Wet man walking

(and a few other men and women too!)

Today's walk with the Ramblers, our first Wednesday walk of the new year, was advertised as The Helix Park and Skinflats. We met at The Helix, went for a walk round the park and then over to The Kelpies. The rain and wind had eased off a little so we decided to continue with the planned walk over to Skinflats and the paths near the nature reserve.

Unfortunately it wasn't long before both rain and wind picked up again and so the walk leader decided discretion was the better part of valour and made the call to cut the walk short and return to our cars. Just to add to the discomfort, though, our return walk was into the face of the prevailing wind and we had about an hour of being battered by rain, hail and wind before we reached the car park. However, we were all well equipped for the conditions and at least the temperature wasn't too cold. Also the cafe at the local garden centre had some good, warming soup on offer and this was enthusiastically and quickly consumed by those of us who didn't head off straight home.

I've had better days at The Kelpies, but that's the nature of winter walks: one never knows what the weather will do.