It was a Christmas miracle……..it had stopped raining and in the distance we could see blue skies. How exciting. This meant we could go for that ‘long’ walk following the Jurassic coast path to Strete, the one we promised we’d do the other day. But, first things first. Winston needed his early morning wee, we needed our lemon detox water and then we all needed to discuss the day ahead, the three of us, in my double bed.
With Winston’s ablutions over and done with, our daily ‘admin’ sorted and a walking route planned we sat down to a breakfast of cheeses, including the now infamous smelly French cheese. We put together a picnic, made some rolls using up the smelly cheese and next thing we knew we were headed out the door and making our way to the recycling centre. We needed to dispose of all our empty wine bottles and had come across the recycling bins on a previous walk around the village. Feeling pleased with ourselves that we were helping the environment we started out on our walk. It was 10.30am so let’s see how long it takes us to walk the 1.25 miles to Strete.
Honestly, you cannot believe what a difference a day makes. The weather has gone from the gusty high winds and continuous rain that we experienced yesterday to a lovely calm, mild and sun speckled day. It was glorious. The cafe down at Blackpool Sands was open so feeling in need of a coffee we purchased two cappuccinos-to-go. You know what it’s like when you look forward to something and then you’re disappointed when you get it…….well, omg, they were most unpleasant. Unfortunately they were made with full fat milk and were so frothy they didn’t taste nice at all, well they didn’t to us anyway. We ended up throwing them away….£7.50 down the drain! Oh well, positive thoughts, there may be a cafe in Strete where we can get another coffee!
We followed the coast path signs out of Blackpool Sands and headed up the hill. The very steep hill. No, the extremely steep hill. We hadn’t even started the walk properly and I was completely exhausted by the time we got to the stile at the top. Maice of course was charging ahead, Winston god love him was hanging behind waiting for me. We continued on at a slow pace as we navigated a few more extremely steep hills then we encountered a hill that we could walk down. It wasn’t a Sound of Music type hill, it was a very steep precarious hill that you had to take care with every step you took. We reached the little wooden bridge at the bottom and looked up. My, it was a long way to the top! My poor legs were not having a happy day but with positive thoughts they propelled me to the top where Maice was waiting!! The undulating countryside may be lovely but today the hills were not alive with the sound of music only the sound of expletives! To make matters worse I had to fight off the advances of a black Labrador that seemed to be attracted to my necklace and kept jumping up at me, fortunately the owner pulled him off before he could plant his paws on my cream jumper. We also passed a group of walkers and as we exchanged pleasantries the guy was heard to utter the words ‘nothing is difficult if you have a willing mind’. That may be true but today the mind may have been willing, but the body certainly wasn’t! We made it into Strete and of course it being Boxing Day nothing was open and to actually get onto the beach you had to walk another 1.25 miles! We trudged on down some very steep steps, which of course we would have to walk back up and came across a bench two thirds of the way down which is where we decided to stop for lunch. The smell of the French cheese hit us immediately we opened the bag but those rolls, with some added crisps were lovely and just what we needed to propel us back to Stoke Fleming. We didn’t make it down onto the beach at Strete but did an about turn and retraced our steps up and down the hills. To be fair, the walk back wasn’t that bad and we walked through our front door at 14.30pm having trod some 16,504 steps and walked some 7.4miles.
Poor Winston was so mucky he ended up in the sink again having a hose down as did our boots. We poured ourselves a glass of caramel rum, so delicious, heated up the apple cake, added a dollop of M&S brandy crème and sank down on our sofas. It was bliss. The rest of the afternoon passed with all three of us taking a well earned nap before waking up, taking Winston out, then settling into our sofas to watch Kinky Boots. Of course we had our Christmas dinner to cook so in between the adverts we would pop into the kitchen to make sure everything was cooking nicely. At 6pm we sat down to our Salmon-en-croute accompanied by red cabbage and apple and green beans and asparagus blanched in a lovely red wine jus. What a delicious Christmas dinner.
We retired to the sofas for the rest of the evening with our wine and raised a toast to Myrna, Maice’s mum, whose birthday it is today. Happy Birthday Myrna from the three of us. After taking Winston out at 9.30pm we retired to our beds looking forward to sleeping away the aches and pains of our long walk.
It had been a long day but it had been so nice to be able to get out and enjoy a long walk. Being out in the fresh air, walking beneath blue skies, it was wonderful and just what was needed after a few days cooped up indoors. Hope you’ve all enjoyed your Boxing Day day like what we have!!
M&A and Sir Winston xxx
