Who'd have thought a gentle Sunday lunchtime stroll through Wallingwells Wood would end up putting the fear of God into me?
It started off innocently enough. Park the Bentley up next to the church, then a short stroll up the A60 and turn left on t
he footpath opposite the Sherwood Ranger pub.
There. I'm off. Off on a healthy fulfifilling countryside walk. Shape Up In Notts! Get healthy! Get some air into the lungs! Get some peace of mind!
How naive and utterly foolish a man can be, eh?
So off I went up the path signposted 'Wallingwells 1 and a half Miles'. A path squashed in at the side of a field, with houses to the right of it.
After lots of rain it was a bit muddy underfoot. The perfect disguise for the depressingly familiar Mr Whippy swirls of dog muck piled up every 10 yards.
Footpath? Dog toilet, more like. You don't need hiking boots or welligogs to go a walk round here - you need radiation suits.
But even more unsettling than the festival of faeces was the creepy surburban underbelly of Carlton as exposed in the back gardens of the houses that back on to the path.
Who lives here? Why do they pave little sections of the path, yet leave other bits all squelchy?
Why do they have cheap Wilko £4.99 white plastic chairs out on tiny little two-foot square 'patios', and then seal them off from the sunshine with 10-feet high wooden fences?
The scent of their Sunday lunches cooking assailed my nostrils. Crikey, I thought as I hurried along, eyes watering, I thought that bird flu scare had done for Bernard Matthews... but up here they apparently still find his Turkey Twizzlers 'absolutely bootiful'.
Mercifully, before the greasy aromas could hook their claws into the back of my throat, I reached the woods.
Aaargh! The Blair Witch Project meets the Hound Of the Baskervilles... click here for the next instalment of Grundi's journey into Hell!