travel arrangements and the firing of bells

'what a change in the weather from yesterday!' - kilvert's diary, 9th may 1871

it's a coolish morning out in the wilds. horsemouth has been out to unleash the chickens and moved the broken legged chicken down to the old garden. rabbits frolic. no sheep. there's a woodpecker on the bird-feeder.

only one broad bean plant seems to have come up (so far). horsemouth is debating where to put it. the beetroot and the sweet-peas seem to be doing well. he's planted out about half the beetroot that has come up so far. 

the delivery from TESCO has just been. so far it has all been utterly painless.  the  cost of a delivery compares favourably with the cost of getting a bus into town. 

and today (as it will be) mum wants to go into town. horsemouth will probably go too (there may be books to be bought etc. - ok there's a second hand bookshop down a side street he hasn't tried yet). 

ok so horsemouth is thinking about getting back to the wilds of herefordshire from the soft white underbelly gig in london on saturday the 24th. 

the sunday/ bank holiday monday conundrum

now the 25th is a sunday so pretty much no buses and the 26th is the late spring bank holiday  so pretty much no buses. the online timetable shows buses running on the 26th but horsemouth does not believe it and uk.gov says the 26th is definitely a bank holiday. and horsemouth knows there are no buses on bank holidays round here (he has been caught before). 

how about walking it?

hereford to abbeydore is a mere 12 miles on the A465. (so a mere 4 hours by shanks's pony)

but there does seem to be a bus that runs sundays and bank holidays (to hay-on-wye) via vowchurch - now vowchurch (on that route) is a mere five miles (or so - if horsemouth can get dropped off at the turning for the croft onto the B4347) from horsemouth's.  so the best part of two hours. 

further his brother has left behind an ordinance survey map of the neighbourhood which indicates that there is a path that is not the road (though horsemouth may not trust his map reading skills enough to take it).  the vowchurch junction he is familiar with once he gets to bacton he definitely knows where he is. 

horsemouth has also discovered there's a 426 bus to sutton st. nicholas from hereford so visiting his friend richard wildhare is possible. 

last night at the bell-ringing a discussion of the firing of bells where they are all rung simultaneously (as recently done for VE day) which strikes horsemouth as a very difficult thing to do. horsemouth is making progress (he is relieved to say)