Horley, Surrey

Well, the normal English weather caught up with me and today was rain, mostly rain, a bit of rain, and totally clouded over.  I chose not to ride, so I walked and checked out this town.

Horley is a small town with basically one main street.  It has one regular grocery store, one budget grocery store, an Iceland (all frozen foods), all on this main street, and then there is a huge Tesco extra (think Loblaws superstore) complete with clothes, electronics, toys, household stuff, but no furniture.  That mega store is on the northwest end of town by farmers' fields -- about a 15 minute walk from the Gatwick Belmont.

This guest house is only one of at least 8 on this street.  Many have a small restaurant associated with the accommodation, and several have parking available for when you leave the country for a week.  They are all fairly large houses which have been split into rooms.  I would think that they are all at least 100 years old.  Most of the guests come and stay for one night and then fly.  The guest house delivers people to Gatwick (about 1 mile away) any time of the day or night -- good thing, my flight is at 06:35 on Sunday.  I am known as the lady who is staying a long time with my 5 night reservation.  They do two options for breakfast of which I am doing the continental and have a pub in the evening, which I have not frequented.  I have my bread and cheese and cider up here.

There doesn't seem to be much happening in Horley.  Several of the store fronts are available for lease.  There are at least 4 charity shops.  The largest selection of shoes is at the discount warehouse, and they didn't have a pair of sandals for next week. I have been told that the shopping is much better in Crawley -- about 2 miles down the road.  Strange they use miles, but all their groceries are in metric measurements.

So I poked along the main street, spent several hours at Tesco (came up with a few bargains) and walked the trail to Gatwick Airport.  I had read in a blog that one can cycle through the airport grounds and get views which normal air passengers can't.  I would like to try that on Saturday before I return the bike.  My legs are tired and I walked holes through my socks -- good day.

NCN 21

NCN 21 is route 21 of the National Cycling Network which goes from somewhere in London, down to the Channel at Eastbourne.  I did not cycle all of it, but certainly a picturesque part.

I set off about 09:15.  The first part of the route was on a secondary road heading south, but after Crawley, I turned east and most of the next section was on an old railway section which is an elevated ride through the Medway river valley.  Today it was leaf strewn and, thanks, to the big storm of last weekend, many branches and in some instances, trees across the path.  It meant that most of the ride I was concentrating on the path instead of the fabulous scenery so that twigs didn't end up in my spokes.  The further east I got -- I started in Surrey, cycled through Sussex, and ended up in Kent -- the more rolling was the countryside.  The roads are narrow with no shoulders, but the drivers are amazingly considerate and careful of the cyclist.  There were some wrong turns and I have not cycled this much in quite some time, but after 55 km, I did arrive at Scotney Castle.

I am a puzzle person -- sudoku, crosswords, jumble, and picture puzzles.  About 25 years ago, I had a 4,000 piece picture puzzle which took 3 months to complete.  It was of Scotney Castle.  I had no idea where that was and it took some searching (yes, there was life before google) to find that Scotney Castle was at Royal Tunbridge Wells.  Actually it is just outside of Lamberhurst which is southeast of the other city, but Royal Tunbridge Wells is the closest big city.  And Google maps provided a great route for the ride.  The Castle which I saw in the puzzle was the Old Castle, and there is now a new house up on the hill.  The Old Castle has a moat and the main building is now in ruins.  I arrived about 2 pm and knew I did not have much time for my visit.  It was a walk around for photos, but no visit to the new house, which, I am sure, would be lovely -- maybe someday.  I celebrated my visit with a cream tea at the teahouse and then it was back on the bike.

I knew that I could only ride till just after 4 pm since the sun sets about 4:30 and the road is very sheltered by trees so it darkens quickly.  I managed to ride back to a train station by 4.  I knew I would be able to take the bike on the train, but wasn't sure about the bike since it wasn't a folding one.  First train north to Tonbridge.  Second train west to Redhill, Third train to Horley.  I made it back to the hotel at 7 pm.

What a wonderful day!

England's green and pleasant land

I still have the chicken stickers on my hand which Clara bestowed on me yesterday.  She is exhuberant and generous and I will miss her and her brother, but there is another little grandchild I will have the delight of spending time with next week.  But I get ahead of myself.

Since flying over the Atlantic for just a week in the Canaries is a bit crazy, I added 5 days of (hopefully) cycling in the English countryside.  (I am looking to get back some of those 8 weeks of cycling that I lost in the summer due to the broken foot.) The storm yesterday bought down many leaves and twigs and left the path that I cycled quite muddy in spots.  But the cycling along the hedgerows and through farms was a totally different side of England from the city I saw last month.

And it truly is a green and pleasant land.