204: unexpected water hazards

Yesterday I accidentally went on a nearly-13km walk. I’d woken up at 6am and been unable to go back to sleep, so once I’d had a cup of coffee and had a bit of a read and since it wasn’t raining I decided I’d go for a bit of a wander in search of inspiration. My plan, such as it was, was to head to the farm to say good morning to the baby cows, turn around at 2.5km, pick up some milk and be back for breakfast. Yup, that sounds pretty straightforward, I hear you say. Baby cows, milk, breakfast.

Well, once I’d said good morning to the baby cows and arrived at the 2.5km point, I was feeling full of the joys of spring, as you do when the sun is shining, the bushes are full of robins and blue tits and there’s a good playlist on Spotify (a lot of glam rock, as it goes.). 10k felt doable, so I kept going into Toot Hill and turned down towards the wonderfully Hobbitish-named Clatterford End.

This is a lane that I’ve been down before, but always turned round at 5km as I don’t really know where it goes. Clatterford End isn’t really a place at all. So – and I can pinpoint this as the moment it all got out of hand – I looked at the map. Just a little Google, I thought, to see where the road goes. I might see some interesting things to put in my sketchbook at the end of the day, at the very least, and I might find some new footpaths to explore when swamp season is over in Essex. We’ve had so much rain recently that the clay is saturated and the footpaths are running water, so offroading was very definitely not in my plan.

Well, it turned out that if I carried on down this lane and turned left I would end up going in a big circle back to Toot Hill and it probably wouldn’t be much more than 10k. So I carried on. It was all going well- I even knew where I was which, as it happened, was a bit of a blessing. My mental map of the area had just connected a few dots….and then there was a flood, So deep it had an abandoned car on one of the banks. I could not go over it. I could not go under it, and I damn sure wasn’t going through it.

Offroad it was then. You can see from the map that there’s a weird loop-the-loop. This is where I opened the Ordnance Survey app, found a route back to the road which would take me past the flood, only to find that the footpath was blocked by brambles and more water. So I resigned myself to a trek along the Essex Way and it was exactly as swampy, sticky, slippy and slurpy as I expected it to be in early February. I muttered and grumbled and slipped and slid slowly back through to Toot Hill, glaring at small streams and puddles and passing dogwalkers, said hello to the baby cows again and stomped back up the hill. I remembered the milk though, and treated myself to a hot bath followed by tomato soup and a Spanish hot chocolate. And a nap.

I did get to draw my day, and was quite inspired by some road signs mostly as I didn’t feel brave enough to try sketching the baby cows. I did try the cherry blossom from the garden, and noted down my soundtrack and a lyric from one of my favourite songs. Saturday is clean sheets day, so that was marked too, and I took a leaf out of Bob Ross’s book and turned my mistake into a bird. I enjoyed playing with pencils and markers and colours, and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.

Also this week…

Last Sunday the entire clan visited Get To know Animals, a relatively new mini-zoo and animal experience centre just outside Epping. It was an interesting experience – Thing 2 ended up traumatised by seeing two ring-neck parakeets attacking a quail in the bird enclosure. Grandthing 1 handled a rabbit called Gandalf that was almost as big as he was, and Thing 3 was given a ferret experience as a birthday present from his big sisters. He and my Beloved were rolling around the floor with them.

Thing 2 loves a ferret, and feels I should love them too. Actual conversation:

Thing 2: You should hold the ferret, mum

I liked the flirty alligator though and I’d happily adopt a cloud rat or take home a tortoise or two.

Thing 3 and I had a great night out seeing the RSC’s My Neighbor Totoro at the Barbican for his birthday treat – no photos are allowed, but I can say it was absolutely magical: the special effects for the Totoros, soot sprites and the Catbus were so cleverly done, and we had an amazing evening. It was his first theatre experience and it’ll be hard to beat. Thing 2 made him an amazing birthday cake.

Also…

• Coffee and a good catch-up with an ex-Museum of London colleague
• Taking part in a Careers Day at a school in East Ham
• An inspiring meeting with the wonderful Parent House in Islington
• Coffee with a friend at the King’s Head
• Getting up to date with this year’s cross stitch temperature tracker

And that’s it for me – it’s been a pretty busy week, in and out of London and wrestling with the Central Line every day (ugh), but that does mean I have done a lot of crochet on the leafy scarf!

Same time next week then!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Over Sea, Under Stone/The Dark is Rising/Greenwitch – Susan Cooper (Audible)

The Fever of the World/The House of Susan Lulham/The Cold Calling – Phil Rickman

Draw your Day – Samantha Dion Baker.