Wednesday, January 03, 2007

These boots were made for walking....


This is the Copper Horse on Snow Hill, and the view north along The Long Walk towards Windsor Castle and the George IV gateway. The gent sitting on the horse, dressed as a Roman, is King George lll.






And this is the aforementioned Long Walk, built in 1688, again looking towards the Castle for a distance of 3 miles.



I'm sharing these fascinating details with you in the hope that you will be overwhelmingly impressed that today Jo and I decided to get some fresh air by walking it. As there is no car park right next to King George, we had a fair old uphill walk to the start of our trek (about half a mile), followed by the previously referenced 3 miles to Her Majesty's front door. Time now for a spot of lunch, so into the town (not far) and then, after a well-deserved break, time to head back.

By way of a change, we decided to go back by a different route and set off up the road leading through Windsor Great Park to the car park. It was round about now that it crossed my mind 'perhaps we've bitten off more than we can chew'. This feeling strengthened as the footpath ended and we were obliged to walk on soggy, lumpy grass with mini quagmires every now and then. Is there still a hosepipe ban?? (I hope you haven't forgotten that the distance left to cover is about 3 miles!!) We soldiered on (not much else we could do at that stage) and eventually staggered to the car where we eased ourselves onto the seats, because the legs refused to bend at the knees, feeling a wonderful sense of achievement! Yes, it's made me determined to explore all of our local parks, gardens and countryside on foot and a lot more often than I have done recently.

As a postscript, you will notice that the bloke on the horse is pointing west towards the woods, precisely in the direction to where I lost my glasses. If only he could speak because I'm sure that from his great height he knows exactly where they are!

4 comments:

chux said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
chux said...

Just read about this on Jo's blog. Sounds really nice.

All the best for 2007 !

Liz Hinds said...

Hooray, you're back and blogging! Will read properly and comment when I'm not so tired and don't have ironing to do.

MaryB said...

Beautiful walk, Chris. I love Windsor and your pics and words make me quite reminiscent of several wonderful outings there. (Glad you've returned to the blog-world!)