Take a walk on the wild side

The upside to off-piste-ing when we walk is that we get to tread the road/path/track/field less traveled and thereby get to see some amazing sights but the downside is that our walking socks end up looking like this!!!!  Yesterday Nicky and I managed to sit on the side of the road and deal with ours as we had only gone a short distance through tall grass but John and Liselotte obviously tackled more and as a result John's socks were in a right old mess - so much so that he was going to throw these away.  No no no John-Boy I can no longer get these Thousand Mile, double thickness, anti blister babes via Amazon so I decided to clear them myself.  

The grass is barbed so where it enters you have to pull it through or else you just cannot get it out - that is ok where the socks are not double thickness because when you push you push through the first layer and not necessarily through the second layer and then they disappear into a black hole only to reappear when you are walking and they jab you viciously right in the middle of the tenderest part of your instep.

I have to get some anti-blister socks myself and have bitten the bullet and ordered some and hope the combined price and postage will mean I do not have to donate a kidney in order to get them from the Post Office.   This walking malarkey is great but it is wreaking havoc with my feet so good socks and good walking boots are essential.

Today being Wednesday I was going down to spend time with Mum and we had decided we would go for lunch and had chosen to go to Tea for Two.  I had hoped Jackie might be available to pop her head round the door but she wasn't although Costas was there which was great as we haven't seen either of them for months.  Costas is looking really well, fit and healthy - he too has started walking between his three establishments which I think he said was something like an 8 or 9 km round trip.

Fortunately Costas said that the restaurants were doing pretty well after reopening but that it had been a real struggle managing during the various lockdowns but he is a shrewd and experienced businessman so if anyone could weather this storm I was sure it would be him.

We had our lunch and made our way back to Emba via Lidl so Mum could pick up some apples and I did all the little chores she had stored up for me and then I made my way back home via Shukrous Butchers where he had put back two barbeque packs for me and two fresh livers which was fabulous and even better on a Wednesday there is 10% discount (not on the packs) so the livers were cheaper than they usually are.  

I did a quick flit around CycleBand but the shelves were pretty empty so I didn't really get much I wanted but a few things I didn't know I did!!!

I am walking with Liselotte tomorrow and I had no idea where we would go because I wanted to ensure we had some shade and I wanted an interesting and reasonably challenging walk for Liselotte but not one that would knacker me out so John suggested we went out in the car and investigated a track we had seen previously to see whether it went anywhere that we could incorporate on a walk.  The beauty of not being restricted when going out means we can do this now.

It was a bit of a hairy ride in Kenny - this is actually a road!!!!  We went down a couple of tracks which led nowhere and had to get back out and this stretch was a bit more off-road than I really like but we managed to record a reasonable walk which was circular and had some shade (although not much as you can see by the picture above) and I did persuade Liselotte to start at 8.00am!!!

My last job of the day was to be a good neighbour and go up and do Edda's watering.  Both she and David are laid up with bad backs and just cannot manage until their son arrives on Sunday.  They have a large garden - it is Edda's pride and joy and she was so worried that she would lose plants because she cannot manage the hoses.  There is so much in pots that you just cannot leave them to chance so I said I would do it - it takes about 45 minutes.

On the subject of neighbours it was lovely to hear from George and Pam today who, inspite of everything they have been through the last couple of years, sound in good spirits and are just praying they will be able to get across this year.  We have everything crossed - it would be so wonderful to see them.