Reservoir Ducks

I had another great day staying with my sister. Today there was a huge temperature drop, but my sister, nephews and I decided to visit Hanningfield Reservoir for another squelchy, muddy, country walk through the woods and by the reservoir.

On arrival at the visitor's centre, we were handed a couple of pairs of binoculars to do a spot of Bill Oddie-style bird watching in the bird hides around the reservoir. We didn't hang around for too long in the hides, as we spotted the tempting tea house through the binoculars and thoughts of cake and the freezing cold, soon found us back on the muddy paths to find it. (We resisted writing 'tea house' on the bird sighting board, by the way) Unfortunately, the tea house teasingly closed for the day right in front of our eyes, locking the cake inside! We had to make do with a cup of vending machine hot chocolate in the visitor's centre and a very large bakewell tart in a wrapper stick of celery.