Saturday 25 March - Home

After a few lessons learnt about driving around the M25 during the week, these days we usually try to arrive back in the UK early on a Sunday morning. This time we made it a Saturday, so that we could visit younger (step)son and grandchildren on the way, following which we were going to head off to the Ridgeway for a couple of nights.

The visiting plans suffered a late cancellation due to a positive covid test (not us!), and if we weren't going to Reading then the Ridgeway plan no longer made sense. We would head straight home instead...

...or not quite straight home, because the late cancellation meant that we were at leisure to make a little detour en-route. Wendover Woods is a Marilyn that I've not been in a tremendous rush to visit, because we usually pass reasonably close to it at least four times a year, but equally it has remained unvisited because when we're passing we're always on our way to or from seeing friends or family, and spending time with them is more important than nipping up a hill.

Bertie was settled into a convenient car park at Halton and, after a quick lunch, it was a 5.5km route from there. I convinced Mick to join me, even though the weather looked threatening and he'd far rather have sat and read his book, on the basis that he needed some exercise so he may as well achieve that by coming along. His verdict at the end: "It wasn't very interesting!".

The location believed to be the summit pre-2021, complete with boulders bearing a plaque saying this is the summit

The current summit, following a survey in 2021, found after thrashing around in the woods for a good while, bloodying my legs on dead undergrowth. You may notice that we could have driven to within metres of the summit, had we so chosen.

Just a couple of short light showers caught us on the way up. It was dry on the way back, but within two minutes of getting back to Bertie the heavens opened. Excellent timing!

More driving saw us home. But for how long...