Them shoes aren’t made for walking

Sat 25 Oct ‘25. DH, RW, TO, JB, CH, JS, Scrumpy & Maisie

Having ventured further afield and with just small numbers in the last few weeks, it was good to be more local again and with a solid group of six of us ready and raring to go. My usual, method of sorting out each weeks walk these days is to find the cafe first and then sort out a route. I keep a list of dates we have visited tall the fifty plus cafes we have used to date but am always on the look out for a new venue to try out. As such my initial plans this week were to park at and try the cafe at The Lighthouse, at Thyrington just south of Frome. Having walked past it on a walk about a year ago, it seemed ideal to do the loop in reverse this time. Unfortunetly the cafe is currently closed whilst the main property is on the market, so plan B was to walk the same area but go to Gouldy08 at Critchell afterwards. A quick enquiry returned a negative response there also as they would be closed for the next three weeks. Not wanting to give up totally I opted to repeat the route and RV from last time but just walk the opposite direction on the end, followed by breakfast at Nunney Catch cafe.

And so having communicated the changes to all, with a Wincanton car of four and two from Ansford/Pitcombe, we met at 0830 by the church at Marston Bigot. I had already decided we would go anti clockwise this week which would allow us to walk the roads first before heading across the fields and grounds of the nearby Marston House to return. This decision was made all the more necessary when Richard came across to our car with his normal cheery greeting but extended with the question ‘Idon’t suppose anyone has any spare boots do they’? It turns out that having got his walking gear all ready at home and positioned by his front door, that when Trevor turned up to pick him up, he left in his haste without them! Unfortunately all his questioning resulted in a negative response which left him the only option of walking around in the shoes he had on, thankfully he had a least remembered to load up Scrumpy.

With plenty of banter and ‘soleful’ remarks ringing around the group, we set off down the church track and then left along the narrow road heading in a southward direction. The sun was starting to break through the grey skies and we cracked on at a good pace, with dogs on leads and Scrumpy walking to ‘heel’.