Life in the UK is just a barrel of laughs. Rambling is a national pride and joy of which whose right to wander through people’s property is defended most vehemently – just ask Madonna who tried getting an injunction against ramblers using the right-of-way at the bottom of her grounds.
Never one to shy away from authentic British experiences, my trusty house-mate and I decided that winter was officially over and it was time for us to get back out into the real world of fresh air and sunshine. We chose a walk from our great ‘Pub Walks in the Chilterns’ book and planned to roll out of bed before midday on a Saturday, (I actually got up around 5.30am but that’s a whole different story!). After phaffing around for far too long, we eventually made it to the pub carpark for the start of our trek. Things started out well – the weather was great, the sun was shining, the birds were tweeting and we were feeling confident in our superior rambling abilities.
Pride comes before a fall, apparently, because before long we were passing the guidebook backwards and forwards between us and trying to convince ourselves that we were actually on the correct path! We ended up taking the biggest wrong detour in the history of ramblers anonynmous uk.
Picture 2 be-draggled girls struggling down water-logged trails and heaving themselves over rickety stiles, laden down with about 500 extra pounds of accumlated mud-weight. Picture these self-same girls trying to get themselves back to civilisation and, most importantly, finding the 2 pubs that are listed on the trail. Imagine our relief when we struggled up a steepm, boggy field to discover farm buildings! Nothing more to do but to cross the farm and follow the drive to the road and ask follow the road back to the pub. Unfortunately in our excitement we forgot to test where we were walking before heading to the gate, queue shrill shrieks as we sank up to our knees in muddy slop! Stretching before us was acres of cow poo-laced mud and wading was the only option! We adopted a ridulous hopping motion with arms flailing as we tried to make it to the gate without getting totally covered in the foul mess. Not very successfully we finally made it past the gate and discovereda rather bemused farmer who kindly directed us through even more ankle-deep mud and past a very angry dog to the first of our pub stops.
Now there’s a lot of rubbish things about living in England but country pubs are not one of them! Within minutes of sitting outside and wondering how the hell we’d get to the bar in the state we were in, the bar maid was out there taking our order and giving us directions back to the pub where we’d parked the car – blissful!
The next challenge was to return to the car – ‘just down the road’,we thought – not so! 45 minutes later we were still willing our legs to drag our crap-caked feet up yet another hill, delirious with the lack of food and caffiene, we eventually staggered into the Dog and Duck, missing kitchen opening hours by 30 minutes. Nevertheless, we settled for a few good drinks and some peanuts, happy just to sit in the warmth and soak up the atmosphere of another great country pub.
tata for now
Babs x
