please empty your brain below
Beautiful.

THC | 17.09.16 - 7:41 a.m. | #

I climbed the down Thursday on the London Loop. Always a special place.

I use the fountain and it is ok, unlike the one on the North Downs above Caterham.

JonF | 17.09.16 - 7:58 a.m. | #

A lovely piece of prose eulogising this green place. So good, I thought I was reading the wrong blog, until that last sentence- pure DG!😂😂👏👏

Jo W | 17.09.16 - 8:05 a.m. | #

Perhaps the finest prose I've read here in the six years I've been a reader — lovely stuff.

Rob Miller | Homepage | 17.09.16 - 8:16 a.m. | #

Could easily be a piece in the Guardian's Country Diary. Great writing.

popartist | 17.09.16 - 8:23 a.m. | #

Like everyone else, lovely piece of writing, takes you out of time and space.

| 17.09.16 - 8:29 a.m. | #

Beautifully evocative. Took me straight back to those seemingly endless, halcyon summer days of my childhood.

Is that part of the London Loop? The one that passed through Happy Valley was one of my favourite and most memorable sections.

Cornish Cockney | 17.09.16 - 10:40 a.m. | #

Riddlesdown's near the start of London Loop section 5, and Happy Valley near the end. Definitely one of the best bits.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 17.09.16 - 10:43 a.m. | #

Nice kicker!

Also a very nice place.

Chris | 17.09.16 - 11:03 a.m. | #

pure poetry

Caz | 17.09.16 - 11:50 a.m. | #

I enjoyed it all, but particularly the description of the hay-collecting. Mechanical handling has always been something I find fascinating to watch - someone only has to deliver a pallet from the side of a truck using a fork-lift and I am all eyes.

Malcolm | 17.09.16 - 2:17 p.m. | #

As others have commented, beautifully written.

I was rather expecting you to then go on to share your experience of sharing an apple-based alcoholic drink with a girl named after a flower.

Plastic Man | 17.09.16 - 3:45 p.m. | #

I was brought up in north Croydon and this was one of our favourite family rambles! We didn't have a car, so went by train presumably to Riddlesdown (or possibly Kenley) and back from Whyteleafe (or possibly Upper Warlingham).

Thanks for bringing back many happy memories; were the blackberries still fruiting or has the hot weather finished them off as it has in our garden here in Essex?

John Simmons | 17.09.16 - 5:22 p.m. | #

You write beautifully when it suits your purpose, dg. Thank you.

I enjoy your other writing also!

Suse | 17.09.16 - 8:23 p.m. | #

You should have walked on the public footpath which goes down the side of the quarry to the A22 - this is possibly the steepest footpath in Greater London and also crosses the railway on a level crossing. Does anyone know of any other footpath level crossings in Greater London?

Paul | 18.09.16 - 2:18 p.m. | #











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