Category: Walking

I tend to be a solitary walker; I like it that way. I like to be with my thoughts and the inspiration of a good audiobook.

I don’t dislike walking with other people, I quite like people, but while I’m out solitary walking I find that interactions with other people, strangers in particular, can cause all sorts of anxiety.

For me, each interaction is loaded with choices and moral dilemmas.

Let me explain by giving you some examples.

The other day I was out walking and ahead of me was a couple who were walking slower than me, that’s normal. They had a dog and people with dogs always walk slower. Where they were was not too far from a path that I was wanting to take.

This is what is going on in my head: Do I speed up, zip around them (as much as anyone walking ‘zips’) and head up the path? Do I slow down and let them pass the junction so that I can continue my route without disturbing them? If I go slower, how much slower do I need to go to leave them enough room so that it isn’t obvious that I’m waiting for them to get out of the way? How do I do that without looking weird? What happens if I go slower and they slop altogether, what do I do then? If I catch them up, I will need to interact with them, what does that look like? What kind of interactions would be appropriate?

As it was, I decided to move a bit slower and let them pass the fork, then I could be on my way. Unfortunately, my pondering had missed another option, what would happen if they also decided to take the junction? Which they did.

I was getting close to them when this happened, and an awkward interaction was now inevitable. I was either going to have to stay behind them all the way up the forked path, which was narrower than the main path. This would look awkward as they knew I’d already caught them up, or I was going to have to ask them to let me past. That’s what I thought anyway. As it was the couple stopped just a few steps up the fork and let me past, giving me a smile as I went.

Is this just me?

Another study case.

Over a week ago I was heading along a wide path when I noticed a man walking towards me on the same side of the path. As he was a little way off, I crossed over to the other side so that we didn’t crash into each other. It seemed like the polite thing to do and walking down the extreme of a path is a COVID thing that persists around here. As the man approached me, I recognised him and I’m quite sure that we’d previously smiled and said “hello.” This time he completely blanked me. In that split second, I recognised that he was from a different racial heritage to myself. Again, my brain goes into super-drive: what if he’d seen me crossing over and interpreted it as a racially motivated act? Deliberately crossing to the other side of a street to avoid someone can be an immensely powerful statement. Was I a bit overenthusiastic in my movements? What will happen the next time I see him?

A few days later I saw the same man, this time we were already walking down opposite sides of the path. He looked up, smiled, and said “hi.” I returned the niceties.

Interactions with single women are especially burdened with dilemmas. I know that I am safe, but no woman out there knows that. I can see how an approaching man on his own, without a dog, is a potential threat and needs to be treated with suspicion.

I’m not a dog owner, but I have noticed how men walking dogs are regarded as somehow safer than men on their own. With a dog is OK, without a dog is somehow strange? Perhaps it’s that the presence of a dog indicates the person with it cares about it at least enough to take it out for a walk.

Anyway, getting back to the subject – approaching women.

I go through all sorts of anxious mental gymnastics when approaching women walking on their own. The worst scenario for this is when I am out walking down a narrow path and approach a woman from behind. In most cases I am going faster and will need, at some point, to make a choice between staying back and overtaking.

This is a bit like the first scenario, but worse. Again, my brain goes into a spin: I don’t want to catch up quickly that would feel especially threatening, but slowing down and following is especially strange? It’s a narrow path there really is no way of overtaking without interacting and how do I do that without being threatening? How much eye contact is polite, too much eye contact makes me a threat? Do I say “Hi”, or not? What about a smile? If I stay back, will I be noticed, or not? If I am noticed, how will they respond? Is there anywhere wide enough to overtake? How do I indicate that I would like to come past? It’s a minefield of dilemma.

On a narrow path a woman walking towards me has a distinct set of anxieties: When is the right time to step to one side? Is there somewhere obvious to get out of the way? If there isn’t it feels very weird to only make a narrow space to pass, but it would be strange to climb over a fence just to make space? What is the best way to interact? When is the right time to interact?

There are no clear rules here anymore. I’ve wondered about reintroducing the tradition of doffing. What do you think, would that just make me look eccentric, or strange?

We aren’t particularly good at discerning the feelings of others and many of my anxieties are predicated on how the other person views the interaction. I’m sure that most of my worries are unfounded and that the other person isn’t thinking what I think they are. I suspect that most of the time they’re not anxious about my presence at all. That knowledge doesn’t, however, stop me processing each interaction.

Please tell me that I’m not the only one who has these thoughts?

Header Image: Sunrise from my morning walk a few weeks ago.

The image in the header of this post is from last weekend, during a glorious day walking in the hills.

This following image is taken from a similar place on the same path in September 2020 which was the last time that I was out and about in the fells of Cumbria.

The difference in my feelings between these two days is stark. The scenes are similar, but I was in a different place altogether.

I have been trying to complete a set of 214 hills known as the Wainwrights for several years now, and in 2020 I was down to my last few. At the start of the year it seemed that there would be no reason why I couldn’t tick of the last few and celebrate a goal completed. But this was 2020 and the year of a pandemic and the associated restrictions.

Personally, the impact of the pandemic has been minor, there are things that I’ve wanted to do but not been able, but mostly things have carried on as normal. One of the areas that I’ve found the most difficult, though, has been the restrictions on access to the mountains. I wholeheartedly agreed with the lockdown measures, but that didn’t stop me missing the feeling of walking a path to a summit.

In late 2020 there was a short window when we were allowed to get out and climb. I was so looking forward to parking up, putting on my boots and heading out. I set out early and made the journey to my starting point in good time. As I crossed passes that gave a view of my destination, I was delighted to see that the peaks were free of cloud. Further along the journey the road runs alongside a lake that was mirror flat calm. It was going to be a wonderful day.

I parked up, put on my boots, checked my gear and headed out.

Part way along the path I was starting to warm up and it was time to take a layer off. A feeling of dread gripped me as I opened my backpack to put in the removed layer – where was the blue waterproof bag that had my lunch in it? This was going to be a long day and I was going to need some food at some point. Emptying the contents of the backpack onto the fellside just confirmed, sadly, that the food was back in the car. There was no choice but to return and pick it up.

Yomping back was frustrating and so was opening the boot of the car to see the bright blue lunch bag directly in front of me.

Heading out for a second time my steps took on a frustrated stomp. It was a beautiful day that may well be the only day for months that I would be able to this, and I was still in the car park.

Half a mile or so out of the car park the back of my legs started to feel wet. It took me a little while to realise that this wasn’t a splash of water, or even sweat, it was coming from my backpack, lots of water dripping from the base. For the second time dread washed over me as I reached into my backpack to realise that the drinking bladder had come apart and most of the water was now sploshing around inside. I took the bladder out, fitted it back together, but there was precious little water left. Fortunately, I had some spare clothes in another waterproof bag in my backpack, so I changed, emptied the rest of the water out of the backpack, checked that I was definitely carrying a spare drink in a bottle and, even more frustratedly, head out again.

I few miles further along and only about a half of the way up my back started to spasm. I’ve had this before in my lower back, it’s the result of too much time at a desk, but this was higher up and far more painful. When I get a spasm in my lower back I just need to slow down and walk through it, so I carried on. I slowed down, then I slowed down some more, eventually I was walking ten steps then breathing for ten breaths while I stretched, then walking ten steps. It was pitiful and my head was a swirling mass of frustration. Instead of enjoying an exhilarating walk in the mountains I was walking in treacle with a whirlwind in my head.

Eventually I listened to my body and sat down.

I looked around myself and couldn’t see the beauty because the mist of frustration was too thick.

I felt shame for wasting a glorious opportunity.

As I sat, I wrapped my arms around my legs and wallowed in the emotional and physical pain of failure.

I didn’t post any pictures that day, I didn’t want anyone to know that I had given up.

I’ve carried some of those feelings around for months. Last weekend that all changed.

The first real opportunity for many months arrived and I was determined to revisit and redeem that day of frustration, shame and pain.

I set off from the car park and triple checked that I had my blue lunch bag, I also checked a couple of times more after I’d begun my walk.

I’d replaced my water bladder, which was sitting comfortably, and without leaks, in a new backpack.

After some more research and conscious of my previous back problems I travelled a route which started in a different place.

It was wonderful. A fabulous spring day of blue skies and crystal-clear views across the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man, north to Scotland and south as far as Wales. The views from the summits and ridges were spectacular across the Lakeland fells.

Part way down I sat in roughly the place where I had submitted on my failed visit, and took a picture, the one in the header. I reveled in the sense of achievement, of having achieved what had been so frustrating. I felt the shame lifting as I succeeded where once I had failed. The weight I had been carrying for months was gone, I walked into redemption.

I’m trying to reclaim the word “parochial”. In the dictionary it has two meanings:

• Relating to a Church parish
• Having a limited or narrow outlook or scope.

The most common meaning, narrow, is primarily applied in a derogatory way. If you are called parochial it’s not likely to be a complement. Being broad in outlook is regarded as a good thing and it probably is, but there’s a dark side. We flit from tourist destination to viewing area collecting selfies like rewards badges. People are measured by how many countries they’ve visited, or how many famous landmarks they’ve visited and yet we have a certain admiration for people who have found a place in which they are happy just to be. We chase an illusionary peer-pressure defined outcome while looking, enviously, behind us at people who have chosen a different path – a more parochial one.

We live in an age desperate to discover the next big thing. No one wants to miss out on the latest craze. This is, sadly, even true for walking people, there’s a kudos in being able to climb the biggest hills or travel the longest walks. I have to admit to having fallen for this comparison myself. I have, after all, been trying to tick off the Wainwright hills for a while now, this is primarily a person target, but there are times when the dark side raises within me. We treat the parochial with contempt as small, narrow and inferior.

Most of England is split up into more than 15,600 Ecclesiastical Parishes a designation that dates back to the sixth century, signifying an area looked after by a priest. Parishes are not defined by size they are normally bound by natural features and represent a community contained within vale, valley or the immediate vicinity of village and town. Many parish churches still follow an ancient ritual of walking the boundary of the parish at least once a year, it’s known as beating the bounds. This can be quite challenging in areas where the border stretches over over mountain, moorland, lake or shoreline. The purpose of this activity was and still is, multifaceted at one level it is about defining the boundary, but there are also spiritual elements to it as the priest and the parochial leadership pray for the community within the boundaries. Rather than looking at the riches in adjacent parishes beating the bounds created a deeper sense of community for those within the perimeter. It’s an inward looking celebration, a parochial event.

It’s this sense of looking and seeing where I am that I am trying to reclaim, having parochial perception. By keeping my looking narrow I am finding that I am seeing more than I did before. There’s a richness in the parish that wasn’t visible when I was looking to other fancies of other parishes.

While walking one of the parochial paths recently I first noticed the drilling of a woodpecker. Walking that same path on another day I saw the woodpecker fly past me towards a particular set of trees. A few days later and I watched a black-and-white bird hopping up the side of one of the boughs of those trees. A few days later and there were two woodpeckers spending most of their time around a particular branch. I’ve seen these woodpeckers on this same branch a few time now, in one particular place where I suspect there is a nest, but it’s away from my view so I can’t confirm that. The woodpecker is a fabulous bird to watch, full of character, they are completely at home in their parish in the woods. I’ve probably walked past these same woodpeckers on several occasions before, but it’s only by having parochial eyes that I saw them.

It’s not just woodpeckers, as I think parochially there’s so much more that I see.

There are the parochial land features of nab, lane, farm, field, hedgerow, wood, house, bridge, well, brook, aqueduct, and fold.

There are the parochial names of Clarkson’s, Dingle, Haighton, Fulwood, Fernyhalgh, Ladywell, Tunbrook, Redscar, and Boilton.

There’s the parochial fauna of deer, fox, rabbit, hare, buzzard, barn owl, lapwing, woodpecker, bullfinch, goldfinch, sparrow, squirrel, kestrel, and frog.

There’s the parochial flora of blackthorn, hawthorn, bramble, crab apple, oak, ash, bluebell, wild garlic, marestail, primrose, cowslip, yew, maple, and foxglove.

There’s the parochial colours of moss, mint, lime, butter, grass, clover, violet and verdant whites.

There’s the parochial light as it illuminates the different features throughout the seasons.

During this time of lockdown there is little choice but to walk the parish, but I’m determined that this time of thinking parochially will be one of revelation. By focussing in on what is local I’m seeing more each and every day, there’s an enlightenment in being narrow.

Header Image: This is one of the local lanes on a recent evening perambulation.

This is a strange time, many of the things that we used to regard as normal are different and are changing on an almost daily basis – we are presently in a period of lock-down and will be for some time to come. Within the UK our current lock-down levels allow us a single period of outside exercise, so I’ve been continuing my morning walks.

One of the things that’s important in a strange time is to maintain routines as a structure for the day and one of my most treasured routines is a walk before work. The paths are still the same as they were, the countryside has started to awaken into spring, but the walk has changed substantially.

One of the most significant changes has been background noise from the local roads. Many of my favourite walks take me through a tunnel underneath the M6 motorway, which at this point, is usually 8 solid lanes of tire and engine noise. The travel restrictions have reduced this traffic to a few sparsely filled lanes of trucks accompanied by the occasional van and car. As I step into the woods the birdsong used to shout above the rumble from the motorway, but now the song echoes in a less strained throng. The quiet has, itself, become noticeable.

The number of walkers has also reduced significantly. I was surprised by this because I suppose I expected people to do what I did and continue doing what they’ve previously done, but most of the regulars have disappeared. People I’ve seen at least once a week for many years I haven’t seen for a couple of weeks now. Some of those people are older which, here in the UK, means that they are under additional constraints, so that’s not surprising. If you had asked me whether I regarded these people as part of my community I think I would have said that they weren’t, but that hasn’t stopped me missing them.

We are instructed to keep 2m apart as part of our distancing guidance. This rule isn’t a problem for most of the places where I walk, but it has changed the interactions with the walkers that I do meet. The meeting of walkers has become polarised into two reactions – the hiders and the projectors. Some people now treat the meeting of another walker as a trigger to immediately hide, like they’ve just discovered a tiger on the path. As I approached one couple this morning I respectfully moved to the far edge of the path as they chose the other side, they responded by covering their faces, rigidly staring ahead, holding their breath, and hurrying past me, glad to escape the danger that I clearly posed. I’m not judging them for this, these are troubling times and people need to respond in ways that they choose, and they may be right about how dangerous I am. There are other people, though, who’ve gone the other way, they are doing whatever they can to connect, even if that means projecting their voices across a 2m gap. There was another lady, again this morning, who I’ve never met before. As I passed her on the other side of the road she looked up and smiled. Her bright smile was followed by a projected voice asking how I was and encouraging me to “keep safe” and to “keep enjoying the nature as long as you can” – connecting at a distance of over 2m.

Change tends to polarise people and this lock-down is a big change for everyone. I have been surprised that even on my daily walk the change has resulted in such a significant impact. We are going to be in lock-down for several more weeks and perhaps even the morning walk will be curtailed at some point, but once it’s passed I wonder what change it will make to the way that we treat each other. I hope that this strange place will make us more considerate and more compassionate as we learn the importance of connecting.

Header image: This was taken this morning on my walk, I’ve taken this picture many times, from the same place, but they are all different – #fromthefencepost

I was out for a walk with a friend the other day; as we walked and talked my friend said something along the lines of:

“The conversation always flows much better when you are on a walk.”

I agreed wholeheartedly.

There’s a phrase that I use, which is a quote from someone but I don’t know who:

“Women talk face-to-face; men talk side-by-side.”

This isn’t a rule, but more of an axiom that I see playing out regularly. What better way to be side-by-side than to go for a walk.

I’ve led all sorts of walking groups, sometimes the groups are just men. When it’s an exclusively male group they will fall into line two-by-two and the conversation will be contained within the pairings for almost the entirety of the walk. There’s something in this arrangement that men find safe and helps the conversation to flow. I’ve also led groups that are exclusively women (except myself, of course) and they interact in a very different way, but still the conversation flows.

From time to time someone will ask me if they can have a chat about something, whenever this occurs I try to make our meeting include a walk. This is how the meeting normally goes, we meet at a cafe and have a drink during which time we’ll chat, but the conversation won’t go very deep. Once we have finished our drink we’ll start off walking, almost instantaneously the level of conversation will go deeper. The further we walk the deeper the conversation goes.

I’ve been in situations at work where things were getting tense in a meeting room. When I’ve had the opportunity I’ve arranged for a break in the proceedings and encouraged everyone to go out for a walk. The change in conversation as people walk and talk is remarkable. The change of posture dissipates the tension almost immediately, the fresh air lightens the mood considerably, and it all flows together to make for a much better outcome for everyone. There was a time a few years ago when walking meetings were the latest management “thing”. Walking meetings may not be a “thing” anymore, but that doesn’t stop them being a very valuable tool. If you’ve never tried it, you should.

Some of my fondest memories are of conversations that I have had whilst out for a walk with friends and family. There are more of these memories than there are of conversations over meals or sat in a coffee shop somewhere.

“The conversation always flows much better when you are on a walk.”

Steve

How much of our lives do we spend in the future or the past?

I’m someone who can chew on regrets for days. If I make a mistake, or embarrass myself, that can become the burden of my thoughts and feelings for far too long. I know that I’m overthinking each of these situations but that doesn’t stop me living in the past. Interestingly my temperament is such that positive experiences rarely have the same impact, I let delight slip from my thought far too easily and hold onto the negative far too quickly.

Worrying about the future is another pastime that has been a prevalent companion. I have an expert level certification in imaging catastrophe, not surprisingly most of these imagined disasters have never happened. I’m living in a future that doesn’t exist and will never exist quite how I imagined it.

Neither chewing on the past nor worrying about the future are worth anything like the amount of time that I spend on them.

There are times, though, when my time travelling starts to feel like it’s getting out of control and that is when I need to make a conscious effort to return to the present.

The best way I know of returning to the here and now is to go for a walk.

I’ve written previously about starting a walk at a high pace and how it takes a while for me to drop into my rhythm. My mental presence follows a similar cycle.

When I start out on a walk my head can be in all sorts of places depending upon the events that happens just before setting out. Sometimes my thoughts race between something that’s just happened and a worry about the future, like a tiger in a cage pacing backwards and forwards. I’ll then switch inexplicably to another concern and a different worry, but still bouncing from one to another, backwards and forwards in time. After a few minutes, having visited the various corners of the cage the tiger starts to calm down and move to a place of rest. This phase doesn’t, normally, take more than a few minutes before peace starts to build.

On one of my regular walks there’s a gate just a few minutes from my house, reaching the gate is often the symbol for me to step out of the cage and into the present. There are times when the steps before the gate are a blur as all of my attention has been soaked up mentally pacing the cage.

Stepping through the gate and into the present I start to notice everything around me. This morning I’d hardly noticed how misty it was until I stepped through the wooden kissing gate. It’s in the present that I start to put things into perspective and set aside my worries and concerns. It’s in the present that I start to see hidden things. It’s in the present that delight arrives. It’s in the present that in a strange way I step out of the present and into a daydream.

You are a success when you have made friends with your past, are focused on the present, and are optimistic about your future

Zig Ziglar

Header Image: A sunset on one of my morning walks. It’s taken a little way through the gate.

Two of the books that I’ve read in the last 6 month have referred to the same study by a team lead by Jeremy Morris in 1949 to 1952.

Morris was interested in the connection between cardiovascular disease and physical activity. The link between exercise had been a long-held popular view, but there was little data to support it. On his daily commute in post war Britain, where money for research was scarce, Morris noticed a perfect sample for an experiment in the two people who operated the famous London double-decker buses on which he travelled – the driver and the conductor.

The driver with a mostly sedentary working life, the conductor on their feet most of the day, up and down stairs and from front to back. The difference in cardiovascular disease between the two cohorts was significant with drivers twice as likely to experience a heart-attack as the conductors. Neither of these roles required breathless physical exertion, the difference was between sitting all day and walking about all day.

Since the 1940’s the population in the west has moved from active jobs to sedentary ones. We may not be driving buses, our vehicles are apps, our steering wheels are screens, mice and keyboards.

Sitting all day is killing us, and it’s not just our cardiovascular system that is suffering, extended sitting is linked to a whole cluster of conditions. The recommended counter measure to these issues is exercise, in particular, walking.

Speaking personally, I can’t say that I can directly attribute any particular aspect of my physical well-being to regular walking, but I do feel the difference between active days and sedentary days. On active days I am less stiff, my brain is more alert, I sleep better, I feel less stressed, my posture is better, I am more creative, I am more motivated, my mood is better, I breathe better, in short I feel better.

One thing I’m not doing is walking to burn calories. While walking gives a reasonably good return on energy burnt, I’m more interested in the broader benefit to my overall well-being.

There’s still some debate about how much walking is enough walking, but for me I’m not sure that’s the right question. It appears that the 10,000 steps movement was created as a marketing event in Japan with no scientific research to support it. For me the question that I’m asking myself is how I build in as much activity as possible; can this meeting be done as a walking meeting? Can I take this call while I go for a walk? Even if I need to be near a screen for this discussion can I stand? Can I park my car away from the office door to make me walk in? I find it interesting that as a society we still regard these approaches as a bit weird.

Another question I ponder is which type of walking is best for me? In this regard it appears that we have to walk in a way that increases our breathing and heart rate. A number of people reference that phrase “you can still talk, but you can’t sing”. I rarely amble anywhere, but I don’t speed walk either. Perhaps I should be a bit more exerting as I walk, or perhaps I should just do more walking.

My morning walking routine has made a significant different to the amount of walking that I do, sadly it doesn’t stop me from sitting at a desk for 10 hours at a time occasionally. Most of the time this is broken by a lunchtime walk, whilst this walk does do something for me physically I find that it’s primary benefit is to my mind, perhaps that’s a subject for another day.

Header Image: Seathwaite Valley on the way back to the car after a fabulous day walking.

The other day I was walking back towards my house when a cacophony of bird noises grabbed my attention. My hearing told me that there were magpies and birds of prey somewhere nearby. I searched the trees above me and sure enough at the top of some tall trees a group of magpies and a few buzzards were in the middle of an altercation. As I watched the buzzards would, one by one, fly in to one of the trees only to be sent packing by a angry response from a few of the magpies. Once one buzzard had been repelled another one would fly in from a different angle which was again repelled by even more magpies. If it hadn’t been for the noise I’m not sure that i would have noticed this fascinating behaviour.

There are so many different birds to hear as I partake of my morning ramblings.

Last summer I watched a flock of noisy long-tailed tits leap from bush to bush along a local hedgerow. Their call is distinctive, particularly as they move around in these small flocks chattering away to each other as they go.

I love to listen to nature as I walk around but that’s not the only type of listening that I like to do. Recently I received a present of some bone-conducting headphones from Sue, my wife. These headphones don’t go in my ears, but rest on my cheek bones, because my ears are still open to the air I can still hear all of the ambient sounds around me while I listen to a podcast or an audio-book. The headphones are also quite good for music, but although I love music I tend to prefer the spoken word while I’m out walking.

There’s something about walking and listening to an audio-book that enhances the experience of both, for me. Listening regularly, even for relatively short periods of time, means that you can get through quite a lot of material. Some of my listening is fiction and as I walk I enter into the scenes that the author has painted. There are times when I feel like I am equally in two places at the same time, the real one and the fictional one. At other times my listening is more factual learning and listening as I walk helps the learning to become embedded in my mind. Walking is, after all, supposed to have a positive effect on creative thinking.

Often, as I walk, the loudest noise isn’t an external one, it’s the one in my mind. There have been times when, before a walk, that voice has become almost deafening and blocked out every other sound. As I set out on a walk that voice drives me to walk at a pace, but without any rhythm, and little delight. The voice may be setting the pace at the beginning, but something about the activity of walking steadily arrest and calms that voice and returns my steps to a normal tempo. Calm steps and calm thoughts. Sometimes I don’t have to walk very far before I experience this effect, but there are other days when I can walk miles before the calm descends. If I am out hill walking the motion and effort of an ascent is a great facilitator for calming the voice. It can feel like I’m fighting the hill at the beginning, but anyone who has been hill walking knows that it’s always the hill that wins. Once my inner voice has been calmed it’s then, and only then, that I can really hear it.

My life would be far poorer if I was to loose the ability to walk and listen, but more than that, I suspect that my mental well-being would be significantly impaired.

There are days when my primary reason for walking is to listen, that’s particularly true when I need to listen to myself.

header image: This is the side of Yewbarrow looking towards Pillar from a recent walk when I listened to the entirety of Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell.

I’m writing this post having returned from a day of discovery.

Today I walked a route I have never walked before and went to a place I have never been to in my previous 50 years. This place was number 197 on a list of 214 places that I have a plan to discover.

My journey started from a place I know well having already been on several different adventures from this base. Only recently I travelled a route that took me to the top of a hill called Base Brown, number 187, from the north. Today’s route took me around the south of that same hill with delightful views that were hidden from my previous route with rugged crags emerging through the low clouds that became the theme of the day.

Up to this point I had been walking a well defined path which is one of the routes to a Lake District favourite and England’s highest peak. Even this was a discovery and something new for me. Having reached a small stream it was time to join a faint path branching off to the right, it was time for the real discovery to begin.

This path isn’t on the maps, well at least it’s not on the maps that I use, but it is in various people’s guides to this walk. While the beginning of this path was visible it was clear that further up the hill the path was indistinct at best. Sometimes when I am out walking each step is a discovery. There were times when I had to take a step to see the next step, by taking that next step, the step after it became visible. Then there were points where even the next step wasn’t visible and I discovered by moving forward without a path. I knew the direction I needed to head to reach my destination and I expected the path to become clear at some point.

I headed towards a small tarnlet which I knew that the guided paths went past, by now I was up in the clouds with very little wind, when it’s like this the world shrinks to the size of the area that is visible. I like it when it’s like this.

A little way along the path reemerged, still faint, but clear a direct to the top where I discovered the two tops of Seathwaite Fell. There’s the summit on the map,and the summit defined by the guidebook writer Alfred Wainwright.

The best walks are continue their interest all the way up and all the way down, with discovery after discovery and this walk was one of those walks.

Not far beyond the summit there was another small unnamed tarn shrouded in cloud without even the faintest breath of wind. The reflections were wonderful in the cloudy gloom.

A little further along Sprinkling Tarn emerged, this is a larger tarn nestled into the hillside with an array of mountains looking down. While the path skirts around one side of the tarn I decided that this feature deserved a wider discover.

The tarn has an unusual shape with an isthmus shaped piece of land sticking out into the middle where I headed. It felt like I was on my own in the middle of the water. What a discovery.

From the isthmus I headed back to the path and eventually discovered another path along the route of the stream that flowed out of the tarn and back to my transport.

The stream flows down a cascade of waterfalls and rocky ravines with a different view every few metres. Eventually the path dropped below the clouds and opened up wonderful views across Borrowdale and Derwentwater beyond. This was a new view of familiar friends, another discovery.

It was a lovely day of discovery, discovery is connected to newness, but you don’t have to go somewhere new to discover. On my regular morning walks there’s often something to discover. Having said that, I do love to walk somewhere new, I love to discover. I still have 17 more discoveries on my list of 214, and then I’ll have to find a new list to discover.

You can, perhaps, discover more things, more quickly in a car, but discovering as you walk allows you to take in the experience. There’s nothing quite like a walking discovery adventure.

I was recently out and about on my morning walk and thoroughly enjoying the rhythm of it. It’s been very wet this year and my walking boots were covered in mud and wet inside, thankfully I had my waterproof socks on and my feet were fine. I was roughly half way around the circuit and I was starting to get that heading for home feeling as I left a country lane and headed onto a narrow path which runs alongside a brook. Just a few metres along a flash of blue down near the flowing water caught my eye. Instinctively I stopped still and turned slowly to look to where the flash had been. There, sat on a twig overhanging the brook was a kingfisher. It sat for a few seconds looked at me and darted off along the stream and into obscurity.

I was delighted.

That delight stayed with me for the rest of my walk and also as a slow fading feeling for the rest of that day.

On most of my morning walks I find something to delight in:

The drill of a woodpecker on a spring day.

The bronze glow of a beach tree in the autumn.

The taste of juicy brambles.

The look of disdain from a fox as is crosses the path and disappears into the undergrowth.

The roar of a stream in flood.

The smell of wild garlic and the beautiful white flowers.

The taste of plumbs ripened in a nearby field.

The mystery of a misty morning as trees turn into shadowy figures.

The excitement of seeing a deer effortlessly bounce down one side of a hollow and up the other.

The discovery of a new path that I’ve never used before and neither has anyone else from the look of the undergrowth.

The emergence of the buds in the oak trees and the promise of acorns.

The brilliance of a bank covered in bluebells hidden away from view.

The screech of buzzards circling overhead.

The crunch of fresh frozen snow.

The shock of startling a hare and seeing it speed across the fields.

The joy of the smaller birds as they scurry about their work.

The list goes on. I’m not upset if I don’t see anything new or unique there are plenty of marvelous things if I just have the eyes to see them. Seeing isn’t a passive thing, you have to train yourself to see, it requires attention, and walking gives that time for attention to build, but I think that might be a post for another day.

I’ve written about delight before – Count Your Blessings #143 – Delight – interestingly, also provoked by a walk and a song that I still love, who’s words I will leave you with:

Amid the rumours and the expectations
And all the stories dreamt and lived
Amid the clangour and the dislocation
And things to fear and to forgive
Don’t forget
About delight

Don’t Forget About Delight: Bruce Cockburn

Header Image: One of those wonderful misty mornings.