Snow Pies, Walk or BBQ!

Snow stops play: Don and King Canape were not walking this week, the Führer was worried about the slippery conditions and the Walk Master had just taken delivery of a new car! The consensus of opinion was that we should stay in the warm, rather than venture out to do local walk. Don had indicated that it was his intention to light fires on Mousehold Heath and have a BBQ with his BTCV group today – only Don turned up. I guess we were saved an inferno!

Icarus Hines

The pork pies return this week with small pies from Icarus Hines' shop in Cromer. To munch these, eight of us set off through heavy rain towards Rockland St. Mary. Here we parked by the broad, where we waited about five minutes on the Weather Wizard's instruction. This was sound advice, as we then only encountered a few bouts of light showers all day. Our pre pie walk took us south to St. Andrew's church, Claxton. We had previously visited this church in April 2008 and found it to be without a dial. Our route along a muddy track and footpaths took us south east to Carleton St. Peter. It's church; St. Peter's, serves a parish of just fifteen dwellings and a pub. Here we had our lunch in the porch and then looked for scratch dials, finding none. We then made our way north through Claxton and on to the dog-friendly Beauchamp Arms where we met "Rufus" a Red Setter, before sampling pints of Tribute from the St. Austell Brewery. We then made our way west, back to the cars following the south bank of the river Yare - part of the Wherryman's Way. This afforded great views of the Cantley sugar beet factory in full steam, but not of the starling clouds that the Walk Master had hoped for. Returning to the cars, the pies were the first course, as King Canape was down the smoke. Cutting the pies released little aroma. The filling was good and tasty and mustard could not improve the flavour. The pies were let down a little by the slightly soft piecrust base. The pies scored 7.5625 with a high standard deviation of 1.14759 compared with a score of 7.22222 and standard deviation of 1.06393 back in May. The traditional Scottish Shortbread fingers then concluded the munching. Icarus Hines improves his rating with a normalised 7.5 on this outing.

Fulmodeston

Just six pie munchers braved the elements for a walk from Fulmodeston, for the second outing in November, to sample Paul’s canapés. The Pie Master was not in their number, and the only report to come back was “Very good country with paths through woodland and a very long sheep meadow.” The churches visited were: St. Mary, Barney, St. Edmund, Swanton Novers and Christ Church, Fulmodeston - none having scratch dials.

Banningham banquet (sans pies)

A pleasant perambulation around Banningham and Tuttington, for 7 pie-less munchers, partly due to the unexpected appearance of dogs at the Pie Master's, prohibiting a pie procurement expedition. King Canape and José were again absent us this week, so the Pie Master plumped for last minute canapés. Showers were forecast, however our Weather Wizard devised a walk that would keep us in the dry. We tried parking in the village hall overflow car park at Banningham, but were asked to leave due to a children’s party being held there in the afternoon. We found alternate parking by the green. We headed east towards the two water towers of North Walsham, but could only see one - the smaller being hidden by the larger tower. Walking by a caravan park, we passed a suspension bridge over Suffield Beck. Then, following quiet roads south, we crossed the Weaver’s Way before taking a footpath to Tuttington. Here we had lunch in the round towered church of St. St. Peter & St. Paul. This rather minimalist church had been previously visited and found to be dial-less. We headed back to Banningham with a little road walking, stopping to buy bags of cooking apples. Shortly before arriving back at Banningham, we admired the Village Sign, before pressing on to St. Botolph church with our cars parked opposite. Dumping our rucksacks, and some changing their shoes, we made a beeline to the Crown Inn for pints of Fuller's London Pride. We did not visit the church this time, as it had been previously visited and found to be without a scratch dial. We returned to the cars for Canapés: Lemon & Coriander Houmous and Spicy red lentil dip with multigrain crackers. Peanut cookies and Shortbread completed the munching.