Yesterday evening Mrs Sixwheeler and I went to London. Nearly didn’t make it as we missed our bus to the station but another came along and we just scraped in to catch our train. Phew.

The purpose of the trip was that a number of climbing clubs have a joint series of “London Lectures” over the winter months as a social activity; for my sins I had agreed to give a talk about my walking trip in the South of France last September along the first part of the Arles Way pilgrim route. I was pleased with my effort and everyone was very kind and said that they had enjoyed it.

Our return train was delayed out of Paddington which meant that we didn’t get home until nearly half past midnight  which is very late indeed for us. As a consequence I really did not want to get up this morning, at all. However Mrs S had to be in town quite early and as the sun was shining but with a forecast for heavy rain later Maude and I headed out for a brisk walk.

Things started well enough but then the going got very muddy indeed thanks to all the awful weather we have been having. I had planned to come back the same way but it was  such a mess that we pushed on and came home a different way along the road. Thus an hour’s walk became an hour and forty minutes, but it’ll do us both good. I think Maude had been asleep pretty much since we got back about three hours ago but that’s dogs for you.

I have noticed that in all the mud and puddles we are beginning to see the odd arbiter of Spring. Buds are starting to swell on trees and bushes and green spears are thrusting up from the hedge bottoms; it has been a remarkably mild winter so far but we all know that this is probably just lulling us into a false sense of security and that there is still plenty of time for a big freeze which will check everything for a while. At least in the meantime we can console ourselves that as each day passes Spring is another day closer.

Today’s offering is a picture of some catkins of which there are plenty at the moment.

8 January 2014