A green family who likes foraging, hiking and history (My Moon-Shot)
Friday 24 June 2022
The right earrings for Hadrian's Wall
Monday 20 June 2022
Two people, ten days, one rucksack
For years it has been my dream to walk the length of Hadrian’s Wall until various musculo-skeletal issues made me think it was off the agenda for ever.
However, foot surgery, Pilates lessons and my excellent
osteopath Claire have made me think I could do it.
Nigel is a hero for agreeing to carry most of our crap. But I don’t want to break his back, so we
have been giving a lot of thought to how to minimise the load.
For the first time, we went to an outdoors store and bought
lightweight clothing which would dry easily.
Our toilet bag contains only toothbrushes, toothpaste and
anti-perspirant. Instead of sunglasses,
we have filters that clip onto our specs. We have downloaded our reading books to
our phones.
My only luxury is a tiny watercolour pad and paintbox.
Pascoe, who undertakes v. challenging expeditions felt we
still were not taking it all seriously enough – we should saw the handles off
our toothbrushes to shed a gram or two.
I had a flashback to a long walk in the Lake District when
Pascoe was just a little boy. He was
weeping with tiredness, which was not like him.
To help, I took his rucksack from him.
It was unexpectedly heavy. On
investigation, it appeared that at some point he had put a full-size brick in
there, and had forgotten to take it out again.
Oh how times have changed!
Friday 10 June 2022
Cuckoos and Nightjars
Every couple of years we camp with a dozen or so old university friends. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy it. This year we had found Woodfire Camping a very green and lovely site in the South Downs national park.
However, after many bureaucratic hitches, we heard our
Ukrainian guests were finally about to arrive.
With a heavy heart, I warned our chums that we were unlikely
to come camping. But then we discovered
that our guests’ flight was scheduled for the day after our trip –
we could go after all.
Being woken by a chorus of cuckoos, going for walks in the
verdant woods, cooking and eating together round the campfire at night, hearing
the chirr of nightjars as we stumbled to the composting toilet in the dark, all
of these things refreshed and calmed us.
So if there was ever a moment when we were ready to have an
upheaval in our lives, then this was it!
Photo courtesy of Richard Allen