The Handbag Walks, Part 1

Bank Holiday Monday, so, ignoring the threat of rain, J and I decided to go for a walk. As usual, this began with lunch. It actually started with a trip to B&Q and then to the garden centre, which has a coffee shop. I did think of suggesting coffee, but as J pointed out once we were on the road, ‘I guess we’ll be there just in time for lunch’. And we were, walking into the Blackwell Ox pretty much on the dot of 12.

After lunch (very nice) we were off, opting for the shortest of the walks in my book, because, you know, it might rain. I decided to Christen the walking boots. For the first few hundred yards, they felt strange on my feet, ‘look, my feet, they feel odd, my feet are protesting at what they’re wearing’.

We headed off the road, down a track and across a field, talking about Florence, Paris and food. Quite a bit later, J looked at the book. ‘It says here, ‘at a cross track…after 300 yards’. We’d walked a lot more than 300 yards. Hmmm, maybe we’d better turn back. As we walked back towards the village we couldn’t see any sign of a track, or a gap in the opposite hedge that we were supposed to go through. Finally, after two fields, we found it – it was well hidden though!

We crossed the field, and subsequently a rape field, before coming out to the road and a nature reserve. Very quickly, it seemed we were back in the village. It was only two miles (or, in my head, two and a half, because of our detour), so we must be fitter than we thought.

Afterwards – well, we went for tea, of course.