Pretty Puddles

As mentioned yesterday, Ruby and I went for a walk rather than a run this morning and Duncan tagged along too. I have to say it was utterly, utterly freezing up on the tops this morning, despite my multi-layers. I really thought I had enough clothes on and was fully prepared but there was a really icy wind which was bitterly cold.

As requested by Andy T, I took a few pictures on this outing. Here’s one of a rather pretty puddle which I couldn’t help but take a picture of and demonstrates how cold it was...

We parked up on the mast road as Duncan didn’t want to start the walk from our house in case it got too much for him (in case you don’t know, he had a hip replacement eight weeks ago). We walked out towards the Trespass Stone but, before getting to it, cut across via Roscoe’s Tenement Clough which is a narrow muddy trail I haven’t been along before but which was very pretty. This takes you out almost at the Shooting Hut. We then went up to the ‘secret lake’ aka Smithills Reservoir.

Duncan has never been up here before and I thought he’d be really impressed, but he seemed more impressed by a lump of rusting metal he found.

We then walked back towards the Shooting Hut where Duncan got chatting to a mountain biker and I nearly froze to death. Ruby and I went to find shelter whilst he nattered away. Honestly he will talk to strangers for hours!

Whilst making our way up the path towards Scotsman’s Stump another mountain biker was heading our way. I said to Duncan ‘don’t start chatting, I’m freezing and want to keep moving’. Unfortunately, the mountain biker in question was Barry, a friend of ours so not stopping to chat was not an option. Luckily for me Barry understood my wish to keep moving and so the chat was very brief and we continued up towards the Mast Road.

I was so happy to see our crappy red Peugeot 106 along the road, something which I never thought would happen (if you have ever seen it, you would understand). It was a lovely walk, I just wish I had worn even more layers than I actually did, though I would have looked like the Michelin Man!

Finally, here’s a picture of me and Ruby, in which you can see how wrapped up I was…