The Great Outdoors
Now that my contract at Dell Farm is up, somehow I seem to be discovering the desire to be outside exploring! 'Secret Britain' is a programme in which Matt Baker and Julie Bradbury visit a selection of well-kept secret beautiful areas. So far I have seen two programmes, and in both the presenters have climbed and abseiled, and in the second, Julia went caving to find an otherwise inaccessible cavern / mini-valley-type-thing. I'm wondering whether next week they'll be doing archery?! I wish I had the courage to go climbing, and I'd really like to try some proper caving - the desire to do so has increased since watching 'Secret Britain', that's for sure.
Also all of the beautiful scenery they show, plus various recent discoveries of the countryside around us, makes me desperately want some decent walking gear and the time to go off on rambles. We're going on holiday to Wales in October, staying in Borth, and looking it up on Google maps has made me SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!! The terrain and beach look AMAZING, and there is a train station there too. I followed the train line round a bit, and it goes through the countryside, along past the coast, and all for a very reasonable fare (yes, I checked). I am waaaaaaaaaaay beyond excited! I'm currently looking for walking boots and fleeces on eBay. Ideally I'd love a fleece gilet which would also do me for ministry, but an outdoor fleece of any description would be useful, as we're coming up to winter. I'm not wishing away the year, but the weather seems to have turned as of last week and I'm now cold!
I'm also on the lookout for new brakes for a mountain bike I discovered we have. It's a Salcano full-suspension mountain bike that Dad picked up from the side of the road years ago, not in fantastic condition but useable once we replace the back brake. And possibly replace the front inner-tube; I'm not sure yet. Natasha's friend is doing a 50-mile round trip from ... somewhere to somewhere else and back, in October, and Natasha said I could probably go along too. Even if I can't, or it just doesn't happen, but I want to get cycling anyway.
Yesterday we had a congregation barbecue in Wendover Woods, which was really lovely and great, great fun :D I met a sister who has recently moved to Flitwick who absolutely loves the outdoors, so we were enthusing together about where we'd like to go for walks, and what we'd like to try. It was SO cool!
All of this outdoor-ness is making it exceedingly difficult to work up any enthusiasm for any other jobs though ...