Tuesday 6 August 2019

Walking and Talking


 
Carol, Caroline, Diane and I have a core purpose. It is walking and talking. Coffee might happen but what we most want to do, for the last fifteen years, is go for a walk together.

Yet for a long time we've had to compromise. Each of us in turn has had a foot/ankle injury, some more long-lasting than others.

In hopes all would be well, we'd booked a walking weekend to the Gower Peninsula in August. There was not much else to do there so we fretted we'd not be up to walking.

Carol, undisputed Mistress of the Map, planned a walk of seven miles along the ridge above Rhossili Bay, out to the island and back along the beach. 

In the morning, we creaked into our boots and hitched on our rucksacks apprehensively. Would our dodgy feet stagger that far?

We flapped along the breezy ridge, crowned with a haze of heather and gorse.  Down through dunes, past blue sea holly and a thousand bees. Then on to Burry Holms Island where we watched the invasion of hundreds of painted lady butterflies and devoured our sandwiches. 

The march back took us along the beach studded with razor shells and with surfers providing the entertainment. The steep haul back up the cliff to the Worm's Head Hotel nearly killed us. 

But we'd achieved it -  a long walk.

Better still, next day we got up and did another one.




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