‘I’m going to stop saying we need to have adventures’

I’d sort of agreed with V that we’d go walking on Saturday, but was a bit doubtful about it when I saw the weather forecast. ‘They say it’s going to snow, you know!’

But we agreed that we’d go, and picked a walk out of the book. As usual, ‘walking’ started off with us stopping for lunch in Stillington, before heading through Helmsley (‘no shopping, that’s afterwards’), to Kirkdale and St Gregory’s Minster.

The sun was still shining as we set off, though it was very cold. I was looking particularly stylish (!) in a headscarf (I couldn’t find a hat, and reckoned that a headscarf was suitable ‘country set’), as we crossed a stream, or rather a raging torrent, by an old mill, and (oh yes) it started to snow.

We crossed a field in a blizzard, and walked down a very muddy track through the woods. Suffice to say, my walking shoes are looking a bit grubby these days. As we read ahead, we could see that it said that we had to cross a ford at the end of the walk, but it never occurred to us that what we were going to have to ‘ford’ was the raging torrent from earlier. Well, not until we pretty much reached the bank.

As we stood looking at it, a chap with a very large dog came by. He said that the only way round was a detour up the hill, which he reckoned would take us about 20 mins (ok, double that then), but then he waded across to see how deep it was, as at least he had wellies on.

As he crossed, it became apparent that it was going to be over the tops of our shoes. ‘I could always carry you’ – bless him, I don’t think it was a serious offer so we politely declined. We let him cross, and get out of sight, as we debated.

‘Are we going for it?’
‘Yes, I think so’.

So we rolled the trousers up, and advanced into the river, with me in the lead. ‘It’s ok, still dry, yep, still okay…right, now I’m not’.

It was flowing pretty strongly, and was also green underfoot, so there was a risk of falling, but by this time there was quite a bit of shrieking and we were laughing hysterically.

Amazingly, we both made it safely to the other side, and squelched up the hill and back to the car, with feet that actually felt quite warm. As I sat and wrung the water out of my socks, we both admitted that what drove the decision to cross was the fact that we needed to have time to shop. Shame that when we went in the lovely Italian shoe shop, I daren’t take my shoes off to try any of them on.