A Traditional Walk in the Drizzle

 I just thought I'd share my photos from today's Mayday walk. IT'S TRADITION!

We could have taken the car and explored the Northamptonshire countryside, but we decided to use pure foot power and walked to Abington Park.

Well, one tradition you have to follow when you go to Abington Park is go and see the birdies. There's an aviary there full of lovebirds, budgerigars, canaries, quails, bantams, zebra finches and other things that go "meep meep" (not Roadrunner). And of course, the fabulous peacocks. Just a couple of the blue fellas there today. There's usually a white one as well. Don't know where he's gone.

The park is a fantastic arboretum. Just look at all these trees.

 And this one is awesome. There's OH, waving.

 Abington Park sits on the site of a medieval village. Some of the structures on the park date back to those times, but there's also this fantastic house which was built in the fifteenth century and is now a museum. There are plays held in the courtyard every summer - I've even been in one of them!
Shakespeare's granddaughter Elizabeth Barnard lived there, and is buried at St Paul's, also on the park site.

There being lots of trees, there are also millions of squirrels. How many can you spot?

 And some of them are very bold and will come right up to you.

There are some really good play parks for the kids, and lots of gym stuff for, erm, adults, too. This one makes you think that gravity has stopped working.

When we got down to the boating lake, it started to pitter patter.

 All these photos were taken in the rain. Very nice lake though. We got chatting to the bailiff who was fishing and had been landing some small tench and perch before the rain. We learned that there are some 20lb carp in this lake. A good fishing lake that OH can walk to with only £15 license fee per year! I think I know what to get him for his birthday now.

Finally, a drizzly picture of "The Pigeonry". More than a simple dovecot, this was originally built as a water tower to pump water for the manor house.

We put up with the rain for a bit before deciding to duck inside for a hot chocolate. No ice creams from the van today. When the rain showed no sign of abating, we braved it again and I think a suggestion of popping into another pub on the way home was briefly considered. Luckily, just as we neared said pub, the rain stopped and we sensibly decided to go home for a nice cuppa instead. Temptation avoided!

Well, we may have been soggy, but it was a nice, energizing walk. Think we did about 5 miles. My knee might need a bit of Voltarol, mind.

We settled in, and watched Being John Malkovitch which we recorded yesterday. Bloody hell, why have we not seen this film before? It is extremely weird and just a bit brilliant. I like weird, me.