Happy

Home again. Ah well. My escape was too short, but it broke the ice.

It was a busy day. My Couch to 5k in the local park at 6am - wonderful. Hotel breakfast at 8am. By 11am I was in Culbin Forest for a 3 hour hike. Then it was the 3 hour drive home. 

With a minor glitch, everything was fantastic. Actually, perhaps not so minor. For the first 2 hours of my hike I saw no-one. I had geese, butterflies and a seal for company. 

The last bit was in a more popular section, and I had too many close encounters with idiots who have abandoned social distancing. Walkers, cyclists and dog owners. All of my hike was on tracks which are wide enough for a forestry truck to drive along - 3 metres at least - so space was not the problem. I guess that leaves selfishness, stupidity, or both. 

What a contrast with the hotel where they were all trying so hard to get it right, and make people feel at ease. They did, and I told them. 

The Forest is fascinating. It was planted to fix the sand dunes now beneath it, to stop them moving. Some are over 20m high. I loved being able to walk in solitude for 2 hours, surrounded by trees, with no noise apart from the geese and sometimes the sea. I wonder if the geese are resident or migrating.