TR: Wet isn't it?

Neil Pugh said:

I've just walked back home from Ledbury (where I had to leave the car),
through swollen rivers (with water lapping at my privates) and floods,
fire and tempests. Well, without the fire, obviously, and it was breezy
rather than being a tempest, but the floods were real enough.

As for the railways, don't start me off. The bloody Luftwaffe couldn't
close them down, but a hint of rain and everything's cancelled!

I just about managed to get to Ledbury through some pretty nasty water,
and was just thinking to myself that it was all uphill from here and
should be fairly dry, when I went round a corner and found a bus
reversing to turn around. Well if a bus couldn't get through there was
no chance for me. I tried a couple of other routes, but both were
blocked. Malvern was effectively an island! Abandoned car.

Plan A - Train. Stood on Ledbury platform in rain, board said train on
time but no train came. Someone got a mobile phone message saying trains
were cancelled. The board still confidently predicted the arrival of a
train.

Plan B - Walk. A pleasant stroll through raging torrents of water along
the unclassified road from Ledbury below Frith Wood through Petty France
and Old Colwall. A van was stuck in the lake that used to be Cradley
Brook, there followed about 150 m of knacker deep wading until I reached
the high ground around Colwall Church. After this it was plain sailing
apart from the water rushing down from the housing estate in Colwall,
that nearly took my legs out from underneath me!

I phoned Gill from Colwall, and bless her, she picked me up in the car
as I was beginning the ascent of the Malverns.

9.24km (in wellies, sometimes full of water)
210 m ascent
Absolutely bloody saturated.

Regards,

Something to look back on with affection in your old age. Happily you
did not get back to a flooded house, now that would be the pits.

Yesterday tried toget through an impossibly muddy path in the
Chilterns with baby Emily in rucksack. Tiptoeing across an
exceptionally slippery bit, Em suddenly shifted her weight, with an
end result of me falling face-first through stinging nettles into a
trench of liquid mud. Needless to say my reactions were to save baby
rather than myself, so as I slooched back to the car with red welts
rising on my arms and face, and dripping head to toe in slurry, Em was
unmuddy, unstung, and to add insult to injury, laughing hysterically.
Grrr.

www.wheresthepath.co.uk said:

Yesterday tried toget through an impossibly muddy path in the
Chilterns with baby Emily in rucksack. Tiptoeing across an
exceptionally slippery bit, Em suddenly shifted her weight, with an
end result of me falling face-first through stinging nettles into a
trench of liquid mud. Needless to say my reactions were to save baby
rather than myself, so as I slooched back to the car with red welts
rising on my arms and face, and dripping head to toe in slurry, Em was
unmuddy, unstung, and to add insult to injury, laughing hysterically.
Grrr.

If only she'd had a camera!

J

In article <[email hidden]>,
www.wheresthepath.co.uk <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Yesterday tried toget through an impossibly muddy path in the
Chilterns with baby Emily in rucksack. Tiptoeing across an
exceptionally slippery bit, Em suddenly shifted her weight, with an
end result of me falling face-first through stinging nettles into a
trench of liquid mud. Needless to say my reactions were to save baby
rather than myself, so as I slooched back to the car with red welts
rising on my arms and face, and dripping head to toe in slurry, Em was
unmuddy, unstung, and to add insult to injury, laughing hysterically.
Grrr.

They're good at that and they get better. Wait until she's in her late
teens!

--

Dominic Sexton

In message <[email hidden]>, Judith
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

www.wheresthepath.co.uk said:

Yesterday tried toget through an impossibly muddy path in the
Chilterns with baby Emily in rucksack. Tiptoeing across an
exceptionally slippery bit, Em suddenly shifted her weight, with an
end result of me falling face-first through stinging nettles into a
trench of liquid mud. Needless to say my reactions were to save baby
rather than myself, so as I slooched back to the car with red welts
rising on my arms and face, and dripping head to toe in slurry, Em was
unmuddy, unstung, and to add insult to injury, laughing hysterically.
Grrr.

If only she'd had a camera!

J

200quid on YBF :-)

Emily in a ruck sack - I thought it was Fran writing again (memories )
--
Bill Grey

Bitstring <[email hidden]>, from
the wonderful person www.wheresthepath.co.uk <[email hidden]>
said

Quoted message said:

Yesterday tried toget through an impossibly muddy path in the
Chilterns with baby Emily in rucksack. Tiptoeing across an
exceptionally slippery bit, Em suddenly shifted her weight, with an
end result of me falling face-first through stinging nettles into a
trench of liquid mud. Needless to say my reactions were to save baby
rather than myself, so as I slooched back to the car with red welts
rising on my arms and face, and dripping head to toe in slurry, Em was
unmuddy, unstung, and to add insult to injury, laughing hysterically.
Grrr.

Bad luck, but it raised a smile here. I think it must be time to
sacrifice a politician or two to the rain gods .. there are several
hundred excellent candidates. You hold them down, I'll fetch the
obsidian knife.

As for mud, lots of ours is no longer in Shropshire or Worcestershire -
it is all downstream. Several of my favourite muddy tracks are now
reduced to rocky ravines, as everything under 20cm diameter has been
swept away, who knows where, with gullies over half a meter deep in what
used to be surfaced tracks (Byways - pre-Victorian roads).

Actually a lot of it probably went down the drains, which will doubtless
not improve matters next time it rains. I guess we may have to invest in
some serious (Texas/California style) storm drains.

--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
8,963 Km walked. 1,746Km PROWs surveyed. 31.7% complete.

Quoted message said:

They're good at that and they get better. Wait until she's in her late
teens!

--

Dominic Sexton

Trust me, I'm not carrying her in a rucksack then!!!

Did you get much rain in the Peak District then Dom?

Anth

In article <[email hidden]>,
www.wheresthepath.co.uk <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

They're good at that and they get better. Wait until she's in her late
teens!

--

Dominic Sexton

Trust me, I'm not carrying her in a rucksack then!!!

You probably won't even see much of her then but when you do she'll make
her presence known!

Quoted message said:

Did you get much rain in the Peak District then Dom?

It was a bit soggy over here on the west but fortunately nowhere near as
bad as the other side for Sheffield, Rotherham and Hull.

You should have made the most of the floods and canoed the Thames Path
while you had the chance!

--

Dominic Sexton