Today’s stroll could so easily not have happened. Mick & I managed to motivate ourselves to drive up to Louise’s house, but having passed through some heavy showers on the way we started suggesting some modifications to the plans, the least ambitious of which was to spend the day sitting in Louise’s living room drinking tea and eating cake.
Tea was duly drunk in said living room as a few more showers passed, but when a sunny period finally appeared we gave each other a pep talk and out of the door we went.
We made it as far as the car park from where our walk was to start but didn’t take a single step before deciding that it was time to stop for lunch. Another shower came in just as we were finishing lunch, and we giggled at the thought of our outing being transformed from a walk to just a picnic, but Mick was acting as chief motivator and after a jacket-faff, off we strode.
The most notable thing about today’s walk was how similar it was in appearance to Cannock Chase! There was mixed woodland, with a good smattering of silver birch trees, lots of bracken and tracks of a very similar ilk to our local stomping ground. Admittedly, on Cannock Chase we don’t have a loch (which you can only just see through the trees in the snap below), but that’s only because the Chase is in England and therefore it has ‘big ponds’ instead.
As a result of the time of year, everything was very green, which greenery often prevented any views, even when we were standing on a rise. Every now and then there was a gap in the trees and then the views were fine. Unfortunately, you can’t see the features in this little snap. It really was quite lovely!
When we joined the disused railway line which was to take us back to our start point, in amongst the many plants lining the path, there were wild strawberries and wild raspberries aplenty (with the blackberries developing nicely to take their place in a few weeks’ time). Jolly tasty they were too. I would claim that the cake we had at our cake-stop was jolly tasty too, but that would be immodest, as I made it!
For the second day in a row, I went for a walk without a map and so left all of the navigation to Louise and she made an excellent job of it, duly delivering us back to our starting point after 6.9 miles of walking (with just a modest 400’ of up) and without any backtracking required. The only downside to our enjoyable outing were the showers which continued to pass through, followed by the warmth of sunshine. Mustn’t grumble, thought – we named any number of combinations of weather conditions, which would have been worse.
(I would have included more photos and a map, but I seem to have used a big chunk of the mobile internet limit already, so I’m economising today!)
Well, I thought the flapjack was in fact jolly tasty, you must send me the recipe ;-D
ReplyDeleteThank you, I had another lovely day and lovely walk with lovely company. Seeing as our pitch rates are so cheap, we'll see you again soon I hope!