my 20s but are clearly never going to move any further. Was prescribed the antibiotic Metronidazole for what the dentist theorized was a gum infection. Not something I’ve taken before – not that I take many antibiotics, but the usual go-to seems to be Amoxicillin. The Metronidazole prescription was handed over with a stern warning not to consume any alcohol while taking it, including avoiding mouthwashes containing it. As you would, I duly went straight to the internet to check this out, and inevitably found views veering from “I drank pints and I was fine” to “Don’t drink anything ‘cause you’ll be really really ill and possibly DIE”. I played it safe and avoided alcohol for the five days of the course, though did have a mini-bottle of wine with my dinner the day after I finished the course with no ill effects, giving the lie a bit to the advice I found in several places to additionally lay off it for 48 hours after finishing the tablets.

Dentists do seem to hand out antibiotics far more readily than GPs do – I haven’t had an antibiotic from a GP for decades, but have now had two lots from dentists within the past few years.

Oh, and as a footnote: the Metronidazole did clear it up. Fair enough then.

Our house bunny Harley went for a check up at the vets earlier this year and was prescribed a daily painkiller to take after the vet noticed that his hips seemed a little stiff and probably painful. Whatever the mixture is, he seems to like it and hops up to Ruth eagerly to take it. From our observations it seems to be doing him some good; he has seemed livelier, even to the extent of chasing the much younger Catherine Howard around the room friskily each morning.

Although we don’t know Harls’ exact age, he was believed to be around a year old when we adopted him in 2009, so should be about 10 this year, which is a respectable age for a rabbit though no doubt living in a centrally-heated house has helped him.

I do find it bizarre that rabbits have such a fast metabolism that they can take a medicine intended for dogs, twice a day. Fascinating creatures.


¹ Soon to be even worse off: I passed Bulmershe Leisure Centre on the bus the other weekend and it appears to have been fenced off for demolition. Article here.