Pete’s Walks

7/7/07

Having enjoyed looking at the wildflowers at Totternhoe Knolls during my walk on Thursday, I decided to go back and spend more time there today. Looking on the internet, I found there were supposed to be several species of flowers that I’d missed, and that there was another Nature Reserve about half a mile away in an old chalk quarry. Altogether I spent almost 4 hours going round the two reserves. Didn’t find some of the orchids that are supposed to be there, but found lots of Common Twayblade, an orchid I’d not seen before. Stinking Iris was another new find for me. I thought I’d found something exotic – turned out to be Honeysuckle!

Managed to get some better photos of some other flowers that I’ll eventually put on my web site. I’ve also now managed to identify some of the new flowers I saw on my walk two days ago, including White Bryony, Brideswort and Purple Toadflax.

6/7/07

This afternoon I went to Hughenden Manor, near High Wycombe, a National Trust property that was the home of Benjamin Disraeli. I went with my parents, and my niece Emily who is staying with us for a week or so.

The house was basically Georgian, with a few Victorian modifications. It’s in a nice setting on a hill between steep Chiltern valleys, reminded me of several places I visited on my recent Chiltern Way walk. A larger house than Grey’s Court which we visited last week, there were 5-6 rooms open downstairs and a further 4 on the first floor. Lots of memorabilia about Disraeli, including several gifts from Queen Victoria – I hadn’t realised she had liked him so much. It was all very interesting, and I’d like to now get a biography of Disraeli and find out more about him.