Mud revisited
I was thinking about the mud some more earlier on so for our second walk decided to go right at it. We all have an inbuilt flinching mechanism at the thought of serious mud, probably from years of aghast parents not being able to believe how much we’ve managed to get stuck to us. (divergence: is this a good ‘kids today’ subject? My kids never seem to be half as muddy as I remember being. Computers…)
Anyway, mud is mud. Once you decide you’re going on a muddy walk the only challenge really is to stay upright.
And really, as long as you have some kind of boots on, it’s usually doable. Here you can see the state of the path as we walked up towards the stream. Each footprint became its own pond in the wider network, each footstep its own minor adventure.
The mud changed over time from ‘puddle of mud’ to ‘mud with leaves’ and from there we scampered along as happy as could be.
This time we did see other people, our neighbours out for a family expedition, a dad with two kids playing in the stream (at brokeback corner, as we once named it, where my son’s rope swing snapped mid flight. He was catapulted into the ether, landing with a thud on his back but with no injuries but a good family memory), and a loud couple by one of the ponds.
On our way home we came across this wonderful little archway. We find it every month or so and I’m always happy about the feeling of ducking through a little door to cross the bridge, almost like stepping into something new, which I think works on new years day, doesn’t it?
Until tomorrow, happy new year.