I’m not even sure I can call this one a walk. I think a slide, climb, fall, crawl is probably a better description.
It was a beautiful, blue sky day. The fields and hills around North Berwick were fairly clear of snow.
We parked the car on the eastern side of the Lammermuirs and with 2 dogs in tow headed along a road then on to a farm track which was icy but manageable. We reached the top and after a bit of map checking realised that the route we were aiming for took us straight into a pristine white, snow covered field. Deceptively beautiful. It took us about 20 minutes of stomping, falling and crawling to cover about 200 metres. The dogs were none too pleased at having to swim their way across. After throwing them over the gate at the top (which wouldn’t open because of the snow), we tackled the next field. This one was covered in heather with a thick layer of snow on top which we would disappear into every few steps. We pushed on in the vain hope that it was going to get better.
We reached the brow of the hill and made a final push across the field at the top to reach the Herring Road (and hopefully easier ground). But it appeared that underneath this snow was a bog/running streams and by this time Bella had 10kg of snowballs attached to her fur and decided enough was enough. Even with lots of motivational chat and the promise of bags full of treats from me she wouldn’t/couldn’t budge. In the end my lovely friend (and Bella’s new best friend) came to the rescue and gave her a fireman’s lift back to the edge of the field.
We admitted defeat and headed back the way we came. At least we could enjoy the remaining sunshine in the knowledge that we wouldn’t be stranded at the top of the hill in the dark. An epic day. Finished off with a well needed whisky when I got home.
I’ll be back to tackle that one once the snow has melted!
Debbie's 500 Miles for Parkinson's UK 