Straight out of Compton… Surrey, that is… :)
Not a blue cloud in sight on this beautiful winter's day.
Our beautiful country – it doesn’t always rain in Britain
I love where we live, so much so that my husband almost has to drag me kicking and screaming from our house whenever I’m home.
However, I’m so glad he did drag me away this weekend. It was our first properly cold day this winter and while it was nose-numbingly cold, it was also a blazingly bright and sunny day, with the sky an azure blue more reminiscent of the Med than Britain.
I’d just finished writing my 100th post and I Slurp for Noodles competition, and as soon as I hit the ‘publish’ button, we chucked on our jumpers, hats, gloves, scarves and boots and headed out the door for a long walk in the countryside.
I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the recipe. I made a crumbly banana walnut, and cranberry cake which I still need to type up so it’ll be posted tomorrow. The rest of the weekend was spent outdoors as much as possible, followed by lunch with the family today. So for now, I thought I’d just share some pictures from our walk.
One of the many typically English houses you'll find in Compton, Surrey.
Compton, Surrey
We live 5 minutes from Compton, a little village in the county of Surrey, which is in South East England.
Whenever we drive through it though, I inevitably think of Compton USA because of Ice Cube and crew’s rap track Straight out of Compton by N.W.A. But while they share the same name, they couldn’t be any more different… As Winter’s still got a stranglehold for some months yet, I was really worried that all I’d see would be dead trees, dead leaves, dead plants etc. This couldn’t have been further from the truth but I’ll let the photos do the talking today… enjoy.
Lots of love
thebigfatnoodle
Saturday, 14 Jan @ 2pm: As soon as we got out of our car, I immediately snapped a picture of the ground as all the grass and foliage were still covered in frost. This is the picture exactly as I took it without any messing about with contrasts etc.
30 seconds later, I took a picture of this mossy knoll. I absolutely adore this photo because all of the various shades of green were so bright and beautiful.
Every time we go for a walk, my husband has to start by finding some walking sticks. In the past, one sturdy one would do, and we used to call it his 'Gandalf' stick. More recently, he's taken to using two at a time, like some kind of Scandinavian cross country hiker.
What nature of beast is this??? I didn't know Compton had its own mysterious monster!?!!
As we gradually left the country lane, we started aiming for higher ground. Less muddy too.
I have a fascination with fallen trees. I can spend hours staring at the texture of the exposed roots, trunk or branches. This is a picture of the fallen tree that is visible in the picture above. A holly bush was starting to cover the exposed base of the tree but unfortunately my iPhone wasn't good enough to really capture the brightness of the red berries against the grey/brownish tree trunk.
As we walked further and further away from the road, I started playing 'spot the rabbit hole'.
Alice! Alice? Are you in there? Hellllooooooo....!???
Can you spot the grey squirrel in the picture? It is there... look carefully (it is however very, very small)
And then we hit another mossy patch. Isn't that green amazing? it was so soft too.
Then we hit a slightly creepy part of the countryside. Blair Witch anyone?
Thankfully, the other half of creepy forest looked much less so as it had sunlight streaming through it. Amazing how light and dark can make such a difference to an otherwise innocent space.
There'd been a news story that there'd been a shortage of holly at Christmas due to the warm weather. They obviously didn't know about this place then. These holly bushes had become trees and were overladen with big red berries.
And then we finally hit open ground with not an animal or person in sight.
This was the last farm we walked past, which is actually just in the main part of Compton. It was almost 4pm by this time and the ground was still covered in frost. I have played around with the clarity of this photo to make the colours pop a lot more.
And finally, we got a bit excited when we saw this sign but we don't know if they genuinely rear Charolais cattle. I hope so!
That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed joining us on a walk through our ‘hood’. LOL.
thebigfatnoodle 
Lovely photos, it would be so awesome to see Compton one day! What monster was that 😉
Thank you. It’s a beautiful part of Southeast England and I hope you get to visit it someday.
We lived in the southeast for 3 years nearly 10 years ago. These lovely photos bring back so many memories!
Cool, glad I helped bring back some happy memories.
Beautiful, beautiful photos.
Thank you. I have really shaky hands so my pictures can sometimes be quite hit or miss. I was lucky they stayed steady during our walk!
Beautiful photos!
🙂 Mandy
Thanks. I love where I live 🙂
Beautiful images and spectacular countryside. What kind of trees are those (creepy) “Y” shaped ones, anyway?
Oh dear, I don’t know!?!! But I have a friend who is a tree surgeon so I’ll check and let you know. I’m a city girl born and bred so am still getting to know the countryside 🙂
I think when any American, including myself, hears the word Compton, LA is the first thought that comes to mind. Now I know there is somewhere else in this world to think about. Thanks for sharing the beautiful pics!
My pleasure. I always love it when multiple places have the same name but are completely different… 🙂
What amazingly beautiful pictures!! Wow!!!
Thank you, it was a really beautiful day and I’m glad I got to show you the countryside.