Bus Pass and BPL On a Hike Together

BPL was not amused.  The whole point of having a Bus Pass was to avoid hiking anywhere.  But a goal is a goal and while BPL could procrastinate for Scotland, she was also a stickler for a goal.  It was in this stickleback frame of mind that BPL picked up Bus Pass, (who was moved to tears), donned stout walking shoes, and set off to find the shortest hike possible, preferably with a coffee shop somewhere en route.  Thomas Hardy hike* seemed to fit the bill.  Only a few bus stops away, it had coffee shops both en route and at the finish line, or ‘bus stop home’ as sticklers liked to call it.  It also had the added advantage of wonderful Hardyesque views of the sea, a kissing gate, and, given a small additional hike along the shoreline, the fishmongers’ shop, where BPL could purchase lashings and lashings of delicious finnan haddies.  In skink-making frame of mind, BPL and Bus Pass stepped out onto the High Street to waste moments of their lives on that dreaded activity; waiting for the bus. 

Thomas Hardy hike starts with a hill.  Don’t they all.  BPL decided not to have coffee en route as stopping halfway up the hill was demoralising and risked her sitting on the steps of the old school café, post-coffee, crying until some friendly type with a car dropped them home.  Onward, ever onward, in the jolly hockey sticks manner of Enid herself, BPL reached the crest of the hill, passed the hamlet of hideaway houses, breathed in the sea air and thrilled at the crows.  In the lavender-pink sky, crows murdered along, circling and cawing, beady-eyeing BPL’s progress.  Bus Pass asked BPL not to stop, in case of swooping.  You can’t cope with swooping when you’re card thin. 

* 15/12/24 A Pink and Lilac Day