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REPORTS |
When I looked at this route the day before, I discovered that it was entirely along roads!! This was despite the fact that there were plenty of footpaths in the area. What had happended to our quality control? So I rearranged the route to cut out most of the road walking and take advantage of some of the footpaths and bridleways.
Six intrepid walkers set out from King’s Sutton despite the weather forecast of rain all day. Unfortunately on this occasion the forecast was correct and it did rain all day. This then becomes a kit testing day and it was Claire who learned most having got her gloves saturated and most of her other clothes below waist level.
We headed north out of King’s Sutton and had some climbing to do much to everybody’s surprise as we thought this was going to be a fairly flat walk. As we looked back over the misty valley, Alison fantasized about Mr Darcy galloping out of the mist on a white stallion. Some women do have a wonderfully vivid imagination. We offered her knights from Monty Python’s Holy Grail – a good riding action but no white stallion or in fact a horse of any kind!
As we progressed into the walk, there was some concern over where we were going to have a coffee stop. But at that point we were near Newbottle church, so I suggested we go and see if it had a porch. And lo and behold it did. So coffee out of the rain.
As we approached lunch time it became evident that Claire was not wearing her gloves as they had got soaked. Geoff delved into his rucsac and came out with some spare ones of a rather peculiar arrangement (see photo). He explained they were army surplus and that they were sniper’s gloves; the extra “thumb” being for the trigger finger.
The same dilemma over shelter arose at lunch time and this time I spotted a convenient sports pavilion on the edge of Aynho not only with a canopy to keep the rain off but also with picnic tables. What luck!
As we returned to King’s Sutton after lunch, we saw a couple of deer on the edge of a field.
After completing our walk we returned to a pub in Charlton with a lovely open fire where Claire was able to position herself to gradually dry out.
Report – Alan
Walk rating – Average as it turned out but would have been very poor if the route had not been changed.
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