The North Downs Way - Borstal to Wouldham...

At this time of year, the North Downs Way overlooking Ringshill Farm offers lovely views across the River Medway towards Cuxton and Halling...

The Medway Bridge...

The Medway Bridge...

Cuxton and the marina...

North Halling and Bores Hole...

Halling and the river...

Panorama across the Medway valley...

Ringshill Farm has been run by the Gore family since 1934, and they have recently been able to buy the land outright. Hopefully, in these challenging times, they will be able to continue managing the land as they have done for the last 90 years.  

Field Poppies, North Downs Way...

Field Poppies, North Downs Way...

Towards Halling...

St. Andrews estate and lake...

Information board, Wouldham Common...

Towards Halling from Wouldham Common... 

Unfortunately this view is in danger of being lost as the trees are growing quite fast and will soon screen off the river from view...

Rosebay Willowherb, Wouldham Common...

Ragwort...

Ragwort is one of those plants whose dangers stemming from its toxicity are grossly exaggerated. This was largely due to the Daily Mail*, which whipped up a load of hysteria about Ragwort, just to fill up a few column inches for its ever-credulous readership back in 2007** (and in subsequent occasional rehashes of the same rubbish). As a result, many of the horsey community now take it as an article of faith that Ragwort is lethal to their pets, even though in practice it seems that a horse (or any other large mammal) would have to be starving to eat Ragwort as it apparently tastes very bitter to them.  

That doesn't stop some people getting very angry about it, however, and such zealots would like to see this rather beautiful wildflower eradicated. Such drastic action would also bring about the eradication of the Cinnabar moth, whose colourful orange and black striped caterpillars feed on Ragweed along with many other insects, but hey, that's a small price to pay to possibly, maybe, keep our horses safe, eh?

A debunk of the myths around ragwort can be found here.

*so often a source of misinformation and "fake news", to the extent that Wikipedia still refuses to use it...

**I would include a link to the aforementioned 2007 article, but unless you are prepared to spend ages blocking consent to all of its "vendors", the MailOnLine will download so many "cookies" onto your computer/phone/iPad that I would not be at all  surprised if it exploded!