The shepherd and the wayward flock
Under a less than promising sky, a goodly turn-out of dogs, reprobates and Walkers gathered near a closed Café at the start of what should have been a jointly-led outing but unfortunately could not be: our horticultural expert is still not fully recovered… Be that as it may, the hills were soon alive to the sounds of relative silence: Paul had come back from foreign parts sans Myriam! Apparently, she had joined the massed ranks of Walking Wounded… As had Ingrid… Our best wishes go to them: it cannot be fun to stretch on a sofa with a stash of Easter chocolate when one is feeling under-par!
It was very heartening to note that many Walkers had responded to last week’s plea for ideas and suggestions about safety; indeed, there was a great deal of constructive discussion on how to make our Wednesday experience more pleasurable still; some ‘old hands’ said that it had all been promised before but this Blogueur is not quite sure of what was meant by these remarks.
The cool weather ensured that the few bee-hives encountered along the route were very quiet, even though the cistus are now blooming nicely: the ten-pointer still eludes us but a few ‘nul-points’ were noted by the sharper-eyed brigade as we fairly sped along the paths. In truth, our ‘sprinting’ stints were punctuated by well-received stops for water and helpful advice.
Keeping up, Boss!
’O’ Tasco’, the Irish restaurant, hove into view quite early in the after-noon for the richly-deserved Sagres or two –Ian had come up to meet us there, nice to see him looking so good! Honni soit qui mal y pense!
Such an untimely return home caused this Blogueur to catch the Present Mrs. Blogueur in ‘siesta flagrante’ and happy she was not: a plea to future Leaders, can we pace ourselves a little more leisurely? We are retired, almost to a man*, are we not? Besides, sharing the balcony with the local wild pussies overnight had its drawbacks… and it was cold!
* In our circumstances ‘man’ embraces ‘woman’.
Under orders:
David, Rod, Janet, Hedley, Jim, Dina, Frank, Val, Hilke, Yves, Maria, Paul,, John O’, Terry A,
Peter, John H.
Orderly hounds: Ember, Misty, Shelley, Devina, Rusty and Rosie.
The racetrack:
The Stats:
Total Distance: 15.3 km
Total Time: 4 hrs 32 min.
Moving Time: 3 hrs 37 min.
Overall Avg.: 3.3 km/hr
Moving Avg.: 4.2 km/hr
Total Ascent: 508 metres
Max. Elevation: 307 metres
The Leader:
The Leader’s report:
No café open: that was a disappointment even though known beforehand. But surprise: everybody was there early, the photo duly taken, we set off at 9.25. Has that ever happened before?
Walking northwards we saw a very dark cloud looming ahead of us, we seemed to walk in the wrong direction.
Walkers are made of strong material, it says here…
But we were lucky, the wind was in our favour, and we had no rain as the forecast had promised.
We passed the old ruin where we had lost Rosie some years ago without any problems, and when we reached the first ridge, the sun was out and we had a beautiful view all around.
Happy Walkers
Nothing really happened on this walk.
We passed some bee-hives without being stung.
The rain had not made the stream we had to pass three times impossible to pass, the dogs behaved well.
Someone, please fall in for the camera?
The only problem we had was that we did not keep together as we should. Time and again the end had no contact with the main group and the front had gone out of sight. We did not seem to have learned anything from last week when we lost four people nor from Rod’s warning mail that unluckily had not reached everybody. It cannot be the leader’s responsibility only: if the pace is too fast, the walkers in the rear must say so and not just fall behind, the front must take care that they do not lose contact. Hopefully we will be sensible enough to take care of each other.
More Happy Walkers
Segregation among Walkers? Surely not!
Odds and Thods: strange headgear…
Paul had plucked a pheasant…
He may not have brought back new electronic gadgets…
The heady scent of fresh lavender…
and pretty flowers:
Les adieux du Gourmet:
Mes amis, much against his better judgment, the Gourmet has to comply with orders and the phad for phast phoode! Accordingly, in future, he will restrict his diet to slices of bread with dried slipper-soles in-between (will mayonnaise or moutarde be allowed?, Please?) Sic transit culina…
The Last Supper?
Caption competition:
Tail-piece:
That’s MY stick in the water, ok?
RCB’s 5 eurocents worth.
The Chef Blogueur has once again trusted me to perform the dark art of circulation to Blog Fans. Once again, if you are not a Blog fan and deeply resent and instantly delete these glorious technicolour potted histories, let me know forthwith. If on the other hand you are still keen on being notified, and have somehow missed my efforts to encourage you onto the AWW List on Yahoo groups, (HERE) or have been unable to follow the simple steps to enrol yourself, then let me know and I will manually add you to the list, providing it accepts your current email address.
I feel I had to add a couple of pics, which somehow were overlooked by the Chef Blogueur in the warm afterglow of a successful composition, and they show the skills of certain members in walking on water. Our dogs have long preferred this method of crossing a rill, but most of the group are hydrophobic, and untrusting of their footwear. Not so our heroes below.....
If I could just go fast enough..........!
Who needs stepping stones....?
And the obligatory quote, possibly from Myriam....
“If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.”
Proverb, Chinese
Sorry to miss the walk. What a record starting time, 5 minutes early!!
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