Saturday 2 October 21
DH, RW, BFS, PC, DL, Sully & Scrumpy
After some lovely walks over the last few months it was only inevitable that the weather would turn at some point, and the pleasure of walking in shorts and T-shirt would be over for another year. And so on the first Saturday in October, despite a beautiful day previous, the grey skies and heavy downpours greeted us this week.
A 20 mile drive west on the A303 with wipers on at full speed most of the way, we arrived on top of Ham Hill Country Park as yet another downpour started. Prior messages on the WhatsApp group the night before ensured that everyone was suitable equipped, so with waterproof coats, trousers and boots on, hats on or hoods up, we set off total prepared to get totally soaked for the next hour or so. With general words of encouragement like ‘well what else would you be doing on a Saturday morning’ or ‘the dogs needed walking anyway’, we passed across the front of the Prince of Wales pub, noting the outside tables we would not be sitting at later and headed off through the woods to the open fields on the eastern side of the park. Although the rain was steady it wasn’t quite as heavy as we feared it would be and we made good progress slightly sheltered by the large trees on the left side. Rounding the top the wind started driving the rain more into our faces but thankfully it dropped off quite considerably to allow a pleasant walk back down to the entrance gate. A brief discussion about extending the route through the woods or heading to the warmth and shelter of the pub met with a unanimous decision that breakfast and a warm drink would be more beneficial than an extra 30 minutes walking this week. So after a brief stop by the “fertility stones” for this weeks selfie and having walked just short of 2 miles, we were soon disrobing out of our wet atire and seated around the large wooden table inside the very dog friendly bar awaiting our well earned replacement calories.
A short wait whilst we discussed a wide range of subjects ranging from the optimum weight at which pigs should be slaughtered and the demise of the local markets, to the quality of meat & fish in the USA and to the professional competence, or not, of the current Home Secretary, we were soon tucking in to a fine breakfast which included our first ever triangular black pudding. With the ability to take in dogs and the prospect of a roaring fire in the winter combined with a highly respectable average score of 8.4, this is certainly somewhere we’ll be coming back to. PS Thanks for the pot of tea Pete!
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