Wednesday 18th January 2023

Short Ride Medium  Walk

Report by Andrew

On Tuesday night our illustrious leader Mr. Catt decided that the roads / ice rinks would be unfit for Wednesday rides.

Within nano seconds of the puffs of smoke appearing on the website to confirm this, Eric offered up a walk - presumably to keep him and us from the double delights of shopping and housework.

So, at 10.00am on Wednesday about twenty walkers and one dog met in the Moat Road car park and headed off to The Outwoods, rambling along 'pignut spinney'.

Would there be a refreshments stop, I nervously and anxiously pondered??  The good news was of course there would be!!  Was there ever any serious doubt??!! 😀😀

We descended on Olivia's in The Outwoods Car Park for teas, various coffees, croissants, cakes and scones which went down a treat aligned with the usual excellent and varied eloquence.

I was interested in the signs they had in the car park advising the park rangers are going to be cutting back non native trees to try and get more indigenous (I think that's the word!!!) oaks to prosper.  

We then returned back to Moat Road on our circular route passing by the new The Nanpantan Road Sports Ground and the New Cemetery, I had a rather morbid conversation about preferred final resting places!!

I nearly slipped over on the ice a couple of times, but just about managed to maintain my dignity, even if the boots will take some cleaning after the muddy sections!!!

I made the breakdown of times spent approximately, an excellent 1:1:1 ratio of:-

1.   45 minutes walk

2.   45 minutes refreshments stop

3.   45 minutes walk

Hopefully we will be riding again shortly, but the ramble was an excellent way to spend a Wednesday morning!!  (Definitely better than the two imposters - shopping and housework!!! and the third imposter - work!!!).