Walking and talking

Like the honour of joining the book club, I also joined up with some ‘Walking Ladies’ which has brought a lot of laughter and some tears* into my life. Our first big adventure was to walk the Pennine Way (from Gargrave to Barnard Castle). Husband couldn’t understand how we could spend five days walking and talking all day, every day. It was one of the best trips I had ever done and has become a regular fixture in the diary. We are off to Pembrokeshire this year – coastal walking so it will be different and there will be the opportunity to take a dip in the sea. Hoping that the pubs en route will come up to the high standards of the hostelries on our other trips – of particular note was a youth hostel in Hawes which seemed to be hosting someone’s 70th birthday party -fancy dress style – bizarre doesn’t get near it. So much so that we were filled with trepidation the whole of the next day as our next booking was a bunkhouse…. Turned out to be a gorgeous barn in Keld with luxury facilities and we were served hot bowls of homemade veg chilli – couldn’t have been more like chalk and (deep-fried Wensleydale) cheese! The last day was tough. I didn’t realise heifers were dangerous. I had no fear of walking into fields of cows before we stumbled across fields and fields of young and very scary beasts. Luckily we had an expert with us who was able to identify the dangers (I looked through the binoculars and saw cows – I obviously needed an eye test or a biology lesson). Eventually, we arrived at our final guesthouse exhausted beyond belief and caked in stinky mud – one look at the beautiful cream carpet in the hall and we almost stripped off completely on the doorstep. The next trip was walking part of Wainwright’s Memorial Walk – many wonderful moments – arriving soaked through in Little Langdale and rushing to get a hot shower and warm, dry clothes on but our bags hadn’t arrived so we had to put our wet clothes back on and sit in the bar drinking… The weather wasn’t our friend on that trip and, on the last day, after a few hours of walking in what seemed to be large circles around a boggy hilltop, we found our way back to where we started and squelched to Grasmere along the low path. The trip was topped off by a welcome sherry in our bedrooms on arrival.

As one Walking Lady says so aptly ‘A walk and a beer, what’s not to like!?’ So yes, I love walking and talking. And sometimes it’s not just about food.

*tears were shed on Kilimanjaro. That mountain does take something from you but also gives you something back.