The coldest hike I've EVER known!

The Rambling group

 It's mid March 2018 and media calls this 'The Beast From The East'!  A sudden cold snap swooping across Europe, despite having balmy warm spring-like days we're suddenly greeted with this reminder that winter is not yet done!

The scenery often resembled black and white photography but it was real and all around us.  Quite beautiful actually and surprisingly calming on the eyes.

Only one buzzard was seen and no other wildlife, like they'd literally all hidden away to keep warm for the icy cold day;  how very wise of them!  ;-)







I love seeing evidence of 'times gone by', seen here in this quaint little well...

Village well

Along this lane shown here below the hedgerow was adorned in thick beige icicles like they were all about to start some sort of symphony in the wind!.....  

Icicles!

Fallen tree of intrigue/'intreeg' :-)  

Well, there's no bugger out except us!  :-o

Isn't this fallen tree just incredible?  One can see clearly its fallen from the left and has a shard pointing towards the ground but I think it plays tricks on the eye and fools you.

BBRRRRrrrrr!  Some fields were colder than others.  We began from Watton at Stone Hertfordshire and went off road through remote trails and across quagmires in fields, freezing, blowy hills and eventually stopped off for a packed lunch (frozen salad!) outside a little pub near Bennington.  Beside the pub was a bus stop with a lovely array of books for people to read and borrow. (see pic below)

  I was glad I had my Nordic Walking poles on this ramble to help keep me vertical.  Temperatures say it was -5'c but despite the SEVEN layers I had on it felt much colder than that.  However, I loved it! The surroundings were often so stark and baron and some areas looked positively angry!

Bus Stop/Library

  My phone wasn't too happy in the temperatures but I did manage to get a few snaps to capture the essence of the hike.