Foremark Reservoir a.k.a. A Very Traditional British Bank Holiday

I'm currently racked with indecision about the best way to forge ahead with my blogging. For a change I feel like I am bursting at the seams with things I want to blog about but I'm still struggling with finding the time and brain space to sit down and compose words, and find nice pictures and all those other things that you need to make a good blog post.

This indecision means that I am about a billion years behind on my blogging. I have been back from America almost four months (how is that possible?!) and still haven't finished blogging about that and things have actually been quite exciting for me lately meaning that the stuff is just piling up and ready to topple over.

I either post about things as soon as I do them and try and play catch up with others when I have the chance, or I start back at the beginning and resolutely work my way forwards.

I've already cocked that plan up by writing my post about The Color Run just after I'd done it....

Oh whatever...

Yeah that's right. Continuing on the theme of my last post, I'm going to ask you to stay in May. Go on, try and remember that far back and think about what you were up to on your Bank Holiday weekend.

Can't remember?

That's probably because it was a miserable piss wet through weekend.

Take a look at the below photo - I call it Bank Holiday Grey...

The Person doesn't automatically get Bank Holidays off so a lot of the time we're not together for Bank Holiday shenanigans but he'd booked this one off and we weren't going to let some absolutely dreadful weather get in the way of our fun. No thank you.

For we are British and that means that on Bank Holidays we go out in the nature whether the sun is out or not.

I borrowed my sister's car and we drove out to make the best of it. You would have to because seriously, look at how miserable it was. When we pulled up it was just so British I could I have cried. Over in the distance there was a couple determined to have a picnic and had their rug spread out, sheltering under a tree. By the kiosk there was a miserable looking teenager who had clearly been dragged out against her will with the rest of the family. And through the drizzle we could spy Super Active Family, with Dad striding out ahead and Mum and child valiantly struggling on behind him, all wearing matching kagoules.

I always act as if I don't like nature and that's not strictly true. If anything I can get very over-excited about nature because I'm still a city girl at heart and generally shy away from woods and trees.

The trouble is that nature for me is synonymous with aimless wandering. I don't really get the point of just "going on a walk". I get it more if you have a dog and you are exercising said canine. But two people, just out...walking...I can't really get my head around it.

"So where do we walk to?" I asked The Person.

"I don't know, you just walk." came the reply.

I was unconvinced.

The one downside of Foremark Reservoir is that you can't walk all the way around its perimeter. That is the kind of walking I can begin to get my head around, although only just. You walk for the sake of walking around the outside of something? It just jars a little in my head sometimes.

But I was there to explore and I was happy to get my nature on, even if there are some pretty steep hills and what feels like perilous steps around the reservoir.

I like trees though. I'm a fan of green. I'm a fan of leaves. All good things in my book.

The main problem with Foremark is that a lot of the time when you're walking around it you can't really see the water. There's a small part with a man-made beach but you can only go so far on that and then you're in very dense woodland for the rest of the time.

It's ok, but, you know, something to look at other than leaves would be nice.

We battled valiantly on for quite a while I think, but in the end the rain was just not stopping. Aimless walking, couple with persistent rain just does not make for a fun day out for me I'm afraid, it was literally dampening my spirits.

The only thing that could make me feel better?

A return to the kiosk to buy a cup of tea and a sit on the bench in the rain, getting a wet bum, because, let's face it, we were already wet anyway.

We watched the picnic couple pack up and silently saluted them. They'd done their best and had fought the good fight, but in the end the British Wet Bank Holiday will always win my friends.