Loch Walk

Third time lucky so don't worry I will not be boring any readers with any further posts from the heritage park. At the end of January I posted about how we went to the Heritage park where there is a little loch. After getting out the car I could not get very far before I had to turn back. Then on Tuesday I returned there hoping to walk around the loch at the second attempt but could only make it halfway before having to turn back again. As you may have guessed I returned back there yesterday. This time I was determined to make it around the loch.

In many respects it was more difficult as I arrived with a high level of anxiety- more than I'd had on both previous visits which made me almost certain I could not do it. Firstly we had gone to a retail park nearby to get my new camera. My wife does not have anxiety to contend with and also unlike me is very sociable so what should have taken 2 minutes to do took longer than I liked. I had the camera in mind and so it was just a case of locating it and buying it in my view- Fujifilm XF1 which is a third of the price it was when released and was in my price range (though too expensive in my wife's view). At this retail park there is a PC World and a Currys which are both effectively one in the same and part I think of the Dixons group. I knew they had it but there were two shops there- one of each- both at opposite ends from each other. PC world first and after looking at all the cameras I could not find the one I was after. My wife meanwhile was trying to tempt me with cheaper models which I parried away. Then to Currys where after a search I found the one I was after. The model on display was red and to be honest I didn't care. Stupidly though I said to my wife it also comes in black and also brown and I thought the brown looked better. Determined not to let me walk away with the one I had not come for while I stood with rising panic she went off to find an assistant to hunt down a brown one. Even though I said I was taking the red regardless she insisted we would not leave until she had seen the brown. Funny on reflection and lets face it she had the car keys. So the assistant rooted out a brown boxed one and unboxed it for my wife to hum and haw over and finally for a quick escape I told him I would take the brown. I left happy but in all honesty bordering on panic and just wanting to go home.

In a heightened state of anxiety my levels were not lowered when the road to the heritage park, still some miles off, was at a stand still with a queue of stationary traffic. That was it: no chance. But in my panic I forgot earlier my wife had asked me to look at the map for a small car park we had seen which seemed to be accessed from a different road. I did and I showed her and this saved the day because we were able to bypass the traffic jam as a result. Good on her. She is very good that way whereas I have no road sense at all. By that route we made it.

Despite the ebbing and flowing of panic I did make it around the loch this time which is an achievement. It was hard going and would have been even without the problems before had but I was glad to finally do it. Not content to stop there my wife suggested we go up the cafe and have a cuppa up there. Just what I fancy, I thought, a little room crammed with people far from home. But I did it. It took a while to calm. The pot of tea had enough for two cups which I didn't think I would use but did in the end. The great view was behind me because the reflection on the water was playing with my eyes which is all down to the anxiety so I thought it would be better not to face it. When the panic subsided it was actually a nice little environment. There were more bodies than space but it was not as bad as I anticipated. Something else to tick off the list.