I had reached the point where if I didn’t get out for a proper walk I might scream. Celia, whose knee has been uncooperative (feel free to comment Celia, I really wish you would!), has been having to rest and recuperate, rather than walking any distance. I decided I would either go to Kew, or preferably do my favourite Guildford circular via Compton. I felt confident I could do either without getting lost.

As luck would have it, my cousin Russell was free and wanted to go to a sound event at the Watts’ Chapel at Compton, so the choice was easy. The weather was wonderful. My thin fleece spent the whole day in my bag, and had there been room, my jacket would have joined it there too. We approached the top of The Mount by a slightly different route, so missed Lewis Carroll’s grave.

Below us Guildford cathedral, and my old school.

We walked along the edge of fields, fussed and were fussed over by a spaniel cross called Mimmi who, we were told, can be standoffish, and ignores dogs she thinks are ugly.

With the crops harvested, the fields were meadows of colour. I probably rhapsodised a bit too much for Russell, and irritated him by repeatedly wondering what the fluffy mauve plant was when neither he nor I knew the answer.

Down the hill, past the farm house and into the woods, before we reached the next lots of open ground where horses grazed. Before long, the roof of the Watts gallery came into view. I stood on my toes and lifted the camera above the hedge.

This was our lunch destination. By the shop and framer, the decorative pumpkins caught more eyes than mine.

We ate our food outside. Unusually I had a coffee. It was good. Then because Russell wanted to look at something else, we went round a corner where I haven’t ventured for some time, and there was a piece by Mary Branson I hadn’t seen before. I really liked it. She designed it while working as artist in residence at Watts’, a position Russell has also enjoyed.

There are mosaics designed by George Frederick Watts in St Paul’s cathedral, and Nelson Mandela had a print of his painting Hope on the wall of his cell on Robben Island. Still, as an artist, I don’t rate him very highly. I do like this quote though.

So we didn’t go into the actual Watts’ gallery space. Instead, we visited the exhibition of cartoons by The Times political cartoonist Peter Brookes. There were many we enjoyed, but I only photographed one.

While I don’t rate GF Watts very highly, I think his wife Mary was amazing. Here are a couple of pictures of the interior of the cemetery chapel she designed and decorated, working with members of the local community in Compton. One day I may yet take some pictures which do it justice.

The sound installation failed to engage me, but that may have been because there were quite a few people there, most of them chatting. Then onward we went, passing the house with the enormous garden and the equally enormous keep out hedges, down the steps into the lane which would, had we turned left, taken us back to the woods we walked through earlier, and onto Loseley.