Outdoor Discoveries

Confinement

Looking back on last year now, it strikes me just how I never went walking the countryside as much as I might have done. However, there were preoccupations weighing on my mind. Ongoing political events were among them but a then forthcoming upheaval in my working life was a more pronounced concern. The latter continued into this year but was sorted in March though it had limited excursions in January as much as the weather did likewise in February.

Whatever tricky challenges I had imagined for 2020, they became nothing compared to a new viral disease that had sent us all into lockdown. In my case, it also brought added tension that got the better of me in April. Chats with clinicians have helped and I am moving beyond the episode now thanks to clarification of thinking as much as daily relaxation exercises.

Throughout all of this, I ventured out of doors every day for physical exercise in the locality. Some days, I have contented myself with local parks (Riverside, Victoria, South and West) but my horizons have expanded on other ones. As well as walking, I have returned to cycling too in an effort to make the current time feel less confining. While fairer weather and the time of year add encouragement, it also is amazing how a level of restriction causes you to make more use of what you have and that applies to me too.

All the while, I have been seeking our quieter places for an added sense of relaxation. Generally, I would have sought solitude anyway but social distancing is another motivation. Living in Macclesfield, I am fortunate to have nearby hill country into which I can escape. Of course, others can have similar ideas and that is why I limit travel along both the Macclesfield Canal and the Middlewood Way.

Tegg’s Nose and Croker Hill have seen encounters along with a variety of local places like Henbury, Gawsworth, Bollington, Prestbury, Rainow, Siddington, Marton, Alderley Edge, Chelford, North Rode and Bosley. The latter list sounds fairly extensive in its disorderly arrangement but it is good to have such surrounding countryside when so many are staying close to home.

Some places like Henbury can be busier that might be expected so it is taking some time to learn how to ensure social distancing is ever improving. Cutting down on touching of surfaces and bringing hand sanitiser on an outing is part of the way of things at the moment though there have been little moral boosters as well.

It might any some but the pervasive of sunny days is a blessing too and I have been making photos as I go. It is amazing what new sights you can find on a local patch. For instance, Macclesfield’s South Park offers views of Shutlingsloe and Croker Hill that add to a sunny evening stroll. There are new rights of way to find and travel as well as amenities like Bosley Reservoir. It all helps to lift a mood and can grant you a quiet relaxing cycling or stroll if you get things right with timing. Going out when others are not inspired to do the same remains a possibility as much as finding where they have not been inspired to go.

Some Irish hiking titbits

In the middle of the first decade of the century, blogging was an activity that felt new and novel. Thus, walking, hiking, backpacking and other outdoor activity blogs felt likewise and I did mention other blogs on here in those early days. That has lapsed but some reading about Irish outdoor activities stoked it up again.

It was perusing an Irish adventure guidebook that had lain unread for more than two years that caused the perhaps momentary restart. Hiking and walking are my main interests but the book also included others like swimming, diving, snorkelling, surfing, caving and climbing. It also promoted responsible enjoyment of nature’s delights so it perhaps was not a surprise to have mentions given to Leave No Trace Ireland with its Seven Principles and Invasive Species Ireland.

There are very good reasons for highlighting the need to respect the countryside when legal access is so limited that there is much dependence on the permissive kind and goodwill can be lost so easily by a spot of carelessness. It is a theme that recurs in reports on the Mountain Views website where many a hill outing gets documented. It is not just the likes of James Forest who visit Irish hilltops.

Of course, not everyone is bound for a summit so initiatives that have given us the National Waymarked Trails or Loop Walks more than retain their importance. Satisfyingly, there is about 4,000 km of walking covered by the former of these and someone set to walking all of them and that story gets told on the Tough Soles blog. However, this was not what brought it to my attention but rather the maps that are shared on there. Completing the lot is quite a feat and others might be inspired to do the same and make Ireland even more of a walking destination. Anything that drives enhancement of facilities has to be a good thing.

Trip reports often get accompanied by photos and that is very true of my own offerings. What is more unusual is when artwork like sketching or painting is used instead as is the case on the Hikelines blog. Initially, this featured a lot of longer hikes in Ireland but a knee injury sadly changed that. Even so, the shorter strolls still suffice for adding those alluring handcrafted images and new posts retain the same amount of interest.

Even now, my own incursions remain more limited than anything mentioned above so there remains more scope for advancement beyond what I did in the counties of Clare and Galway during August 2018. For this, the prospect of an extended weekend in Killarney appeals when there is so much near at hand there. For that, the Killarney Shuttle Bus may or may not have a use depending on its intent though I have seen it mentioned in the book described near the start of this entry. If not, longer self-devised circular walking routes would support any desired exploring like they have done for me in other places.

Another thought arose while writing these words: using previously visited places as launchpads for exploring new locations. Dursey Island in West Cork or the Blasket Islands near Dingle are examples that come to mind and small offshore islands do have much to offer a seeker of wider adventure. The Irish mainland does some of that too and I even get to thinking about counties where I never have set foot; Down, Donegal or Sligo are just three of these with hills that await attention.

What gets in the way of seeing all this is a wider wanderlust that is cause of my reading guidebooks while surveying other prospective holiday destinations. That will continue and it is premature to talk of these possibilities and the ones that might have come to my notice during the Adventure Travel Show that I went to see last weekend. Some plans are best described when they have happened and, in marked contrast to my Irish ruminations, that will remain my approach to these other putative designs.

A loss of interest?

Recent weather probably should have had me out and about but other things have been weighing on my mind instead. Current political uncertainty is among these as is the impact that my summertime trip to Canada made to my finances. Sorting them out is as much a priority as sorting out how my work arrangements might look in 2020. Thoughts of taking a longer stretch of time away from client work to develop the details are appealing ones.

Aside from a reluctant to embark on trips away from home, the effect on my relish for reading also is being felt. Currently, I am working my way through Christopher Somerville’s The January Man. This should be exactly the type of gentle reading that allows a break from the troubles of the world but it appears to reveal a lack of enthusiasm for exploring the British landscape so is it because I might be after new pastures? That is a thought to hold as I explore what world events might mean for me.

It probably also is opportune to survey the breadth of what I have been reading this year. Some have made for difficult reading and this set includes an anthology of writing about Nepal that includes content from La.Lit magazine together with Dan Jones’ The Templars. There has been uplifting reading too with Alastair McIntosh’s Soil and Soul being among them while contemplating a business proposal that could have deflected me from my own intentions.

All the while, there are trip reports that awaiting writing and photo galleries to be created or updated. As the hours of daylight shorten, there may be time for those diversions from news watching. There even may be scope for daylight wandering if I could lessen the weight that is dampening my spirit before a change of year provides even more of a release.

History

It appears that we are living in one of history’s more turbulent epochs and such is the drama that I have avoided reading very much history until now. The cause has been as much about the fear of reliving what is unnerving about our current times as the allure of other interests. However, I have relented and started on books that have awaited my attention for far too long.

Completing Tim Robinson’s Aran Island duology and his Connemara trilogy made me more open to Diarmaid Ferriter’s On the Edge, a modern history of Ireland’s offshore islands that was published towards the end of last year. When that proved eminently readable, I then started on the same author’s The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 and that will keep me going for a while before finishing two more from other authors would complete the same backlog.

History remains a subject to which I am more than partial with Christopher Clarke’s The Sleepwalkers, Norman Davies’ Vanished Kingdoms and Robert Kee’s The Green Flag all acting as staging posts on an ever continuing expansion of perspective. More may follow if I ever decide to look further into the stories of various other countries that I have explored in recent years and Switzerland comes to mind here.

That is not to say that other titles will not be perused during this run of historical reading but they are likely to lighten the mix. In any event, there is a pile of unread magazines that also needs reducing so that should help my idea collection to grow. At this time of year, it usually is opportune to think ahead to what excursions may be possible and North American ones are tempting options for this coming summer. What happens in reality still remains another matter though.

While it can be pleasant to allow your imagination to take flight, political and financial realities do help to ensure restraint. The acquisition of a new lens for my Canon EOS 5 Mark II and the rebuild of a five year old desktop PC involved such an investment that I am not so willing to expend too much more at the moment. Nevertheless, the new lens needs more testing so that adds incentive for an outing should more sunshine come our way. It is fine to dream but modest excursions do much for any overburdened spirit.

Pairs

Thinking back to a year ago when I was in the middle of a career break, I am struck by how much reading I was doing. There were two from Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia and Songlines, and both gave me my fill of travelogue writings by the time that I got as far as January. Both contained a certain air of desolation that also came in its own way from Kev Reynold’s Abode of the Gods. It might have been a certain end of year feeling with the dull days of a passing December as much as what I was reading. After all, I found myself again detached from the mainstream flow of living much like I did when transitioning from university into the world of work.

The sense of desolation might have befallen my impressions of Tim Robinson’s Stones of Aran duology but for other distractions. Work has been among these as much as seasonal activities like sending cards and buying presents. Becoming engrossed in computer tinkering has been another factor and it certainly helped with speeding up this website. All of this delayed my completion of the aforementioned pair of books with their incompleteness of ending. The second was supposed to resolve a conundrum posed by the first but I get the impression that it may have proved to be a voyage of acceptance rather than resolution.

For all that, I now have moved onto the same author’s Connemara trilogy and there is extra life in its early pages. A quieter place like Aran has less documented history while most of the action is elsewhere so it is easy to find loose ends that never can be brought to a satisfying conclusion. For one thing, oral history can bring its own challenges with an intermingling of myth and actual events together with loss of memory as one generation hands over to another. Eve today, this remains an elemental place as I found when I was there last August.

Throughout all this recent activity, two visits have been made to the moorland around Hathersage, Grindleford and Sheffield. In fact, there is such an extensive path network that more may follow because of the possibilities that are offered. That thought popped into my mind during last Sunday’s hike from Grindleford into Sheffield during an interlude between spells of heavy rain. In truth, I should have been attending to seasonal matters but my enthusiasm for hill country got the better of me.

Anything that grants views of such sights as Padley Gorge and Higger Torr cannot be a bad thing and the area could be a fallback should all other forms of inspiration fail me. December was not much of a walking month for me in 2017 so I embarked on bus journeys that took me around mid-Wales and by the area that I walked last Sunday in their stead. It helps that collecting ideas is as good as making use of them and those from then led to one walk from Hathersage to Sheffield in November and another from Grindleford to Sheffield last Sunday. In turn, each of the duo could be the cause of return visits to the area and longer hours of daylight could allow more scope for any future explorations.