The visit continues with a supposed 40 minute walk to the beer festival, although the makers of googlemaps have clearly allowed for neither the terrain not the participants.
The route includes the obligatory trek through a field of wheat, a suitably hilly, narrow dirt path through nettles and under fallen trees and features an impromptu amble across the 9th fairway. On the bright side, we now know for sure that pushchairs do fit , the call of beer was clearly a motivating factor in the adults.
After some three or four hours of consuming real ale (which I now know for sure that the term “light” is relative and real cider is possibly even worse)
“We could cut across the field,” Hub says. Our buggy, as Hub has not taken on board, is clearly designed for nothing more taxing than an indoor shopping mall and I’m quite happy to go along with the manufacturer’s intentions.
“I don’t want to drag the buggy through a field, only to discover at the other end that we can’t get out” I say. So we make our way back, via a path complete with tarmac.
At various points in the uphill walk, Hub takes great delight in pointing out the very many points at which one could emerge, light-footed, from the field and rejoin the pavement.
We make the obligatory stop at the pub enroute. The extra pint of beer may have pushed Gadget over the edge somewhat as the rest of the walk home, Gadget throws himself at imaginary demons cunningly disguised as hedges. The children on his shoulders are delighted, although ordinarily, Squiggle would not normally be so pleased to be scratched and by shrubbery.