Our end of year walk wasn't a crisp, frosty white one that makes the cheeks glow instead we had to be content with muddy tracks and puddles. Cliff is leading a walk for a local walking group at the end of February, so it's high time we got out there to reccy the route; this is an area between Cambridge and Saffron Walden which we haven't explored before by footpaths.
We set off into the melting distance down a Roman trackway.
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Passing a burial mound, much reduced in height over millennia but still a mysterious presence in the misty landscape.
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The hedgerows are still heavy with indigo sloes, clearly we're not on a Sloe Gin maker's patch!
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Rose-hips splash the hedges with vivid red – do birds eat rose-hips?
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On the edge of a little copse, a small orange teddy bear is perched in a tree – is he yours?
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Along straight grassy tracks between fields of rape, the distance dissolves away.
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Dipping down towards the dark woods that look like a back-drop for a pantomime – Little Red Riding Hood perhaps? or The Babes in the Wood?
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There are deer in the woods; we've seen their track in the mud, heard twigs snap and the leafy woodland floor rustle. We have not seen them. They are watching us.
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Our way back to the car has to be via a path over open arable fields, clay-rich mud, claggy, heavy on the boots and pulling on the leg muscles. Six and a half miles is more than enough for me – time to go home for tea!
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However you see in 2011, have fun!
Happy New Year!
Celia
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Happy New Year!
Celia
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