A long country walk

Last Sunday, Mark and I drove out to Kent with Laszlo to meet up with a couple of friends for a long country walk. After a bit of initial confusion – Katrina missed her train, so we had to go and pick her up from Sevenoaks rather than start our walk at Knockholt as we'd planned, then the GPS system took us the long way round to Sevenoaks from Knockholt, where we'd been waiting – we set off from the car park at Knole House, a splendid Jacobean mansion that once belonged to Vita Sackville-West's family.

The house (small castle, really) is surrounded by a deer park, a fact we weren't initially aware of until Laszlo disappeared over the horizon in search of new friends (or possibly fresh venison – it's kind of hard to tell what's going on in his little furry mind sometimes). By the time we'd reclaimed him, we were already 1/4 of a mile into our walk.

We then tramped through some woods, down a length of road, then skirted the edge of a golf course for the best part of an hour. The highlight of the pre-lunch bit of the walk came as we passed along the fringe of one of the holes. Two young guys were teeing off several hundred metres away, and I don't think they'd played much golf before because one of them hit the ball off course. It banged into a tree just in front of us, then dropped to the ground like a stone. Laszlo was on it like greased canine lightning, and scooped it up. He was about to bugger off with his prize when I leaped on him and got him to drop the thing. We apologised to the golfers, who at least had a sense of humour about it and didn't seem too angry.

Lunch was a not-terribly-healthy salad in a pub in a small village. The prawn and avocado salad looked like the safest bet on the menu, but the prawns came covered in gloopy Marie Rose sauce. Still, it was a pleasant enough spot for a bite (and a pint for everyone else – I stuck to a spiced tomato juice).

Refreshed, we set off again, and ended up in some dense woodland. The paths were very muddy, not to mention steep, so we slithered uphill and back down for a while – I was feeling the effects on the backs of my thighs by this stage, and was discreetly trying to catch my breath at the top of each hill. Katrina, just back from a walking holiday in the Breacon Beacons was having no such problems, and was striding along, OS map in hand. Lasz (right, in the Easter snow), too, was in fine form, bouncing along, running from the front of the pack to the back to check we were all making it alright. Then, just as we came to the end of the woods, we stumbled across a house that had chickens pecking around loose in the front garden. Laszlo saw them before we did, and was off. Mark took off after him and, for a minute or two, we were entertained by the sight of Mark chasing after Lasz, who was in hot pursuit of a terrified hen. He wouldn't have known what to do with one had he caught it, so I wasn't too worried (nor was the owner, luckily) and eventually Mark grabbed him and put him on the lead.

By the time we got back to the car park, we'd walked about six strenuous miles. We all slept well that night, particularly Lasz, who twitched strenuously in his sleep. I'm not sure whether he was dreaming about chasing deer, golf balls or chooks.