the corner office

The observant reader might notice that this is the same hill as the Hay Bales post. You wouldn't know it was there apart from the hedgerow, but the road at the bottom of the hill is one of the busiest country lanes in our area.

Cresting the hill on the other side of the valley takes you to suburbia and thence to where we live, and so this view has two associations for me: first, early morning enthusiasm as I look back while heading south, "so stunning, how grateful I am to be here", and other times, end-of-walk exhaustion "so stunning but jeez I still have to get up there and trudge a couple more miles to get home". It doesn't look very steep in the pictures (and it isn't very steep in real life either), but it's still no fun if your legs are tired enough.

As you can tell, the footpath leading down the left of the photo isn't used much. It's a reminder for me though, of my earliest walking days. Waaay back in '24, I'd still go out walking in "water resistant" walking shoes, where said resistance could be described as "token" only. It was one of the first routes I'd planned from public footpath maps, and the first time I'd be heading up this particular path. I'd come down the hill on the other side (along dirt paths in the woodland), I'd dodged cars to cross Shire Lane, and was faced with this long, grassy path up the hill. Easy peasy I'd thought - except that I learned that morning how quickly dew-covered grass could soak a pair of water (token) resistant walking shoes right through.

And that became my early morning experience pretty much everywhere in the countryside. I'd go out walking with a spare pair of walking socks, and have to choose a point on my walk to stop and switch to dry socks.

I eventually bought proper hiking boots, and now whenever I come up this hill in the mornings, I think back to that original sopping-wet-feet experience, and I'm as smug as can be. And turning around to look back, the view is as pretty as ever.