Today's walk was a lot of fun. Started out cold, wet and grey, in other words, rain jacket and pants weather, but, after a while, suddenly a promising sign:
And it only got better:
Directional challenges again because either there is no signage, or the signage has been sabotaged. After a few wrong decisions (made right again), encountered a Rambler lady walking her dogs. (The Ramblers are kind of like the AMC only much more popular throughout the UK.) Anyway, after we chatted briefly, for some reason, I decided to ask her whether there were any tricks on the path ahead. She thought for a moment and said, "Yes, there is a diversion up ahead due to cliff slippage earlier this year. What you have to do is go up there (she did point to "up there") and cross two, no, maybe it is three fields, and then you will get to a cut field where you turn right." I responded, "Oy (maybe not "oy" exactly), could you repeat that for me?" because I was a little bit frantic with these vague instructions. But guess what this nice Rambler lady named Joy did? She accompanied me, first to the blocked off, signless diversion so that I could see it con mis propios ojos, and then to that last field where all I had to do was turn right. This was VERY NICE of her.
Normally, diversions are very well marked because the local counties a) do not want want people falling off cliffs, and b) want you to follow the alternate route. If these are not well marked, one has no idea which fields you can get into and out of again, or where to turn to get back on the path. To what can we liken this? To a detour that has nothing but a road block in front of it, but actually we cannot so liken it, because in a detour situation you can look at your GPS to see where you can reroute, but in nature's paradise, since access and egress and the length of the annoyance are not shown on a map, you could either defy the diversion, climb over the barrier, and risk falling off the cliff, which is exactly what I would have done had the Rambler lady named Joy not miraculously appeared, or you could start saying bad things to yourself. So there you have it.
Got to Barry at 10:30 a.m., so decided that yes, I would do the optional three-mile tour around Barry Island. It was lovely and fun. A blend of honky tonk, sophistication, and beautiful scenery.
After completing the island circuit, I wanted to go to the local Morrisons, a large, upscale grocery store, but how to get there was not so obvious and Google Maps was not working. (I hate it when that happens.) But, doubtless due to the morning's rainbow, I eventually happened upon the great big store, and oh joy, guess what I saw just inside? A hot line to a local cab company, so I shopped and cabbed it back to The Hay Loft, where I have been spending the afternoon eating and lazing about.
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