Walking off the turkey...

By Boxing Day afternoon I'm usually itching to get out and stretch my legs, and as we're usually with my parents, we can borrow the dog as a decent excuse for this! This year was no exception, wellies and walking boots were donned and we set off into a crisp winter afternoon.

We're lucky both where we live and where my parents are that we're an easy walk into some nice countryside. The town is punctuated with green "wedges" and once you get to the outskirts there is some nice walking. The dog certainly approves - look, this face says it all!

 Out along the lane, alongside the Nature Reserve, and then a walk up over the common gets us into the woods - like so much of our forests locally this is mixed, Beech & Oak mainly. Makes for some fabulous autumnal colour, and even at this time of year it still looks pretty good...

There are still just enough leaves hanging on close to the ground to add some interest too.

Today we were back out again - I was given rather a nifty little pedometer for christmas so am feeling the need to test it out thoroughly! Our side of town this time, and just us, no four legged person, but what fantastic weather it was for it!

Out through the woods, along what has always been a footpath and so we were slightly alarmed to find padlocked gates at the end! We presume however that this is simply to prevent our local "caravan dwellers" from gaining access as a bit of looking revealed a very user friendly pedestrian access around one side of the fence! We couldn't resist a wander around the new trendy housing development - I've blogged about this before, it's the place with the bar-code houses...

...each to their own I guess but living here wouldn't suit me at all. Middle of a Friday afternoon when most people are off work for Christmas and the place was deserted - hardly anyone out. I invariably leave the place wondering if the world has ended and nobody remembered to tell me and today was no exception.

Full of square houses...

Thankfully when we did get to the other side of it there was a rather lovely sunset just starting to remind us that there was still a world out there...

Robyn.