More walking in the snow

The weather was icy during last week and then we had an inch of snow on Friday followed by 5 inches on Saturday. On Sat I walked for about 3 miles along the canal and reservoirs as the snow fell, then Nicky and I did a 5 mile walk up to Ashridge cafe on Sunday in fine weather. Had some more nice soup.

I did spot a couple of mountain bikers, but didn't fancy it. In fact my car hasn't moved from our drive since Friday as the roads are so bad. Fortunately I can work from home ok. I must try to get some exercise tomorrow somehow though.

Salcey Forest cycle trail

Nicky suggested we drove up to a forest we'd never been to between Milton Keynes and Northampton and take our bikes to do the 5 mile cycle trail. This is the first time she's been on her bike since her sciatica, and she said it felt fine. It was a nice morning, frosty but quite sunny and not too cold. We had intended to do the tree top walk first, but it wasn't well signposted and we could find it, only to cycle past it once we'd got on our bikes. The trail was quite well surfaced - a bit muddly in places, but ok for our hybrids. The circular route didn't take long and the cafe served nice soup and bread.

I managed to cycle to work just the once this last week on Thursday. It was frosty but dry and I needed overshoes on the way in. We had freezing fog earlier in the week. I was planning on cycling on Friday, but my colleagues were working from home, so I thought I might as well do the same.

Mountain biking through the woods

I gave my old mountain bike a bit service this afternoon then cycled up onto Ashridge then along a track we'd walked along that goes through Berkhamsted Common past a golf course, then down into Berkhamsted. It's a nice track for cycling as it's pretty flat, but with enough mud and bumpy bits to make it interesting. The roads are free of snow and ice following last night's thaw, but the woodland tracks are still pretty slushy. I might try out some longer off road rides in the future, and haven't been on my old bike for quite some time - it's only a cheap Halfords Apollo FS26, but has full suspension, a front disk brake and a good range of 21 gears.

The weather's been a bit snowy and icy this week, and although we only had a half inch of snow fall on two occasions, the temperature has stayed below freezing until the weekend. So during the week I've been driving to work and going to the sports centre at lunchtime (2 gym sessions, spinning class and swim). Yesterday the weather was fine so I did a 10 mile walk on snowy tracks from home up Aldbury Nowers (pictured above), Pitstone Hill, Ivinghoe Beacon and back via the Ashridge woods cafe. I had tea and a home made Granola Bar - that probably had more calories than I'd used on the walk. Heard some deer rutting loudly but when I went to investigate found it was just 2 little roe deer. I was expecting bigger black sika stags like I saw earlier. This morning Nicky and I walked around the partly frozen College Lake in the mist.