boxing day

i hate boxing day, no i don't hate boxing day, rather i hate walking on boxing day, no i don't hate walking on boxing day, i just hate the people you meet when you are out walking on boxing day, no i don't hate all the people you meet walking on boxing day, just most of them, i walk all year round, everyday, in all weather's, rain or shine, snow, frost or those cloudy, drizzly dark day's that we get most day's in england, i'm out in a pair of goretex boot's with too short laces where they've rotted off, they used to be waterproof many moons ago, now they're just split with age and the constant wet, im wearing my cammo 'old navy' short's like i do all year, can't stand wet trousers flapping around my ankles and that slow, cold, wet wicking that you get as the damp rises to your nether regions that you get with 'long's', an old clash t-shirt, longsleeve base layer and my trusty berghaus jacket, filthy, ripped and torn and stained green from the numerous stiles that i encounter on my usual walk's, topped off with my 'arai' baseball cap, two day's growth, two jack russell terriers in tow and i'm looking like the sort of man you wouldn't want to meet out in the wood's, we set off just as the light is breaking, it's a mild morning and there's a glimpse of winter sunshine, the bird's are chirruping gently, almost in relief that the rain has stopped and given them a brief respite, how much rain have we had this year? normally bone dry track's are flooded, dry stone walls and tree's collapsed with the amount of water, it's like walking on a sherry trifle, boot's sinking into the mud and the earth greedily sucking at your feet, progress is slow, i give up trying to walk around the worst of the wetness and just plough straight through, ankle deep, stopping briefly to check out my favourite house in the world, a timber and glass construction built deep in a clearing in the wood's, i love this place, it just dissapears into the surroundings, in winter, even when there's no leaves on the tree's and even more so when the glass reflects the greenery, the water in the bottle brook is high but not as high as it's been in the last few days, [check out the flotsam and jetsam hanging off the branch on the left hand side of the brook], nearly home and i think i've made it, but no, i hear them first before i see them, a group of around ten to twelve 'boxing day walker's' clad head to toe in northface, marmot, haglof's and berghaus, loud, laughing and compass on strings around their neck's, some packing trekking poles, one bright spark has a head-light on top of his beany, [well, you must be prepared you know, it's only another seven hour's until it get's dark], you never can be too careful when your'e making that hazardous trek two miles to the dead poets for a lunchtime pint you know...........