Wednesday, 21st March, we did the Latchbrook walk again, though to explore a road we hadn’t before. We had been told there was a stair there, which was the start of a public footpath, so we thought we’d check it out. The weather was lovely, so we got a bit distracted on the way there, since we started at Latchbrook. First we were distracted by a large group of sparrows, and a few bumble bees, which Zeta wanted photos of.

Next, I got distracted by a black cat, which I got a couple of photos of. I did try to get him/her to come to me. He/she did want to, but wasn’t sure and kept turning back, so I gave up and caught up with Zeta. The sun really started to shine at this point, and we were close to a spot that was great for composing photography. I think we probably spent just an hour or so itself at this point taking photos at different settings. We did eventually pull ourselves away though.

We continued our walk through a bit more of Latchbrook until we found the stair Zeta’s mum had told us about, with the sign next to it saying “Public Footpath”. We climbed the stairs (which were few but quite steep), which came out onto a large grassy hill with a faint path through the grass straight up the middle of the hill. Of course, we followed it up to the top, stopping to take in the view and take a few photos.

The lighting improved slightly up on top of the hills, which just meant we had even more interesting and warm lighting conditions for photography. We followed each gate/sty though didn’t read the arrow on one properly, which meant we ended up going the wrong way (and probably trespassing at the same time) and we came to a point where there was a cow. We couldn’t go any further, and it was starting to get a little late in the afternoon, so we turned around and headed back the way we came. When we came to the last gate with a sty, we checked the arrows direction and realised we had indeed gone the wrong way. We went straight rather than diagonally across the field to the next sty, so we decided to just go home and leave the rest of the exploration for another day.

Friday 16th March, we had made plans to walk to Latchbrook again after getting our hiking shoes/boots, just to test them and break them in a little bit. As always, we headed off just after lunch. On the way down to Latchbrook, Zeta managed to spot a Robin by listening to it. It was sitting up in a tree and I managed to get a couple of photos of it (not great ones though). We kept walking, right down to the stream, crossing it at one stage, then back over almost straight away.

We continued down the stream, taking photos along the way. When we were further down the path, I thought I saw something, so I looked again and I was right. It was a squirrel. I got pretty excited, though it had run off. Zeta thought I was seeing things, so we went down a little towards where I saw the squirrel, then I saw it again sitting on a branch but it ran up a tree fairly quickly, so Zeta didn’t see it. She walked ahead of me, and she then saw the squirrel jumping from tree to tree and then running across a branch right over her. I’m quite sure she enjoyed the experience of having a squirrel running above her.

After chasing squirrels for a little while, we continued walking down to the stream itself, coming to a little area which was quite pretty. At this point, we wanted to try and cross the stream to a small area to take some photos, though it was a bit deep, so we decided we’d make a bridge. It was a bit unsuccessful. Zeta had stood on some branches floating at the side in the water to try and pick out some of the bigger branches. I don’t think she realised some of them weren’t that thick at all, and some snapped while standing on them, allowing her foot to slip right into the water lol. Luckily for us, our hiking shoes are waterproof. Unlucky for Zeta, hers are a shoe style rather than a boot, so the water went over her shoe straight in, wetting her sock. I couldn’t help but laugh at her.

A little while after that, I was trying to cross, but couldn’t and ended up ankle deep in the water as well, so that will teach me to laugh.We eventually gave up and headed down further, until we couldn’t any more. There were a few sheep, so Zeta decided to climb a tree to get a better angle on them. I turned and saw her thrusting against the tree and wondered what she was doing… she had her foot stuck between two branches and couldn’t get out lol. Just couldn’t help myself and ended up laughing again. At this point, my camera batteries had gone flat, and Zeta’s were on their way so we headed back, and crossing over into a public bridleway, which was on the other side of the stream. At the beginning, it’s a sheep farm type of thing, and we were walking across, Zeta going a longer way around. I quickly learnt why as my boots and jeans both ended up coated in mud. The mud was literally ankle deep.

Overall, it was quite a nice walk, though conditions weren’t great at all for photography.