More enjoyable ways to test ones endurance.
Over the last few weeks I have been singing the praises of
keeping busy whilst following the government’s instruction to stay indoors. Apart
from the three or four early morning runs per week, I have not been outside at
all, not mixing with other people since the beginning of March. We had already
thought that that was the best course of action for people of our ages,
especially my age and having asthma inherited from my dad to boot.
The last contact I had with others was the Scribblers poetry
writing meeting in our home on March 8th although I had not been out
the previous week either. We cleaned thoroughly before our few friends arrived.
The meeting lasted nearly three hours and then we cleaned everything again and
those few friends were our last guests.
I have coped well with the lock down and I use every last
moment of each day as usefully as possible. That does not mean that I don’t
dream of the great outdoors though. Due to a huge amount of dancing classes in
my childhood I have always been blessed with strong legs and so it was not
really that surprising when I took so quickly to Triathlon at fifty during a
mid life, ‘Hang on, wait a minute’, moment to re-find my former fitness.
Not surprising that after the deaths of my father from lung
Cancer at the end of 1984 and my mother eighteen months later from kidney
failure, that I asked my husband to try not to make a big deal of it if I went
on a long walk. I needed to have some head clearing time and I chose to walk
the South Downs way on my own. It was only
just over a week when I was not smothered in protection and kindness and to
simply enjoy some thinking space that was really what I needed. I had been the
only carer for both of them before their final hospitalisations. Long walks are
great therapy. You never forget your parents, never.
Not surprising at all then, that Steve and I have taken a
number of hiking holidays and over the last ten years or so I have thought how
nice it would be to walk the Camino de Santiago but it is only a dream as yet.
We have both watched The Way a couple of times with Martin Sheen and Emilio
Estavez. I have read four or five different books about that journey and think
it will have to be done before I pop my clogs. It would take about six weeks so
it’s expensive in time and money but the idea has me hooked.
Of the walking holidays we have taken, the Pennine Way was
probably the most enjoyable, well the most memorable anyway, some of that was a
bit of a test on days when it was raining heavily when we started out and was
still lashing down when we stopped.
There were three of us on that journey since apart from
Steve and I, our friend and work colleague, East Sussex antiques dealer Graham
Price, had also wanted to reel that one in and so we planned it together. We
walked about twenty miles a day, it varied a bit and there were only a couple
of longer days. I made the overnight bookings along the way, sometimes just a
B&B and other times a pub with rooms, just a couple were mistakes. Graham
had read all the there was to read and took charge of the route, bird spotting,
trees and flowers etc. No rules between
us, except that anybody could choose a point to stop for a few moments and take
the back pack off for a break. Sometimes walking on our own sometimes together.
We all got on really well and enjoyed the evening meals time for chewing over
the day. It was sixteen or seventeen days including travel.
There has been a lot of talk about isolation these last six
weeks and I have been thinking where would be a great place to be stuck rather
than in our home so long. I went scuttling to look in photo albums today and
Steve caught onto to that search with me. Steve mentioned the Tan Hill Inn and
that is certainly an isolated spot. A lovely place to drive to on a fine day.
Miles from anywhere. For us it was also one of those days when it bucketed down
and at one point we went into a farm trailer that was no locked. It was a
simple animal bedding store and we took a break in there to have a snack, out
of the deluge, even though the rats did not think much of the intrusion, we
were past caring. Take a look at the Tan Hill Inn on FB of google it. They
have great photos some of which I have borrowed, hope they won’t mind.
Hiking Holidays:
Wikipedia notes:
The Pennine Way
is a National Trail in England,
with a small section in Scotland.
The trail stretches for 268 miles from Edale, in the northern Derbyshire Peak
District, north through the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland National Park
and ends at Kirk Yetholm, just inside the Scottish border.
The Pennines, also known as the Pennine Chain or Pennine
Hills, is a range of hills and mountains separating North West England from Yorkshire and North East England. Often described as the
"backbone of England",
the Pennine Hills form a more-or-less continuous range in most of Northern England.
Length:
431.3 km
Season:
All year
Location:
Northern
England and southern Scotland,
United
Kingdom
Highest
point: Cross
Fell, 893 m (2,930 ft)
Use:
Hiking
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