Birthday Walk

 Firstly thank you to those of you that have been been kind enough to send me birthday greetings. I had a lovely lockdown birthday which was certainly different. Birthdays on a farm always take second place to any work and at 7am a concrete mixer lorry arrived to fill some groundwork being done around the stables. I wasn’t involved in the spreading but Farmer Husband and Daughter were so there was a slight delay to the traditional croissant breakfast and present opening. Younger Daughter is still ‘Locked down’ in Swansea so she was only able to join us by FaceTime. I suspect it will be Christmas before we see her as we have been placed in a Tier 3 area.

It should also have been my Walk and Talk day but sadly that is out of the question due to lockdown. I did however manage a lovely walk with my sister. It was a cold foggy day but well wrapped up we set out from the village of Newton St Loe near Bath. The walk started on the edge of the Bath Spa University campus which is situated on the site of a Stately home called Newton Park. The grounds were landscaped by Capability Brown in the 18th Century. This included two lakes and it was the lower one of these that we walked along the edge of.

You can just see some of the student hall of residences through the mist. What a lovely outlook they have.

This is also a popular fishing spot for those with a permit. There was one keen fisherman camped up for the day complete with his gas stove and kettle. Judging by the temperature he was going to need those hot drinks.

The walk followed upstream and we were fascinated to spot this fossil in the stream. We actually spotted quite a few in garden and house walls.

We had a somewhat muddy way through several fields.

All of this land is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall which is of course administered by Prince Charles. The estate was acquired by the Duchy in 1940. This stone barn looked particularly atmospheric in the mist.

The walk remained chilly but we did see a little sunshine.

Although we still had misty views back towards the hamlet of Stanton Prior.

There was also a wonderful display of spindle berries along the way.

Our route returned through the grounds of the university with glimpses of the top lake and parts of the original Newton Park estate.

It was then a rapid and chilly walk back to the start. We were of course unable to have lunch out but we went for the next best thing which was a takeaway from the farm shop ate in our adjoining cars with the doors between us open! Oh what strange days.