Sunday 7 March 2010

J. S. Coxford

The Walk master led this weeks 6 miler, in glorious sunshine, before we tucked into pies from J. S. Coxford, of Aylsham - a first tasting for the munchers. Starting at Brooke village hall, we headed north, past Laurel Farm, with its thatched garage, and pony. After walking along the footpaths and across a muddy field, we came to Alpington Hall, with its noisy guard-dog. Into another muddy field, we passed a “mawkin”. Paul and José retrieved some of its reflective adornments, which had obviously blown off in the wind. Lunch-stop was at St. Mary's church in Yelverton. Inside the porch were two lovely stained glass windows - one representing water, the other one, fire. The church had no scratch dial. On leaving the church, we bumped into the son of an old Bystander, with his dog Ruby. She was very friendly and playful, and seemed to enjoy being photographed! At the 4 mile point, we reached “The Dove” public house. Adnams, Broadside and Woodfordes Wherry were all found to be in good condition - and the roast lunches being served looked very good too! Along the next footpath across to the next field, we passed a fish farm and a set of pig shelters. Not the normal corrugated iron huts you normally see - these were much larger and had fabric sides. We then came to the second church of the day - St. Mary the virgin, Howe - a lovely round-tower church with Saxon windows. Don procured a log of laurel wood, from a gentleman cutting the trees back in the churchyard. Back at the village hall in Brooke, tea was served by Josie: stand-in tea lady and pie mistress! Feta-stuffed peppers to start, supplied by King Canape, followed by the pies. These pies had a very crisp, crunchy pastry and a well-seasoned, very flavoursome filling. Top marks to J.S. Coxford butchers, scoring 8.2777, with a standard deviation of only 0.44096. We then had shortcake to finish. . So a normalised score of 8.5. (filed by Josie)