Squeezed One In

We slotted our walk into the gap between work and a little food shopping today to see if this would help me feel less tired in the evening. It did. As always, a little leg stretch was just the trick to wake me up enough to get to the end of the day without a nap. I don't know if I'm doing things at all 'the right way', but at least I'm moving, which is a damn sight more than I was doing nine weeks ago. I doubt that the ice cream I had for lunch did me much good, but who really cares at this stage, eh?

Because yes! It's been nine weeks isolated for us. We chatted about this a lot today, Matthew and I. He's a wise old soul, that boy. You wouldn't know he was 12 because he talks like someone who's lived in the world for about 70 years. Marvellous.

Anyway, so, we just popped out the back of Aldi's carpark and down to the river.

You have to go past the sports centre first, all forlorn and closed up as it is, turned into a food distribution hub for the time being – let's hope it isn't needed for too long.

Then you have to look both ways before crossing the very busy cycle track ...

See, both ways? Very good.

And then you're there, back at the river and our lovely Scandinavian houses. Very nice.

Quite honestly, I could have parked myself here and just done nothing quite happily for a couple of hours. Very still, very warm and very blue. But Matthew starts to get antsy if we sit still too long, and the sandy soil under the grass was still very damp anyway – in fact, I don't think it ever dries out – so we just wandered up and down for a few minutes to make it seem like we'd walked somewhere.

Up and down, dum-de-dum. Actually, d'you remember how warm it was at the start of lockdown (in the UK) and there was that Easter week when everyone wanted to have barbecues and be outside? It felt like that again today, with a little promise of summer in the air. 

But we couldn't really stay to soak it up because we had two hungry teenagers at home who were relying on us to bring back sustenance and treats, so we headed back to Aldi. At least we did get a little vitamin D today.

But not before stopping to take a picture of this giant footprint. Now, I know it's likely the print of a horseshoe, but it really was enormous, and I've never seen a horse down here. So what's going on? Giant night horses?  

I really would've liked to stay out much longer, which was why I kept turning back to take more photos. Bye river, bye mud, bye river stones.

Bye pretty flowers that smell like wee (that's pee, for you Americans ... and maybe anyone who's not British? I don't know – do any other dialects say 'wee' for 'pee'?).

Until tomorrow, little ladybirds.

WQ