Brown's Folly

No, for once this isn't a political comment. Brown's Folly is a folly built on the hill above Bathampton by, er, Brown.

The weather was so beautiful this morning, I thought it was time to attempt the direct route to the summit. I've lived in Bath for 17 years and have never walked there before. So I thought it was time. En route, I bumped into Gitte and her friend Stephen, who were also out walking, and coincidentally shared the same target.

It took me four hours there and back, but 45 minutes of that were spent hacking my way through overgrown nettles. There is a footpath that runs under the A46 bypass and along the River Avon, skirting the playing fields of a local rugby club. The footpath had become grossly overgrown during this wet summer. My good deed for today - trample my way along the path.

Some of the nettles were head high. The worst stretches were those where the nettles had allied with thorn bushes, their stems intertwining. I felt like a microbe trying to defeat two types of antibiotic simultaneously.

I'll take my machete next time...