Evans is a place on Earth: TADS #28:Great Missenden to Amersham (or Tarka and Roald:A Tale of Two Dahls).

"Tremendous things are in store for you. Wonderful surprises await you" - Roald Dahl.

"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men" - Roald Dahl.

"Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn't be exciting if they didn't" - Roald Dahl.

The Red Lion in Little Missenden turned out to be one of the best beer gardens we've visited since we started this TADS malarkey (right up there with those at The Shepherd and Dog in Fulking and Wolvercote's Trout Inn.With a little lake full of ducks, coots, and fish, a garden full of rusted farm machinery, an excellent selection of ales, and big fat tasty chips we could hardly have wished for a better pit stop on our second outing of the 2019 season.

It proved an excellent place, not just for refreshment, but for reflection, laughter, and relaxation too. It had been a tough and emotional couple of weeks for a few of us, one of our very best friends is gravely ill in hospital, and, if nothing else, his situation gave us a sharp perspective on our own privilege. One that allows us to spend our Saturdays walking in the countryside, visiting pub gardens, and eating curry. It's pretty easy to take stuff for granted. Life has a very cruel way of reminding you you shouldn't do this.

Of far less importance, I was also able to relax a little more than normal as, for the first time since we waved goodbye to the old pre-written guidebook, somebody else, Adam, had agreed to take charge of the walk. I had mixed feelings about this. It was nice to let someone else do the work, take on the 'stress' of organisation, and take the blame if it goes tits up. But, equally, I kind of missed being 'in charge', being the 'benign dictator'. It was like being the songwriter of a band and letting the bassist have a go at writing a song on the new album. I even worried I'd be jealous if he did TOO good a job of it.

To be fair to Adam, he knocked the ball clean out of the park and, to be fair to myself, I wasn't jealous at all. In fact I absolutely loved it, taking a backseat and only heckling him about three times all day (considerably less than he normally does, AND STILL FUCKING DID, me)! But credit where it's due, he did a brilliant job and I'll be needing to raise my game when we head out down the Kennet from Hungerford to Newbury next month.

I'd woken bright eyed and bushy-tailed on Saturday morning after a lovely day out at the zoo (!) with Valia on Friday. Coco pops and tea consumed, I took the Overground to Canada Water, Jubilee to Bond Street, and walked up to Marylebone for a sandwich, a packet of crisps, and a can of Coke before meeting up with, first Adam and Teresa, and then Shep, Pam, Kathy, and Rachael (the latter two for the first time this year) on the train. Neil, Eamon, and Catherine (a TADS debutante - our sixteenth inductee so far) joined us at Great Missenden station but Bee had somewhat overdone it watching Idles at the Electric Ballroom (and then in The Good Mixer) the night before so had phoned in sick. Poor Bee, she doesn't have much luck in the Chilterns, having had to return home comparatively early last year with a migraine during our lengthy Wendover to Berkhamsted schlep.

There were ten of us, Adam had managed to drag out four more than I managed on last month's Gomshall to Dorking trek (although he'd managed to 'lose' two by the end), and once people had sorted out their coffee and toilet needs in the station (just a Twix for me) we departed back over the railway lines and left in to Trafford Road before soon taking a sharp left up Whitefield Lane and stopping outside a large, if none too flashy house.

This, according to Adam, is where Roald Dahl lived out the last three decades of his life. Born in Llandaff, near Cardiff, to Norwegian parents and, after living and working in Canada and Kenya, becoming a WWII 'fighter ace', and marrying in New York City in 1953, he eventually settled down in this pretty, affluent, but not too in-your-face, Buckinghamshire village. There are only two thousand permanent residents but the Dahl connection brings many more visitors.

The author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and The Giant Peach, the BFF, the Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, the Twits, and George's Marvellous Medicine now has a (see below) 'SWIZZFIGGLINGLY FLUSHBUNKINGLY GLORIUMPTIOUS' museum in his honour on the High Street which we soon passed. Unfortunately, we didn't have time for a visit. As a child, like most of us, I loved Dahl's books, his play with words, his slightly macabre imagination, his dedication to remaining a childlike sense of awe, and his love for the infinite possibilities that we're presented with every moment of our lives.

We continued along the High Street, passing the picturesque (Hopperesque) Red Pump Garage and Matlida's Bistro Cafe (of course there's a cafe called Matilda's in Great Missenden, why wouldn't there be?) before cutting off through a particularly verdant picnic area replete with curvaceous benches.

From here we crossed the A413 and continued on uphill to St Peter and St Paul's Church. Dahl's final resting spot proved to be a pretty one as hillside graveyards tend to be. Buried among Great Missenden's surprisingly large Polish community we took a while to find Dahl's grave. It's nothing ostentatious but the cement footprints of a BFG leading down to it were an obvious clue as were the pencils, magnifying glasses, and coins (?) that adorned it.

Buried in front of Mr Dahl is one 'LOOPY' (not GLOOPY, Augustus fans) and we sat for a moment taking photographs, eating sandwiches, and soaking in the views across the Misbourne Valley. I was now absolutely confident that I had delegated well!

We left the magnificent and imposing church via some fields on its South East side and worked our way up, first, a long, slow hill and then, eventually, a rather steep section. We'd wind through these rolling Chiltern hills, mostly open but occasionally popping into woodlands, for the next hour or so before we descended down to the Misbourne itself and, eventually, Little Missenden. If you think Great Missenden is a looker, you should meet her lil' sister!

The Misbourne itself ain't much. More a brook or a stream than a river. You could ride a pushbike through it, even wade across. But it's cute enough. It flows from the other side of Great Missenden and eventually, at Denham (near Uxbridge), joins the Colne before emptying out, of course, into the mighty Thames itself.

Contrary to its name, Little Missenden actually has a slightly larger population than Great Missenden but it doesn't feel like it. The houses are spread out and some, the mansions, stand some distance back from the road. You're greeted by the Parish Church of St John the Baptist, a couple of wild chickens, and a fingerpost that could, with its leafy beard, represent either King Neptune, God, or some local luminary - but the sight that warmed us the most was that of the aforementioned Red Lion.

Roald Dahl once said that "having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it" and Adam proved more than equal to this maxim by offering to get a round in for all ten walkers. Certainly a generous act but also, quite frankly, a dangerous precedent and one I'll struggle to emulate throughout the rest of the year.

I'll certainly struggle to find a pint quite so mouthwatering as the bizarrely named 'Side Pocket of a Toad'. Several of us consumed these as we watched families eat chips, beans, and fish fingers and the various wildlife/livestock parade around the lake and garden. Out front of the pub there were statues (both classical and more worthy of yesterday's zoo visit) alongside a mangle, and London street signs. Compare that with the rusty farm machinery and collection of saws, chains, and general serial killer tools hanging up in the back garden and you had the best collection of bric-a-brac/tat in any pub I've been in since the Black Boy in Winchester. It was as if David Smith and Salvador Dali had collaborated on the design, but got carried away on the Side Pocket of a Toad.

It was almost too pleasant a spot to leave - but leave we had to. So leave we did. Kathy and Rachael for good. They weren't up for the full walk so they followed the South Bucks Way back to Amersham (I'd like to have caught up with them a bit more but I'm so glad they joined us) as we, promptly, missed our turning (affording me, at last, a chance to heckle) and had to go back on ourselves.

We took a footpath that led us, for some time (or was that the pint talking) up a long hill into Penn Wood. We passed potato farms, large country retreats, and a garishly painted green shed and Pam got over excited posting a customer satisfaction survey to Chiltern Railways. Each to their own!

Penn Wood was a sparsely forested area, full of unseasonably crisp (almost autumnal) brown leaves and dog walkers. It opened up on to another green and, by jingo, another pub. The Squirrel. Even I'm not normally this generous with ale houses - and it's long been observed that I'm hardly of an abstemious nature.

The Squirrel didn't look all that from the outside but inside it was toasty (was starting to get chilly out too) and a kindly staff member vacated the spot she was supping her soup in so all eight of us could spread out around the table. With a pint of Exeter 'Fraid Not on the go and having puffed up a selection of their squirrel based cushions we took to putting the world to rights. Discussing love, religion, evil, psychopathy, and Frank Sidebottom. The chat was so good it, inevitably, led to a second pint.

It so often does. Watered and warmed, and now (the men especially) needing to stop for constant urination breaks, we continued on towards Winchmore Hill (a village not without some tempting looking pubs itself) and Coleshill before taking a speedy walk in to Amersham proper. Catherine leading the way at a fierce pace considering she'd been out with Bee at the Idles gig the night before.

Along the way I pondered a bus shelter so vernacular it looked like a bus shelter a child would draw if asked to draw a picture of one. It was so plain and unadorned it touched me and it reminded me of one of the very first times I met one of my best mates Bugsy who then spent half an hour describing just how average a brown paper bag he'd found floating around the school playground was. The memory made me laugh.

As is the way with these walks, by the time we reached Amersham (and TADS were here once before back in 2015, before the whole blogging business took off) there wasn't a lot of time to look around. Our plans to visit the grave of Tadley legend, and last woman in Britain to be hanged, Ruth Ellis were abandoned for a trip to some toilets outside Tesco. We even ditched a third pub visit and went straight to Spice Society.

Bangla was unavailable but Cobras and Kingfishers were consumed, poppadums destroyed, and I took a tarka dahl (I had to really), pulao rice, and a naan bread. The restaurant was warm, the staff were friendly, and the food was above average rather than exceptional. All in all it made a lovely final fuelling station.

On exiting it proved to be a pretty steep, and lengthy, walk back to Amersham station (Amersham is split in two like Bergamo or something, Spice Society in Old Amersham, station in New Amersham) and there were very real fears we'd miss the train. With Neil, Eamon, and Catherine taking the Metropolitan Line they were able to drop back as Shep, Adam, Pam (whose photos have been used in this blog alongside mine own - hers are the good ones), Teresa, and myself ploughed on reaching the station with minutes (rather than seconds, like in Wadhurst, 2017) to spare.

On a darkened carriage of the train we played Heads Up (now something of an occasional TADS tradition) sans 'train booze' and this passed the time nicely. We were soon in Marylebone where Adam and Teresa took the Bakerloo north and Shep, Pam, and myself took it south. Pam got off at Oxford Circus, Shep at Waterloo, and I went all the way to Elephant & Castle before taking the 63 bus home and going straight to bed.

Before midnight too. But I'd had a great day and I can't wait to do it again. I want to thank everyone who came for making it such a lovely afternoon and evening but, especially, I want to thank Adam for really pulling a rabbit out of a hat in a walk that was as magical as the writings of Roald Dahl himself. To celebrate let's end with some more lovely quotes from the great man (Roald that is, not Adam, sorry mate)!