I think I was out on my fourth walk in four days ... back in April 2011 !
So, who was I out with ? Who's this ?
It's my grandson ... with his mother !
I had told Katy that it would only be a stroll so we parked on the Rowthorne Trail not so very far from Hardwick Hall ... and set off in the sunshine ...
We left the Trail and headed across a field of oil seed rape towards Norwood ...
The ground was very dry ...
We entered Norwood ...
The bluebells were in flower ...
They grow quite a lot of oil seed rape in this area but at least the footpath across the large field leading to Norwood Lodge was clear ...
There are three or four properties at Norwood Lodge but the path is easy enough to follow between the gardens ...
We turned right along Newbound Lane and after a few hundred yards entered Lady Spencer's Wood owned by the National Trust ...
As you can imagine, with eleven year old Benjamin with us [as he was then] the walk was far from dull ...
The next wood we passed through was Park Piece where there was a wonderful display of Dryad's Saddle ...
After leaving the wood and crossing a field we reached the driveway which led us away from the Hardwick Estate ... and back to the car.
This walk was followed on the 28th April 2011
Length of stroll ~ 2.84 miles *
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 149.93 miles
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 28th April 2011 ~ 677.98 miles
34 of 2011 [which means in 2011 I was averaging just over 4.40 miles a walk.]
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap
After the walk we went to Hardwick Hall ...
This lady was dressed as a gardener of the time ...
I often go to Hardwick just to look around the garden [as I did yesterday !] though all these photographs were taken a couple of years ago ...
It is a marvellous place, well worth a visit.
We finish as we started with a photograph of Benjamin. I think he was just about to take flight off the mounting block ...
