A walk in the woods

I went out to the British supermarket in Kortenberg today. It's a 20 minute drive from where I live, so I don't get out there too often, but when I do it's like Christmas :)

I love British food, British brands, the homely feeling I get when I pick up a packet of oatcakes or a jar of Sunpat peanut butter (imagine I live without those things on a daily basis here!) and I do treat myself when I get out there. Walking into the store is like travelling back home :)

I was also interested in trying out some of the WW foods I'd read about on the 5+ WW board, and they had a really large selection, which was cool. I got a packet of WW naan bread and a jar of WW korma sauce, so will try those out tomorrow for dinner.

On the way back home from the store, I have to drive through some woods, and today I really felt like getting out and going for a walk, so I did.

Walking in the nature isn't something I get to do a lot here in Belgium, which is a pity as I enjoy it so much. But the reality is that there just aren't that many green spaces where you can take a walk and clear your head with no one else around. In fact, if you take my imaginary list of the "Top 10 Things I Hate About Belgium", number one would be the fact it's so over-populated (other items being their apparent inability to queue and the fact they eat their chips with mayonnaise instead of vinegar).

I grew up in Shetland... a place where you can go for a 3 hour walk without seeing a soul. You can sit on a rock and look out to sea and rebuild the world without anyone bursting your bubble. It's heaven. Here, the moment the sun comes out, it's as if every acre of forest or field is immediately populated by 5 families complete with pushchairs and dogs and a bunch of people on horses...

Misanthropic remarks aside, I guess I just find it difficult to feel "at one" with the nature around me when I'm sharing it with 20 other people...

Luckily today it was still really cold, so I only ran into 1 pushchair family, 2 people on horses and a couple of other lonely wanderers while I was out.

The walk was worth it though, and I find the woods in the winter emit a special kind of energy, with the majestic trees standing proud and barren amid a blanket of brown leaves... it was really quite beautiful.

I also managed this spooky Blair-witch project-type picture of myself... lol