The Wednesday Walk 18th March 2015

The Plan

Blashford Lakes

Who Turned Up

Wendy, Trisha, Trudy B, Trudy H, Sue, Beatrice and Tony H, David

The Walk

The old man in the sky – the one with the big white beard and the voice of Charlton Heston  - was watching over us today. He gave us a welcome helping of his blue skies, along with very little wind. It was ideal weather for a spring walk.

          We parked at the usual car park between Northfield Lake and Kingfisher Lake. The path that took us through the lake area to Snails Lane was drier than we would normally expect at this time of the year. We continued on past the sailing club to the study centre and the bird hide. We spent a few minutes there before continuing along the narrow pathways to the pub. All very pleasant.

However, it was a disappointing walk for anyone with pedantic views of English grammar. A big poster on the wall in the bird hide was so poorly written your blogmaster wondered if the writer (some bird-brain from the RSPB!) had any command of our native language. Part of it was pure gobbledegook. Gobbledegook is a real word, by the way. Things didn’t get any better at the Alice Lisle pub. A noticeboard told us that Alice - the wife of a man guilty of regicide - was sentenced to be beheaded. According to our hosts at the pub, she had her sentence commuted to being burned alive for a week. After a week of burning she’d have been well cooked! Again, it was simply bad writing. It was the stay of execution that was commuted for a week. It’s an interesting idea, though. We could suggest such a punishment for some of our politicians if they don’t come up to scratch in the upcoming general election.

After lunch we split into two groups of four. One group took the flat walk back to the cars, retracing our steps over much of the morning’s route. Their pleasure was limited to sitting watching the boating on one of the lakes. The other – fitter and hardier – group elected to climb up Bigsburn Hill before returning to the car park. Their pleasure included seeing deer along their route. Both groups had the pleasure of seeing so many daffodils in bloom. A sure sign the onset of spring is progressing nicely.

The two groups met back at David’s for tea and cakes. It was a very pleasant day out for the Wednesday Walkers, and the grammar pedant promises to be more understanding in future.
Thanks go to the two Trudys for the photographs.

The Pub
The Alice Lisle. The food was okay, and the younger waitress's smile was nice and friendly, but the prices were exorbitant. £3.90 for a beer shandy. £3.00 for a cup of coffee. Too much. 

Next Week

Somewhere in Ireland