Renate Maddox-Born led this week’s walk and wrote the following description.
Whilst the weather forecast for the day promised us a warm, mostly sunny day, 15 of us, including three guest walkers, set off from the Pavilion under a cloudy sky feeling a little chilly. We walked down Portway, crossed the main road and stepped over the stone style heading for the open fields between Aynho and Souldern. A section of wall had collapsed and almost completely obliterated the narrow path but after some careful scrambling over the scattered stones we were soon in the fields watched carefully by a magnificent fallow deer. We walked along accompanied by the eerie sound of young buzzards and a number of red kites circling overhead. On our approach to Souldern we noticed a number of combine harvesters parked in some of the neighbouring fields. By the time we reached the canal towpath, having walked over the motorway bridge and through the farm, the sun started to make an appearance. The relatively long grass on the footpath along the viaduct and leading to Lower Aynho Ground made the going quite tough and by the time we had climbed up the side of the road back into the village with the sun beaming down on us with its full midday strength, we all felt very warm indeed. The crops in the fields along the Charlton Road were being harvested, spewing clouds of dust into the air in the process. Accordingly, the refreshments on offer on our return to the Pavilion were the perfect and very welcome remedy after a long, brisk walk, dusty air and midday sun.