Carb-loading in the countryside

Travelling Hopefully (Cassie) and Rich are currently on their yearly camping holiday to somewhere near Dymchurch (my first words on meeting Rich were ‘Ooh, you’re taller than I expected!’. Why can’t I just say ‘Hello, nice to meet you’, like a normal person would?) and so as Shaun and I are only a few miles away, we arranged to meet up at the Blue Anchor in Ruckinge for dinner (Helen was also supposed to be there but had to pull out, unfortunately).

All the meals in the Blue Anchor come with salad or vegetables and a choice of potato. We all chose chips. In our defence, we did also all choose salad too. Cassie and Rich had been warned about the stupidly big portions the pub serves, but they still weren’t prepared for the mountain of food that the waitress placed in front of them (especially Rich’s inch thick piece of ham). The waitress forgot Cassie’s chips, but that was just as well as between us, we left enough chips to feed the population of Ashford for a few days.

At the end of the evening, Shaun gave Cassie and Rich a lift back to their campsite and just after dropping them off, a hare scampered across the road. I’ve never seen a hare before and gave a sharp intake of breath and exclaimed ‘What was that?’ I didn’t know hares were the size of foxes, I thought they were the same as rabbits but with longer ears. Yes, I am stupid.

A couple of miles on down the road more sharp intakes of breath could be heard as suicidal rabbits ran out in the road in front of the car, although Shaun reckoned it was the same rabbit taking shortcuts through the fields just to run out in front of us again. I’m not sure he is to be believed though as what was a ten minute journey on the way to the pub, turned into a half hour journey on the way back due to Shaun ignoring my ‘Why don’t you just go back the way we came?’ remark and going on a detour down to Dymchurch where I didn’t even get to see the sea but had to endure more twisty and turny narrow country lanes at a speed faster than I’m happy with, despite my pleas of ‘please slow down’.

Still, we eventually got back safe and sound and with all the carbs from the pasta, chips and lager, I didn’t think I had much choice but to stick to my schedule this morning and go out for 4.5 miles.

It was boiling when I went out and so I put on a vest top instead of one of my usual t-shirts and laughed inwardly at a) the runner running in long baggy trousers; b) the scruffy man looking at the horses by the vets wearing jeans and a jacket; and c) the man in a suit and tie cycling down the dual carriageway and I wondered if I was hallucinating the sunshine and if they were all laughing at me for being underdressed but after about three miles, the rain started to wash off the sun lotion I had applied (although how effective it will be, being about ten years old, I’m not sure) and as just as I got back inside the front door, the promised storm arrived so maybe they were dressed appropriately after all.

Stats
Distance: 4.19 miles
Time: slow
Pace: slow
Calories: 390
Chips: billions 
Sunshines: 1
Storms: 1