Jolly Cold

Every single week for 12 or 13 years 'the Walkers' have gone for a 5 - 10 mile walk - something between healthy exercise, therapy, companionship, and frank enjoyment of the beautiful county we live in.

Membership of 'the Walkers' fluctuates , but between us we have supported each other through divorce, disease, death, despair and dog-walking.

And every Christmas - arguing that walking is pretty close to working - we have the equivalent of the Works Christmas Party: the Walkers Christmas Lunch. And walk, of course.

This years' walk was a 6 mile loop around Orford under wonderful bright skies made icy by blustery buffeting winds. (Which explains all the woolly hats and scarves.) We look pretty jolly here, before the walk - but nothing in comparison with how jolly we became when we started on the sloe gin halfway round. Then lunch at the Jolly Sailor made us jollier still.

What a good day!

The sloe gin, incidentally, was the very last of the lot I made with Walker friend Penny just weeks before she died. We toasted her, and all the walks we had with her, and all the walks we are going to have together until we are too old and grey and full of sleep to manage any more..