Walking on a Grey Day

Today has been a day of walks. Milton Country Park remains shut, much to the annoyance of people like us who use it twice a day so we're looking further afield for dog walking territory.

And although the weather was decidedly dubious I decided to walk into town for lunch at the Wrestlers. Just before I set off it was snowing, although we're over the worst of that now and it's now too warm for it to settle, but by the time I set out it was just a fine and gloomy drizzle. I'd slung on my Tilley hat to keep the worst of it off my face and put on my Paramo jacket and trousers so I was pretty well set up for the conditions.

Or so I thought.

Beth, who'd set off before me to take Jake for a walk, had already warned me that Fen Road was horribly slippy still with a lot of compacted snow on the pavements. And so it proved so I walked on the road most of the way.

But I thought once I got to the river I'd be OK. Big mistake. The Haling Way, the path into town, was covered in compacted snow for much of its length and was a nightmare to walk on. If I'd had my microspikes with me I would have been fine (the snow wasn't deep but the Haling Way is hogging so it wouldn't have mattered if the spikes bottomed out). As it was I spent a lot of time walking on the grass verge next to the path.

Cambridge itself was fine though: Fen Road, Water Lane, and Riverside were pretty much ice/snow free so once I got there things got easier.

So not a great walk but the exercise did me good and burned off a few calories.
 

Later I had my second walk of the day, with Jake this time and we went along the bund which protects Milton from the A10 bypass. I've not walked the whole length of it for a while now. The southern half, from Landbeach Road to Butt Lane is a bit dull as you walk along the bottom of the bund with the fences of gardens on your left but for the second half from Butt Lane to the Sycamores Rec you are on the top of the bund and, because of the plantings there, it's like walking through a dense coppice.

We walked all the way along and then on around Sycamores Rec on the path behind the trees. A very pleasant walk on a gray day and Jake got lots of off lead time, which was good. We also met a staffie/collie cross an unlikely combination which looked very staffie but with one blue eye and one brown eye like Jake. I remarked on this to her owner, which is how I discovered that she was a collie cross (it's quite a common thing in collies). He had a word for the condition. The books I've read just call it "odd eyed" but he said it was called "heterochromia" so that's my word of the day.