A legionary’s perspective ***with track***

Tanners Hatch hostel is nestled in the North Downs. It’s secluded and still and evokes a feeling of the past. Leaving it I headed inevitably back into the present. Not for long, however, as I found that the path leading me up and around Box Hill was Stane Street – that same Roman road I had climbed along on the way to Amberley and that I had been carried along twice in the bus between Bucks Green and Horsham. (And if anyone is saying ‘Bus?’, yes it was, but only to get from and to Bucks Green at the end of a day and the beginning of the next. There’s no cheating on theendtoendblog!)

Anyway, there was this intrepid Roman legionary, half way from Chichester to London, marching along quietly minding his own business, when suddenly he hears, “Excuse me, but could you pass me my ball?” “Haltus quickus”, yells the centurion, and there, right in front of the column is this small spherical white object. And leaning over the fence is a native, clad in the obligatory native garb and clasping in his hand what appears to be a weapon of war – a stick-like thing with a curved metal end. “This is Tyrrells Green Golf Course”, he says.

The day as a whole wasn’t a memorable one. Simply a few less forgettable interludes in a sequence of ever more suburban experiences. More about some of those later.

Ranmore to Surbiton

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