Okay, so, some time last week i got an email from my friend Helen saying she was coming up my way to do a 6 mile walk around Mansfield with our friends Nikki and Vee and asked me if i wanted to join them. Now, they're doing this to train for a 26 mile walk that they are doing for a Breast Cancer charity. I'm not doing this walk but since i'm trying currently to get fitter i thought 'why not?.'
The last time i did a walk i did an 8 mile walk around Carsington Water and by about mile 5 i was dragging my right leg behind me propping myself up on a big stick ... but i did complete it. The reason for this is i was the type of girl who never wore flat shoes. I wore at least 4 inch heels everyday, so my calves couldn't put up with such a distance in flats. Walking on tip toes helped. But since i've been wearing flats religiously for a good couple of years now i thought i'd be ok.
We set off, the 4 of us along with Nikki's daughter Ferne, friend Maxine and her dog Jaz. We set off that little bit late ... mainly because we are women and things like gossiping, tea and cakes easily distract us. It was gone 3 by the time we set off i think. We were walking through Sherwood Park, which has many different routes through the forest all of varying lengths. We decided on doing the 6 mile one, not too little, not to much. You choose a trail, follow that coloured markers and arrows in sequential number order. At some point someone said the 6 mile route goes up to number 20. We saw 1, 2 ..... 3 ... there was a small diversion but that eventally put us back on track ... we carried on counting. We all seemed to be coping ok ... my legs, on the whole .... worked ... by about 16 i could feel my right leg giving me a bit of jip, but not too much. I soldiered on. All the way round we nattered and had a laugh. We passed 19 ... got that little bit excited when we could see another marker in the distance .. not only because we were nearing the end but because the sun was rapidly setting, and we wanted to get back to Nikki's for food, vodka and games. We got to marker 20, couldn't see the carpark so just followed the direction of the marker ... another one came into sight ... 21 ... then came 22. Ok it must be 30 it goes up to not 20. It was getting dark, i'd developed a bit of a limp, eveyone else was feeling it too but we could cope to 30. But when 29 eventually appeared i was feeling somewhat relieved ..... More so when i could see another marker in the distance ...
12 f*cking 12! ... the marker said 12 .... 1 to 29 to 12! in what warped method of counting does this occur?!!
By this point it was dark, the ground was muddy and uneven and we couldn't see where we were putting our feet. Somone said 'at least it hasn't rained' ... then it rained, But we had no option but to follow the direction of the arrows and pray they didn't count up to infinity. Now anyone that knows me, will tell you i have a pretty overactive imagination. But i felt it was pretty justified given the situation. I realised that this forest, at night, would be the perfect place for a serial killer to hide out, lots of trees and shadows to hide behind ... and wildlife, there had to be tons of wildlife in such a dense area of forestry ... wolves? Don't wolves live in the forest ... one went for Little Red Riding Hood in broad daylight ... we were surely potential wolf food! Luckily i'm not silly enough to worry about them being warewolves ... it wasn't even a full moon! lol.
Seriously i was that little bit scared. I lost count of the amount of times i said 'i've seen horror movies that go like this' Every time i pointed out a particularly dark, scary bit of forest, the next marker arrow would point us in that very direction! There was even a random car aboned in the middle of the forest ... Hells thought there could be people erm .. fornicating in the back, Nikki thought probably doggers ... i reasoned that a serial killer must get into the woods somehow ... funny how different peoples minds work! At about marker 20 (the second time around ... i seriously thought we would just be going in a circle for all of eternity) we could see in the distance a flickering orange light ... could i imagine this to be something sinister? .... Course i could! Cannibals .... Cannibals living in a forest would need a fire to cook their prey surely ... this orange flickering light .. said fire!!
Well, since i'm writing this ... you can presume we got out alive .. either that or i'm still wandering through the forest but weirdly with a laptop and broadband connetion ... surprising what you can find in the forest along with the ghosts and ghouls ... It turns out, this trail goes from 1 to 30 then 12 to 21 ... and the flickering orange light was the light of a security vehicle keeping watch over our cars, which, since the park had closed and it had been dark for hours were the only vehicles left in the car park. I've never been so glad to see a car in my whole life. My right leg had been walking on sheer will for the past 5 miles We deducted we walked approx 9 miles ... my suggestion .... 38 miles ... felt like it.
When we got back we binged on pizza, curly fries and cupcakes ... we'd more than earned it.
............ could only happen to us!
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