Sort of Spring

(I've been a bit preoccupied so this is a back-blip). Went to town in the morning for my weekly CoVid test, then did some shopping and dropping off items for other people. Had only just got home when an acquaintance turned up on her bike for a walk.

She is a tricky customer! The first walk we did was too muddy, apparently. Last weekend's walk was too short. This one was ok, apparently, a bit long, but ok apart from the part when she got stuck on a barbed wire fence. Ok, she is 20 years older than me, but fit as a fiddle, grew up on a farm, keeps trekking around India or remote islands, so I don't tend to make allowances. Country walks usually involve fences, don't they?

Anyway, it was a good long walk, with sunshine, and we even bumped into CleanSteve. Had a cup of tea in the garden, miles apart, when we got back. (I had just tested negative, if one can believe the lateral flow test results).
I did not take any photos on the walk, because I didn't want to keep stopping. Hence these shots are of the very swollen Slad Brook, and my neighbour's glass patio-roof reflecting the sunset later in the afternoon.

I've been on three walks with this particular person this year, and she never notices or comments on the landscape unless it's a beech wood, and never even pauses to admire the view in any direction. She doesn't really like mud, either, which is a problem because it's January and it's been raining for days. Once, I went sledging with her and it turned out that she only had a 'town coat' and no type of jacket more suitable for country walks. She has lived in Stroud for 20 years! All very strange. I must expand on my circle of walking companions. Everyone is so terrified of the virus now, that is the trouble.

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