So I got up this Sunday morning and thought 'what shall I do with today?' For, you see, I didn't know. I was entirely at a loose end.
In such a situation, I thought - as I know all of us do - What Would Myo Do?
In search of guidance and instruction, I headed to Myo's blog. There was her last entry. From which I gleaned this important piece of worldly knowledge: if the weather is mild and dry and sunny, the correct action to take is to cancel any walk you had planned and go online instead.
I got up from my computer and went over to the window (I had forgotten to put my glasses on and so couldn't see out of the window without getting closer to it).
(It is entirely up to the reader how much of this story to believe.)
Overcast, windy, ooh approximately 14C, looking likely to rain at any moment...clearly it was my prerogative - nay, my
duty - to cancel any online time I had planned and go for a walk. In fact, the weather was
so bad that it had better be an even longer one than normal. How else would I hold my head up in board society again?
Resolved, I laced up my shoes (still caked with mud from their last excursion), donned my walking trousers (having first taken off the shoes again, you'd think by age 23 I'd have figured this out) and waterproof jacket and headed down to my nearest bus stop.
It started to rain at this point.
I caught the number 108 bus to Brailsford. None of you have a clue where that is, and I can't be bothered finding a map to show you, but suffice it to say it cost me £1.30 to sit on a bus for about 15 minutes to get there.
In Brailsford, I decided to be impetuous and take the first footpath that showed itself. That worked just fine - I found a typically english country lane to stroll down -
- and some typical english long wet grass to completely soak my trousers and shoes -
- but, rather embarassingly, thanks to many dead-end tracks to farmhouses, twisty roads and a bull who forced me to make a rather sudden right angle...and possibly the lack of a compass or map...after an hour's walking, somewhat to my surprise, I found myself back in Brailsford.
I decided that I did at least know the A52, aka the main road back to Derby, would be heading in the right direction - so I followed that for a bit to cover my embarrassment if anyone had been looking. But that was just dull. So I took another minor road as soon as I could, this time heading north towards Kedleston.
I like hedges. Especially when they seem to be entirely made of honeysuckle...
I also like those very english white signposts. Because, apart from anything else - look! I'm still going the right way. Phew.
Aha...and in the distance, look, can you see? That very faint, almost completely greyed-out tower thing on the far horizon? That's on the outskirts of Derby. I haven't a clue what it is, but I know it's on the outskirts of Derby. I have something to aim for.
Now all I wanted to do was to get off even this most minor of roads. After all, the wind had dried my trousers so much that they were merely damp, and the water in my shoes had warmed up to foot temperature. That couldn't be right.
The first signposted footpath I saw, though, headed through this gate.
I thought...no.
But this one looked far more promising. Overgrown, like a little doorway into another world...perfect.
In the next field I got stung by a nettle through my trousers. How very sneaky.
But this was good. This farmer knew how to make a path obvious.
By weedkillering everything in his path.
Unfortunately, long grass that is dead collects just as much rain as long grass that is not. This picture is kind of hard to see but it shows the water bubbling out of my shoes whenever I take a step. Squish squish.
Aww, cute lambikins. Okay, I had roast lamb for my dinner last night, but he's still cute.
Path across a ploughed field? Oh, why not - there hasn't been enough mud on this walk yet.
And look - they have very thoughtfully provided some extra-long wet grass on the other side which you can walk through to clean the mud off again.
I soon popped out on another minor road, where I was accosted by a
dradefully posh old man, who wanted to complain about the atrocious lack of signposting to Kedleston Hall (a National Trust property nearby. Ancestral home of the Curzons, some of whom were Sheriffs in the old Sheriff of Nottingham sense...yeah, that's me. Original as always) and ask me how to get there. As I was a bit lost myself, I couldn't really help, other than to point north-east and go "well, I know it's over that way somewhere." He soon gave up on me to flag down another car and ask them, and I skipped over a gate and into another field.
My goodness - what's this? A bridge? I must be on a really
proper path.
Yay! Whatever that tower thing is, it's getting closer.
Ah! I know that house. That's the house I took a picture of from the other side when I was on that other walk months ago. Hurray! I know where I am.
Oh, but I can't get to the path I was on before because that stream I crossed on that bridge is now between me and the other path. Sigh. Back onto the A52 it is, I guess. I'll have a Rocky to console me. Munch.
This petrol station very nearly got my custom too, but then I thought...hang on, they can spell sandwiches but not crisps? I sense something wrong here. I'd better not tangle with these locals.
But I know how to get back from here. You take this little road down into Mackworth (a place name that wouldn't be amusing if I didn't watch American tv shows) and...oooh. What's this? And why is it in a tiny English village? And why is there nothing behind it any more? Hmm. I haven't a clue. But let's take a photo of it anyway.
Now back along the Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk (I still haven't a clue why it's called that or where it goes) and say hello to the nice horsies. I don't even like horsies. But these were pretty. And I felt a companionship with anything else that had been out in the rain for hours. No, horsies, I don't have any sugar cubes - believe me, I'd have eaten them myself long before now if I did.
And finally back to Markeaton Park. Come, let's scare all the small children with the wet and muddy apparition formerly known as me. But wait - where are all the small children? Surely their parents haven't kept them inside on such a lovely day as this? How cruel.
And then home. A short stop at my local corner shop ("Jas's") for a tin of tomato soup and a pint of milk (still copying Myo), then up the hill and along the road and up the stairs and - ah. Take trousers and socks off and shove them in the washing machine before they can drip everywhere. Then collapse into a long hot bath, four and a half hours after I left home this morning, and try to unknot my thigh muscles.
Allowing time for the thought 'this time yesterday I was still in my pyjamas.'
