A Walk In The Woods

For reasons best not explored in too much detail I decided to trot off to Hainault Forest this morning for a bit of fresh air, exercise and to take some photos of springtime flowers. I arrived to to discover some very suspicious looking bloke in a van and a reflective jacket who claimed to be a parking attendant requesting an enormous sum to park in the official car park, therefore did u turn and went off to park in free car park around the corner. Not a particularly good start and certainly put a bit of a damper on the start of a promising day.
Anyway I eventually got into the woodland to discover three things. Firstly that the woods were free of picnicking teddy bears but filled instead with people with dogs off the leash, now I don't have a problem with people having dogs or even taking them for walks but I do have a problem with them being allowed to run around without any form of control, I don't blame the dogs but the owners - well there's another matter entirely...I know I've strayed a bit but the second thing was that there was a marked absence of any flora other than trees and gorse - I had it in mind that I'd find a sunlit glade full of bluebells or similar - I think the dogs had probably dug them up or something else.
The third thing I discovered, much to my surprise was the number of ramblers wandering around looking confused because their GPS system wasn't working amongst the trees - whatever happened to map reading.

By the way congratulations to Mister and Missus Pogle on the birth of tiny Pogle. Mister Squeaky would send a message but at the moment he's up to his ears in chocolate coated hot-cross buns filled with lime pickle which he says is an Easter treat....