Having returned once more to work, Lou & I spent a very pleasant day on Friday visiting Lewes near Brighton for a buying appointment. The day was sunny, the collection beautiful and I had the chance to finally indulge my craving for an extra hot Calabrese pizza at Pizza Express. All in all a good day out!
On the way home Lou remarked on my last Blog, laughing and saying she'd remembered me telling her about my Tube experience previously. I went on to tell her about the following - a story she hadn't heard before, despite working for us when it happened. This must have been another case of my being too embarrassed to admit to it!
About 4 years ago we had a visit from an old friend of mine, Margaret. Margaret lives in North Queensferry where I grew up. I've known her since I was 9, and despite the age difference (her being some 15 years older than me) we've always been close.
At the time Margaret was training for one of the Moonlight Walks for Breast Cancer. A great lover of the outdoors and keen to encourage me to be the same, (fat chance) she brought me a book of South Downs Walks and dragged me out to Pulborough to undertake one of the routes. The walk was about 4 miles long and took us along the Downs for a mile or so before cutting through woods and fields and returning us to our starting point.
Now I have no problem with walking. I do it all the time! I just can't quite get my head around walking for the sake of it rather than as a means of getting from A to B. Not that I was going to admit this to Margaret. So off we strode, wrapped up in jumpers and boots.
About a mile from our finishing point we came to a house with a large garden. The book indicated that we should cross the small, elongated pond at the edge of said garden and continue up the hill. Margaret duly stepped onto the stones lying just beneath the surface of the pond and hopped blithely across.
I paused to look, unsure as to where the stones ended and the water began. (You can see what's coming, can't you?)
I stepped out onto the pond only to find that what I thought was a stone turned out to be water. As I disappeared up to my armpits in freezing cold water, Margaret stared aghast, unable to believe what I'd just done.
She was laughing so hard that she couldn't even help me out and I stood oxter-deep in weed and mud until I managed to clamber out myself. Cow. (There appears to be a pattern here - I do stupid things, and my friends laugh at me.)
Having extricated myself I then had to squelch the final mile uphill and drive home in my bare feet sitting on my waterproof coat.
Later, standing in the shower in an attempt to clean up and get back to work, I was like some monster from the deep - shedding green weed and mud all around me.
Needless to say, the book has since languished on my bookcase unused.
