Countryside, how novel

I've heard there's this thing called 'the countryside', involving mud, narrow roads, and a lot of trees. So today R and I ventured out of town in a quest to find the New Forest. We failed on that front, but did however manage to land on the Devil's Punchbowl*, a mere hour from London. V cool. And *very* cold. A bracing walk marked the start of our inaugural SPARK awayday. Unfortunately R got a nasty dose of acid reflux on a particularly taxing hill, but apart from that, the day passed delightfully. Felt v uplifted by how beautiful the English countryside was on such a blue-skied, crisp day.

Still, such rural idyll is a bit of a disappointment on the opening hours front, as we discovered when we tried to get a much needed lunch at 2.15pm, only to find that all the pubs stop serving at 2pm, and fully close between 3 and 5pm, bar the Two-for-One somewhere near Greatham (found thanks to a combination of AQA and SatNav, hurrah). We hid in here until about 6.30pm, at which point the influx of local Christmas parties all got a bit too much and we scurried back to the Big Smoke, grateful for our urban existences and all that they bring.

* random facts about the Devil's Punchbowl. 1. It is owned by the national trust, which I must join, but not as much as English Heritage. 2. It's called that thanks to a myth about the devil hurling lots of mud at the god Thor, leaving a bloody big hole in the ground. 3. It is one of the BBC's seven man made wonders. fascinating.