Unfortunately, as soon as we left the car just after 10am, the rain started and didn't really relent for the first three miles. We started with a long descent into the village, skirting it slightly and heading for a long ascent up a muddy wooded track to a plateau, then another long downhill to stop for coffee while the rain abated. A few more ups and downs and another torrential rain shower, we climbed a great long hill up and found a sheltered spot out of the wind to enjoy a spot of lunch and an experiment in time-lapse photography, taking fifteen shots of the clouds and rain moving across the landscape over fifteen minutes. The end result wasn't great and could have done with being longer and having frames taken every ten or fifteen seconds, but it's a limitation of the camera unfortunately.
During lunch we had three or four long-tailed tits and a blue tit join us on a nearby bush. I've never seen long-tails so close but here they were, flitting rapidly from branch to branch, stopping occasionally to check us out but only very briefly.
It was lovely, really, apart from the persistent rain and the cold, vicious wind towards the end. The scenery, the hills, the wildlife, the occasional massive views all give this walk promise for a much brighter day. The going was heavily muddy and hard work underfoot, making the 6.4 miles total seem like much further. The whole walk consisted of ups and downs, fields and grass, mud and marsh. Everywhere, even the tops of hills, was sodden and sticky and squelchy. If we get much more rain, there'll be floods - fortunately the forecast is reasonably good.
I'd quite like to get out for another walk to two this week. I may be busy for much of the end of the week, so I'll perhaps try to take advantage of the evenings in the early week and get out there for a few miles and a little head-space.
