A happy birthday

It’s my birthday so we had the treat of proper all-butter croissants for breakfast with the Saturday Guardian. Had we still
lived in Suffolk I’d have been on the match for peace. Last one I was on was against the Iraq war in 2013 - maybe this will exceed the 800,000 we had then.

Katy phoned to see if I wanted to go with her to bag a trig point so we set off. We needed to walk through Hulne Park to miss out a lot of road walking but found it closed. The Duke was pheasant shooting. We should have taken a minute to re-assess the situation but instead set off on the road. At the point where we’d have exited the parkland we found the gate was locked with a rusty old padlock and the wall was 7 ft high. Opposite the gate we headed off up a path towards a farm where we stopped for a sandwich. We pressed on up a track through a young woodland but Katy was getting concerned about the time - we had walked 4 miles and the trig point was maybe 20 minutes away. So we cut our losses and returned the way we’d come, spotting a good parking place where we can leave the car for our next attempt. We had a good catch up but we’re both weary when we got back after 8 miles on hard surfaces.

I’m so grateful to my “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati” friends. (Thinking of the horrible Home Secretary).

I had a great day with Katy and this evening with be spent with Carol and Phil who are hosting birthday supper for me, and tomorrow we’ll be with the daughters and children.

Here’s Katy pointing to the wood where there’s the elusive trig point, the road with Cheviot and Scotland beyond, and our drive home over the moor.