So, that was the weekend. I seem to have spent the whole of it walking. It all started early on Friday morning. Paul was on a course, so we made a special effort to get to the station early. Luck was against us, though, and the trains were running an hour late. He pressed on; I walked around the cathedral graveyard, rearranged the magazines in the newsagents, and after returning an hour later found things were far from improved, so walked 30 minutes home to start working from there.

It would have been nice to have stayed there the whole day, but it was Emilie’s last day on ComputerActive and I’d promised to go to her leaving do. She’s moving to Good Housekeeping, and so inevitably she’s been pestered to death by friends asking to be added to the cake and pie blind taste-test panel.

Things started to tidy up by lunchtime, so I walked another 30 minutes back to the station, rode a still-delayed train to work and put in the usual afternoon’s quota of desk-bound confinement.

I’m glad I made the effort to go to the do. We all met up at the Star and Garter, which I don’t think I’ve been to since leaving PCW almost two years ago. We were upstairs, as ever, where the heat was almost unbearable, in spite of the open windows. It was probably a ploy to get us all drinking more. Pretty much everyone from PC Advisor and the consumery bits of VNU was there, though; past and present, and it was a long, fun night of catching up on what everyone had been doing, followed by another 30 minute walk home from the station. The pictures have done the rounds. They aren’t flattering.

Yesterday was the long walk through the fields, taking pictures of the bees (not a euphemism), after which I flopped around in the garden finishing off the Michel Thomas advanced Franch. The final disc was surprisingly easy, considering how much I struggled through the penultimate one. Whether I will remember any of it next time I go to France, I don’t know, but I do intend to keep on reading and writing French as often as I can, so fingers crossed…

To Mark’s in the evening to watch the Incredibles, after which he played me the first cut of the security documentary for which I did the voice over. It sounds rather good, I think - even if I do say so myself. To be honest, though, a think a large part of that was down to the way that he’d cut it all together nicely, giving me some intelligent, considered pauses, which made me sound far more cranial than I actually am.

And so to today. And more walking. We didn’t start early, which was perhaps silly, as it means we ended up walking through the hottest part of the day. Our one concession to the weather was choosing a route that took us though the forests at Thorndon Park, without realising how quickly we would be breaking out of the tree cover and into open countryside.

It was a fantastic route, though, taking us past 800 year old trees that were expected to carry on growing for another 300 years, along the banks of the old hall pond, across the now barren field that was once full of orchards, dovecotes and a magnificent Georgian hall, along what counts for a ridge in the flat country of Essex, with the countryside dropping away below us, and giving out onto views of London. All the while, the sun beat down and the crickets kept up an almost deafening song in the long brown grass.

We walked for almost three hours and then collapsed in an untidy mess on shady benches by the visitor centre to drink cold drinks and eat chocolate from the fridge. It was only then that we worked out the reason we were so hungry was we’d only had two slices of toast for breakfast and left home before lunch.

Now, as I sit here in a comfy chair typing this and looking back over the weekend, my legs are quietly throbbing. I have had a bath to soothe them, but suspect that tomorrow, when I’d walking to the station again, they may be kicking up a fuss, rather than just kicking up.

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