By: Blonde Two
We walkers have all eaten our lunch in some strange, some lonely and some beautiful places. Lunch time is one of the points of a walking day that you aim for alongside the top of a hill, first coffee and a flushing loo. Lunch time often marks a mid point in the walk and can induce an, ‘It’s all downhill from here.’ feeling, even when, on Dartmoor, it rarely is.
Where to sit on Dartmoor is not usually a problem. Some forward thinking radical on the design team, foresaw the day when people, with no hunting or gathering left to do, would spend their time walking across their former hunting and gathering grounds. After he had foreseen it, he went home and told his wife and she said, “Well you will need to give them all somewhere to sit down and eat their lunch.” And so, the flat-topped granite boulder was added to the Dartmoor design.
Blonde One and I were lucky enough to find one of the original luxury versions of the flat-topped granite boulder when we were walking the other day. This version was a bright green, cushioned design and was so popular that it was often hidden away in woods in order to stop the upholstery becoming worn.
I have to say, it was very comfortable indeed, but a little on the damp side!!
Do you not use sit-mats? I carry two pieces of foam about 10 inches square – two because whoever I may be walking with never seems to have one of their own
You are lucky with Dartmoor’s furnishings. I have carried on for miles on many different kinds of walks looking for a suitable spot, often finding myself lunching at 3:00pm when the initial decision to do so came at 12:30. On day walks I have even ended up doing so back at the car.
Sometimes you may know of a friendly bench ahead and tension mounts as you approach agonising about someone having already bagged it.
If you are in a navigational tizzy, sitting down and regrouping can provide an enormous contribution to problem solving and making sound judgements.
We do have sit mats but the Blonde word for them is, ‘sitters’. There is a blog post to be written about that subject. Unfortunately, the green sofa stone managed to endampen my behind through my foam mat.
“a little on the damp side”. What about the film that wrapped the sandwiches – discarded afterwards or, in your case, saved like the nail clippings of saints and used as a feature in ritual worship. Too pagan? Not green enough?
Mostly I have a piece of plastic in a pocket, along with sundry magnifying glasses, pencils, bits of string, torches, spare batteries, notebooks made from bits of old envelope, tweezers, choccy biccies, doggy bags, etc. In fact, I bulge in unseemly places. Even I haven’t mastered the art of putting an inflatable boat into a pocket, so eating in bogs is discounted. Mid-stream rocks have been utilised on occasion.