It started off so well… A brisk, Easter Day walk round Ardmore Point with Betsy, was the idea. There was sun, a full complement of Wildings (7, including Betsy – the dog)and a cold to shake off. I went ahead with my eldest daughter, Emma, only to discover that we’d actually slipped into another dimension and ended up in the forbidden marshes of Middle Earth. Damn, I hate it when that happens. It was nice, in a bleak, ‘dont follow the lights or jump in a pond with dead people’ kind-of-way but I knew it was all going to go pear-shaped and I was right. A sudden scream from Emma saw her new, expensive trainer disappear beneath the deep mud she thought was sand. Bare-footed, she leapt about, said some rude words and stomped off to the car. And then there were 6. We pressed on, had a giant hogweed fight and soon found the going sunny and very pleasant. Not for long, though. The wide hawthron-lined path soon merged into a tiny strip of mud surrounded by an impenetrable wall of gorse. Before long my youngest was crying and we’d become hopelessly trapped between the Sleeping Beauty-like wall of thorns and an endless Hound of the Baskervilles-type marsh. Everyone started blaming everyone else, mostly me, until we had no option but to get very wet. Besty was in heaven. She splashed and yelped and wagged her sodden tail and shook herself vigorously at every opportunity, usually at the very point where balance and a clear mind were imperative. Ryan, my eldest boy performed a Herculean leap, only to smack straight into a 9 foot gorse bush and fall back, slowly, into the mire. We all guffawed and then saw his expression and bit our lips. Soon, well after about an hour, we escaped the terrors of Ardmore and hobbled back to the car and my waiting daughter, Princess Huff. Well, we all have nasty cuts which are copiously covered in foul-smelling mud, but hey… That’s what family walks are all about.
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