Weald Park

On a bright winter's day, when the sun had raised the temperature a few degrees above freezing after a good lunch, we decided to go for a walk. 

We would have liked to visit a site famous for its snowdrops, but that doesn't open until next week.

Instead, we drove to Weald Park and paid the extortionate £4 for 2 hours.  The cricket pitch car park closes at 16:30, so there were only 2 hours left.  

We followed one of the bridle paths up to the Iron Age Settlement at Langton's Wood. 

On the way, we checked the bird song, the app told us:

Blackbird, Jackdaw, Mistle Thrush, Robin, Great Spotted Woodpecker

Just before we got there, we were passed by a maintenance mini truck, churning up the mud and just about making it out of the hollow we were about to enter. Then on and up the hill.  I spotted movement ahead; so I took a picture, I think it's a row deer.  You can just see it behind the brambles.  It was nonchalantly strolling along and hardly ever looked back, each time it stopped, so did we.  We walked until we were approaching a bridge; as it was nearly at the one-hour mark, instead of going through the mud to the bridge, we turned and re-traced our steps.

On the way back I suffered a slow slide, I ended up on my knees, with my hands in the brambles: such are the dangers of mud.  No serious harm!  

It was good to get out and now seems like the long winter might be coming to an end.