FROM MIASSOLE WITH LOVE

Rule one of walking in the British countryside: never shit within a mile of a footpath.
Breaking this rule has often got me into trouble. As it did today.
I started my walk towards the Pedlar Wife's Hole. This sounds like a music hall gag, but is, in fact, a cartographic, nay topographic, truth. It reminds me of a place in the French south called Miassole. Yes, if you don't believe me, Google it. Just after I got separated, and in a far from good state emotionally, I received one of the greatest acts of friendship of my entire life. I was invited away on holiday with my two sons, given a damn good listening to, whilst I expelled the grief of the situation. And on top of that, one of the best holidays ever. Miassole captured the imaginations of two little boys, and two big ones. No day was complete without a major session of what happened in Miassole. There was a traffic jam in Miassole. I saw you wandering about in Miassole. What were you doing in Miassole? Et cetera.
As with Miassol, so with the Pedlar Wife's Hole. Except I was alone, and thus became, for a while, one of those mad people who smirk and gibber at their own lonely jokes. Perhaps it was this levity which caught me short, but I think not.
What actually was the cause, was the apple juice. I and the Missus have become a team closely resembling a pairing of Mrs Tiggywinkle and Delia Bloody Smith. Discovering that we can make our own apple juice has led to frenzy of peeling, core-ing and juicing. And it's good stuff. Except that it goes right through you, in a most lubricating manner. It beats a coffee and a fag as a purgative. Hell, it beats skydiving, or being mortared.
So rule number one had to be broken. But the rule exists for good reason. The reason being that no sooner is one in situ, than interruption is guaranteed. And no matter how concealed the chosen location, you will be spotted. When they rewrite Army manuals on camouflage, they will be changed from the principles of SHAPE (no straight lines in nature), SHINE (the reason we used to take out our cap badges from our berets when we went, laughingly, "tactical") and SILHOUETTE (don't walk on a skyline unless you want to be shot- rather obviously) to SHAPE, SHINE and the more appropriately alliterative, SHITTING IN THE OPEN. Because, believe me, the one thing certain to be seen for miles is a hairy bum and a courtesy flag of boxers flying at the starboard cross trees.
Today, scouting my best cover, I returned to The Pedlar Wife's Hole and there made my offering to Mother Nature. Returning to propriety, and the footpath, I had gone only a few yards before I realised that, tailing me, at a distance where a full view of the matinee performance simply must have been had, were a couple of hikers of late middle age, the very first people I'd seen on the entire walk. They weren't there when I made my pre dump recce. They were nowhere to be seen. How did they get there? They were conspiring together and, did I dream it, smirking?
Note to self. More proof of the power of the rule. A dump in the open is like the magnetic north pole. Every single hiker in a million square miles will converge upon the act, drawn there by an irresistible force.
Don't do it.
Ever.

PS. Just noticed on the OS map that the small stream fed by Pedlar  Wife's Hole is Bottom Drain.