As ever, the way to clear the head, is to be outside. And these days that often involves Shanks Pony, not the usual steed.   Only this time I had company, reluctant or otherwise.  Apparently youngest likes going uphill even less than I do 😉  Having done the Gorge walk on Boxing Day, I knew that it wasn’t actually too strenuous or too long, so I didn’t feel too bad about dragging her along in my wake, whilst eldest led the way in his usual slouchy teenager fashion, complete with hoodie 😉

Youngest doesn’t see the point in walking apparently.  You should be walking to get somewhere.  It is a means to an end, not an activity in itself.  To be fair, I used to agree with her, but now I don’t.  But then is there a point to cycling?  Probably not 😉  Walking is just another form of exercise, another way to be out there and not in here.  With views, and weather, and all that lovely perspective-inducing stuff.  And once we’d stopped going uphill, fuelled by sherbet lemons, and Nuun, she begrudgingly almost enjoyed herself.  Maybe.  You gotta love teenagers 😉

Eldest was doing his impression of The Thinker midway.  Appearances can be deceptive *grin*.  Because if he was really that way inclined, he wouldn’t have decided to run up the next set of steps.  This was especially amusing, as not only did he wipe out halfway up, but he didn’t know there are two sets of them and I do *grin*.  Aw, bless 😉  It was busier out there this time around, so we passed quite a few people en route.  As we passed a couple going down, on those steps up, youngest caused much hilarity by announcing that she’d developed an extreme dislike of stairs *grin*.  Yep, still not loving uphill then 😉

We make a pretty awesome triumvirate.  In fact we rock 😀  OK, so they’re not entirely converted to the whole walking thing, but we used to do it, and we will be doing it again, whether they like it in principle or not.  They enjoyed it in the long run (walk?), which is the important thing.  I like walking, and I like spending time with them.  Result 🙂

Walking time: 1:35
Distance: 5.3 miles

We nearly ended up at Costa to round things off.  But to be honest, I have really good coffee at home, and I’d bought cake earlier.  Besides which, at this point, on a Sunday afternoon, a coffee really wasn’t going to cut it.  So we popped into the Riverside Inn instead 🙂