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If I could have chosen a perfect weekend to kick off my New Year, this past weekend would have been it. Two days of walking, photography and fun under an unseasonably warm January sun; just the two of us.
Having been unwell for most of the week, culminating in a frustrating day at the Royal Berkshire Hospital on Thursday, we opted to take it easy on Friday night, venturing out only to grab some lunch for the next day’s planned walk. Dinner was courtesy of the local curry house, and was very yummy indeed! Whilst Darren put me to shame cycling, running 5k and then plotting the route for Saturday, I chilled out on the sofa and watched Michael McIntyre at Wembley and I can honestly say I haven’t laughed so much for a long time. My stomach ached from laughter by the end of it!
Saturday started off in fairly lazy fashion, finally hauling ourselves out of bed around 9am. After a tasty breakfast of scrambled egg on toast, and some last minute preparation, we set out at around 10.30am. My parents had bought Darren a book of 1001 Walks Around Britain for Christmas, and we had decided to kick off with a fairly local one around Wargrave. The actual route started and finished in the centre of Wargrave, but not satisfied with the 7 miles route, we opted to walk to and from Wargrave as well, notching up 11 miles for the day.
I have to say, having felt fairly rough all week, I was surprised by how nice it felt to be out walking. The glorious sunshine and blue skies really helped buoy me up, as did the great company. It was a fairly easy day’s walking, only one real hill to contend with and a well trodden route. The funniest part of the day was arriving on a pathway that clearly got a lot of use and had poor drainage – the mud was thick! I was convinced I was going to go over as there really was no way to gain traction and my foot disappeared up to the bottom of my ankle on more than one occasion. At one point Darren stopped to take a photo and had trouble moving again as it sucked him in… the effort needed to get through it was amazing and we both gained a good inch on the bottom of our boots! Hilarious.
We took it easy, with no real need to rush for anything, and completed the 11 miles in around 4.5 hours. Not bad but when you consider that we covered 18 miles in 5.5 hours back in September 2011, we were clearly not moving too fast! But it was a really fun day and we both got some great photos that could easily have been taken in July were it not for the bare trees!
Back in Twyford we popped into the Duke of Wellington for a pint and half to celebrate our day, and then walked the final mile back home.
Clearly my body wasn’t as ready for exercise as I thought it was, because despite having felt great all day, once home I took to the sofa with a banging headache and really heavy eyes. I managed to stay awake long enough to watch the Shawshank Redemption but with the combined effort of paracetamol and ibuprofen refusing to touch the headache, I admitted defeat and crawled off to bed.
Thankfully, an early night and an undisturbed sleep revived me somewhat and I woke up on Sunday ready to go again. After a lie-in (while Darren clocked up 10 miles on his exercise bike and plotted our route — how lazy did I feel?), a nice warm shower and more scrambled egg, we jumped in the car and headed out to West Wycombe.
Today’s route was shorter at 6 miles but would pose a few more challenges being rather hilly. It wasn’t so warm as the previous day, the breeze had a real bite to it and the cloud cover was quite thick, but the sun popped out around midday for an hour to help us along. It was a lovely walk, through lots of stunning woodland thick with fallen leaves, and across picture-perfect fields. I have to say I certainly felt the burn walking up one or two of the hills, but it can only be a good thing.
All in all a brilliant weekend to kick off our New Year. We had such a laugh and really enjoyed each other’s company. Long may that continue.