Has summer been and gone? Perhaps a couple of sunny weekends is all we are getting this year. Well, if the next few months are to see dull, grey clouds and temperatures in the low teens, we'll just have to imagine brilliant blue skies and commit to a diet of barbecues and ice cream. With that intention, I headed out to Archers Ice Cream, at Walworth Gate, near Darlington, with work colleague Amy Smith on a chilly Saturday morning, our plan being to get in a ten-mile training run for a half marathon we're both doing later this month, and follow it by indulging in some well-earned sweet treats.
As previously mentioned in my Eating Out adventures, I have several friends who have a loose grasp of distances when it comes to outdoor expeditions. Amy, however, seems fine with distances, but directions are another matter. I should have vetoed the planned off-road loop to Piercebridge and back when she said we were navigating via her mobile phone map, but I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.
After a mile and a half, I formally sacked her from all current and future directions. We ended up on two very busy main roads, on several dubious thistle-covered "paths" along the edge of wheat-fields, almost tripped over a sleeping cat on a farm track, and had to negotiate a series of stiles and gates covered in nettles taller than we were. Somehow, we made it back to Walworth mostly unscathed, having covered just six miles in an hour and 45 minutes.
We could have just walked it faster..
