Today I packed my backpack ditching everything that might be thought of as unnecessary. It weighted 13kg before that and now it weighs 12.5. Not a lot of difference. I have no plate, just a bowl, no spare trousers, no change of shoes, no waterproof socks. Feeling a bit daunted.
On a cheerier note I had a hilly walk with 12kg this morning around Shotover Country Park. The bluebells were out, as were the violets, the wood anemones, and greater stitchwort.
I start the walk from the Park and Ride which has the advantage of adding another uphill mile. Here is a photo
To you this might look like a rather boring path. To me, it is amazing. In those distant pre-COVID days of February 2020, which was possibly the wettest on record, I spent a lot of time walking on this path. Then, it was approached by a bog of shoe-sucking squelchy mud, (now just dry rutted ground) followed by a walk uphill with a collapsing fence, overgrown foliage (overgrown in the “bend double with your backpack on and still get tangled up in it” sort of way) and more mud. So you can see why this open, hardly-muddy-at-all, newly fenced, shorn of overgrown vegetation path is a source of joy.
There were lots of people about, it being a sunny Bank Holiday Monday, it was good hill practice and I was home in time for lunch.
Rose's LEJOG 