Cow hunt

Earlier in the week off to Box Hill to visit the cow featured at reference 1. Up the zig-zag road to find a much grander National Trust operation than there had been when we used to visit a lot more often than we do now, in the days of climbing with children up the side of the hill from the motor cycle filled car park - the car park being, at that time, a famous herding ground for motor cycles on Sundays. More Honda Gold Wings than you are likely to see otherwise in a long time. Shop, two sorts of café, shed, much outdoor seating and a much tidied up car park. Perhaps all to do with the cycling olympics a few years back.

A very proper cow, in the sense that although the design as a whole was to do with cycling, with the linked charity being at reference 2, there was also the sense that this was a cow that one was decorating, and the features of the design took proper account of the features of the cow - in this, far superior to the other two cows clocked in the course of the day and which will be illustrated in due course. With apologies for obscuring BH, just visible behind the cow, but none of the snaps I took captured both her and the cow; one of them was always obscuring the other, and as this was the day of the cow hunt, the cow won.

Lots of people about, this hot & sunny week day morning, some of them of working age. Fine views south from the view point, with the south downs just peeping over the top of the north downs and with couple of small brown trains chugging along below us while we were there. I could not actually make out the Gatwick Airport buildings, but one could make a good guess as to where they were. Not all that many aeroplanes, but I did score two twos, if one plays the Gatwick rules which allow both landing from the east and taking off to the west.

Tea and tea cakes in the indoor café, perfectly acceptable, including the higher grade paper cups, much better than such things used to be. There was even a fine carex pendula round the back.

We also visited the shed, about which we were corrected. We had thought that it was one of those expensive copies of a shepherd's hut which find their way into larger Surrey gardens, while actually it was a copy of a water bailiff's hut. It's all in the placement of the doors, it seems. Lots of (tastefully green painted) corrugated iron, which I believe was about by the middle of the nineteenth century, from when I imagine the design was taken. There was also a stove, used occasionally for the preparation of bacon sandwiches for the trusties. All very proper.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/cows.html.

Reference 2: http://www.sustrans.org.uk/.

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