Saturday 9th May 2020, 12 noon (day 3,180)
The outdoors is good. The outdoors is healthy. And it always will be.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: walking
First caterpillar to complete the Pennine Way?
Monday 4th May 2020, 1.05pm (day 3,175)
Well, OK, perhaps it is ambitious to expect that this caterpillar will manage to complete all 300+ miles of the Pennine Way, but if you’ve never been near it, it’s done more of it than you. And it also becomes the blog’s first caterpillar, a singular honour.
Permitted exercise
Saturday 11th April 2020, 11.05am (day 3,152)
This family are doing the sensible thing, as was I this morning. Our overall physical and mental health is vital and needs care. No social distancing guidelines have been violated in the creation of this photograph. And yes, it’d probably be nicer if the shrub wasn’t there, but you can’t have everything.
The healthy option
Monday 16th March 2020, 12.45pm (day 3,126)
I have exhibited no symptoms of viral infection. No one around me has exhibited them either. So I am not locking myself up in my house, not yet. What will be the overall impact on public health of the proposed lockdown (and along the way, creation of a police state)? On mental health, levels of domestic violence and abuse, et cetera? The UK is not the only country launching a massive experiment in depriving tens of millions of people that they have come to rather like. Maybe it will relieve pressure on the health service. But maybe it won’t.
Anyway this lockdown is not quite yet in operation. Hence, I got outside today, because there may not be many more chances in the next few weeks. This is the summit of Watson’s Dodd, above Thirlmere in the Lake District — behind, the peak of Helvellyn, at 3,117 feet the third-highest mountain in England.
God’s Golf Ball
Wednesday 11th March 2020, 10.20am (day 3,121)
I said yesterday that Lincoln cathedral stands at the top of one of the few hills in Lincolnshire. This beauty — a radar station, apparently — stands near the summit of one of the others, Normanby Top (a County Top). This looks exactly as if God is waiting up there with his 3-wood, ready to smash it over the nearby water hazard (the North Sea) and out into Europe.
The Chiltern summit
Wednesday 12th February 2020, 1.10pm (day 3,093)
In my project to bag the county tops of Britain it has already become obvious that many of them are not prominent, airy summits lifted far above the surrounding countryside. Haddington Hill, at 875 ft (267m) above sea level, is not only the highest point of Buckinghamshire, but of the whole Chiltern Hills range which stretches through three other counties as well. But you wouldn’t know it, were this monument not located at some otherwise indefinable point, skulking under trees and definitely trying to not draw attention to itself. Still, that’s another one bagged. Eight down — 83 to go…
Walking to Keswick
Wednesday 8th January 2020, 12.45pm (day 3,058)
These two walkers had the same idea as me — that there are better things to do sometimes than sit around in an office on a Wednesday. I started my trek in Keswick and had come along this path just previously, so I know where they’re going.
1380′ above sea level
Saturday 28th December 2019, 10.05am (day 3,047)
The little peak rising to the right has no official name but stands at 1380 feet above sea level and counts as a Wainwright, hence why I sought to climb it. If you have no idea what ‘a Wainwright’ is, see my other blog. This was the 61st out of the 63 that I turn out to have rebagged this year.
Frosty fields, and Wetherlam
Monday 18th November 2019, 10.15am (day 3,007)
I worked on Sunday so I could walk today, Monday. I’m no idiot. There were reasons for this.
The picture is taken in the valley of Yewdale, north of Coniston in the Lake District. The fell in the background is Wetherlam. And an appearance for the moon, too — hiding away among a couple of similar little fluffy clouds, which is as aggressive as the sky got all day.
Ascending The Law
Tuesday 29th October 2019, 9.50am (day 2,987)
I guess there’s all sorts of metaphorical and analogical interpretations which could be put on the title of this post, but it’s all literal — these people (and obviously, myself) were engaged this morning on the climb of the steep south slope of the hill known as The Law, just outside the little town of Tillicoultry, which is visible below. Why? On a day of glorious sunshine like this, why not?
Being 42 