Sheltering from the tropical-like rain the six of us that had turned out for the December walk were beginning to doubt our wisdom.  Some hadn’t got waterproofs and others had said they wouldn’t be coming if it rained! – well it wasn’t when they left home and in fact the sun had been shining brightly.   The strong wind howled through the arches bringing rain with it and we stood and waited, and watched puddles forming.  Fortunately for us it did stop and we all decided to go for the walk regardless of the threatening clouds heading our way.  At one point the sun tried to show and for a brief spell a rainbow was seen to the north.

So, we set off to join the seawall allowing the wind to blow us eastwards along it.  The tide was fairly high but exposed enough mud for on which curlews and redshanks could feed – no boat activity on the river today.  Eventually the strong gusts got the better of most of us and we found shelter walking along the lower path.

We were pleased to have the wind against us on the farmland tracks rather than the seawall but even so at times battling against it was quite a struggle.

We have walked this walk many times and, as with all of our walks there are different things to see, different people to chat with and plenty of interesting discussions.  New on this occasion was a field, perhaps a scrape, which was heavily fenced with the addition of electric defences; we assumed that this was a fence to keep foxes out of an area where birds will hopefully nest on the ground, lapwings for example; we must ask the farmer.  Also, there were many young trees planted at the edge of some fields alongside the footpath.

The circuit is around 5-miles/8kms and takes 2 hours.  We arrived back at the Clock Tower just when the next rain shower hit us pleased that the end of the year brought us this ‘weather window’ so that we could enjoy our morning.

Diane Caulkett