Adrian and I went out cycling and geocaching.
What kind of a winter is this, when we can cycle in the middle of January without winter tyres, because all the snow and ice has long since melted?
The temperature has been around zero for what feels like weeks. Today was no different. But even zero-ish temperatures can feel quite cold when you’re not dressed properly, as I was reminded today. I dressed for a day of normal cycling and hiking, but forgot to take Adrian’s pace into account. Walking with him is closer to standing still, in terms of energy expenditure – far from enough to keep me warm. Most of me was pretty OK but my fingers felt like they were going to fall off. Next time we do anything like this, I’ll take my warmest ski mitts.
We cycled to a small patch of relative wilderness just off of Bromma Airport. I was a bit concerned that it might be noisy there, because it’s right under the runway approach to the airport, but only a handful of smallish propeller planes passed over our heads and didn’t bother us at all.
I guess it might be quite pretty there under better circumstances, but now it was all dull brown shrubs and dead, dry grass. Adrian wasn’t the least bit bothered by that; he wasn’t there for the pretty views. He found a stick early on during our walk and had fun with it all the way. It was a flag that he planted on a stone. It was a walking stick. Best of all, it was an ice breaker. Every frozen puddle we came to, he picked and hammered into tiny pieces. (Until I got too cold and made him move along so we could get to our bikes and I could get my hands warm again.)
Oh, and that small area contained all of eight geocaches, of which we bagged five. Some were even easy enough for Adrian to find.