Mud, mud, glorious mud…

A late afternoon walk today. Over the last couple of days there has been quite a bit of rain, resulting in quite deep puddles on the paths and a lot of squelchy mud in the fields. At one point this was the obstacle I encountered.

How could I find out how deep the new pond was? My razor-sharp brain creaked into action and I soon had the problem reduced to a fairly simple third-order differential equation. By setting the initial conditions for the second derivative to zero I quickly managed to write out a solution in the mud using a stick. With that information to hand I managed to edge my way round, holding on to stumps and branches as I went.

The sun hadn’t shone on the next field, and ice was still covering the puddles. Excellent, I thought – a nice, hard surface to walk on.

No such luck. The shaded area lasted for just a few metres. After that the mud was seriously claggy. By the time I reached the other side I stood two inches taller and was a couple of kg heavier.

I grumbled my way home with a lot of boot-cleaning on grass, swilling in puddles, scraping on the road and general swearing. At least there was a rather pretty sunset to look at.