17 February 2013 (Sunday) - Hartfield

I woke feeling surprisingly chipper this morning. Having had an elegant sufficiency of Hatherwood's bitter last night (Asda's finest - pissed and change out of a fiver) and a surfeit of Woo Woo I was up and moving about with only mild pain at 7am.
I got on the scales - I've put on weight again this week. Which isn't surprising bearing in mind what I've been scoffing.

And so into the car, and off to collect one man and another dog. It would have been good to have collected more people, but the excesses of the demon drink and the demon SingStar had taken their toll. Pausing only to avoid colliding with the Redemption Bus (the god-botherers get everywhere!) we sparked up the sat-nav and set off to Hartfield in deepest Sussex. We soon found Dave and Tracy, and off we went.

Today my beloved was charged with supervising Furry Face as my back was still tender. I hobbled along with my walking stick instead. Fudge only ran off once; he wasn’t given a second chance – it was straight back on the lead after that. The mud was thick and deep – probably the worst mud I’ve seen in many a walk. At one point one of our number got stuck in the mud. Actually physically stuck. We didn’t snigger much.

As we walked I was pleased to see catkins and pussy willow. And snowdrops and daffodils. Spring is definitely on the way. Bearing in mind that last Sunday it was snowing, today was a glorious day. A really good day for a walk. Through fields and forests, paths and lanes. We enjoyed our picnic in the open, and even saw two loads of deer.
And no walk is complete without finding one or two geocaches. We found all of the twenty six that we hunted for today. I only left my walking stick behind once!

In retrospect today’s walk was probably a tad ambitious for me. Usually on any walk I am charging away at the front; today I was bringing up the rear. Perhaps eight miles was too much when you consider that only three days ago I could barely move. Finding the pub at the end of the walk was a very welcome sight. As was the pint of Harvey’s. There are piccies of the day here:
Beautiful scenery – there are many other series of geocaches down in that part of the world. We shall certainly go back there soon.

Home again. Dave and Tracy came with us, and once home the troops gathered for an impromptu session. We solved the mystery of the stuck compass, we drank beer, and even saw off a bottle of port. I do like having a houseful. It was a shame that being a Sunday people couldn’t stay that late and have more beer…

No comments:

Post a Comment