I like to get out of the office at lunchtime and if its fine weather I’ll often go for a walk by the river. I’m quite fortunate to work very close to some easy to walk sections of the Five Weirs Walk. In an hour, I can do a nice round trip along the river from Brightside Weir, following the water around the back of the Meadowhall centre, then switch to the canal towpath following the Tinsley flight of locks back to the office. This week the weather has been excellent so I made the round trip on both Tuesday and Wednesday, rolling up your shirt sleeves and feeling the sun on your skin is a tonic after a busy morning in the office. The urge to exercise has also been strong this week, I’m sure in a big way influenced by the brother-in-laws recent health problem.
I’ve, of course, noticed the various plants and trees along the route and was quite disappointed to see that all the figs have been stripped from a couple of trees. I suppose the Meadowhall gardeners have done this to avoid the mess of dropped fruit on the property, it seems a shame though. What they can’t control are the Blackberry bushes along the river and towpaths, there are loads of them and they’re coming into season for picking. On Wednesday I saw a man picking the fruit and thought I would like some of that too!
Here’s a picture of me (my hand actually) on Thursday after I’d spent half an hour gathering fruit. I got a few funny looks from a couple of passers-by but heck what do I care! A nice thing happened too, a couple out for a walk with their 2 young grand-daughters stopped to chat, I mean how often does that happen nowadays? We talked about the fruit, the weather and I gave them directions to get onto the next section of the walk as some of the signs aren’t great.
So there you go, free fruit and a nice warm feeling inside, not a bad way to spend a lunch break, why don’t you get out of the office and see what you can find?