Holiday running

I had ninety minutes to run today - on holiday just outside Hay on Wye.  Ninety minutes for a lollop across new countryside armed with a map in a waterproof case, my OMM jacket and an eye on the scudding clouds. I needed all of those things within ten minutes of setting out as a filthy black cloud tore into view and enveloped me in a wild drenching storm.  I climbed up the lane by our holiday cabin through trees and leaves bearing the mark of the season - glowing light green and yellow with the road a carpet of fallen leaves. Irritatingly I lost my way the moment I left the road, as the path was marked by a post that was on the ground with no indication that it was in the right field let alone pointing in the right direction.
I finally worked out the way, only to enter a field full of a dangerous combination of chest-high bracken and brambles that knitted the whole layer together.  Ten minutes later and I had scarcely moved forward, so I decided that the best thing was to enter some woods and try to find another path.  I carefully eased my way over a barbed wire fence and into a remote and green world that sloped steeply down to a racing stream.  The only way across it was to walk, Bear Grylls style, along a fallen tree trunk that straddled the stream, so I inched along rather feeling as if I was in a documentary about some idiot who has decided to run across Borneo or some such place.  Over the stream, up a slippery slope and into a field - freedom!
Some poor path signage finally led me to Offa's Dyke which at least had the benefit of being well way-marked, down to the River Wye, and along the bank to Hay.  Resisting the urge to make crappy jokes about making hay while the sun shines, I squelched back to our lovely cedar cabin accommodation.

A crappy run, or an adventure?  My legs seethed with nettle stings and the map case needed a wash.  However, I had got outside when I suspect most of the country were holed up by their log burners; I saw some buzzards at close quarters; but the strongest echo in my mind is the ferns in the wood - stately shuttlecocks that provide a warm green against the backdrop of mud and sticks.  Their rotational symmetry gave order in chaos - a geometric shape sat among mud.  They were beautiful, and worth the soiled socks to go to see.