Guildford Safari

Well here's an unexpected sight. Where did I find this, somewhere in the Highlands? No, this magnificent if rather flighty beast is pictured within sight of central Guildford.

(This is the first occasion in my long association with cattle that I have had to exit a field at more than walking pace. Fresians and Holstein cattle are generally well behaved, and perhaps these Highland cattle were just feeling a bit lively, but its those horns I respect)

Here we are just outside Guidford, quite close to the cattle on top of St Catherine's Hill. The hill is a curiosity, the road and railway cut though it and the river skirts its lower edge. It appears to be made of one huge pile of  yellow-brown Folkstone sand, and is responsible for a sand slick that reaches right down to the river.

Atop the hill you find the 14th century St Catherine's Chapel, site of the old St Catherine's fair and part of the Pilgrm's Way.

Consider the Medieval pilgrim if you visit St Catherine's Hill and survey the valley, the cattle and the Chapel:

Here's part of Chaucer's "Prologue to the Canterbury Tales" for your delight..

When April with his showers sweet with fruit 
The drought of March has pierced unto the root 
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power 
To generate therein and sire the flower; 
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath, 
Quickened again, in every holt and heath, 
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun 
Into the Ram one half his course has run, 
And many little birds make melody 
That sleep through all the night with open eye 
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)- 
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage...

Who says we don't do Culture here on Snaarman's Blog :-)

By the way, St Catherine's Village is a distinct and separate area of Guildford and even boasts its own village website (as is fasionable these days...)

Thus, my third subject is Daffodils at Sunset on the hill overlooking the village...