Category: Times and Seasons
Welly walking
30th December 2020 Things have been quiet on here since October, but life has been busy for me too. Perhaps, that may be a lot of the cause for the online absence. During times of running in and out of pandemic lockdowns, I have a had a technical project to keep me busy: learning a new scripting language that could have a use in my line of work.
In some ways, that helped with getting through the autumn and early winter periods but I now realise that I could have done with more exercise even if that means encountering more people during risky times. Over the Christmas period, there have been more walks and so sodden and muddy is the landscape that I have been using wellington boots more than I otherwise would. For one thing, they certainly help to keep leg-wear cleaner and drier.
Having the extra cushioning of dedicated walking footwear on my now exclusively local strolls would bring more comfort, but wellington boots have a certain convenience about them and even help when crossing the snowy surfaces that we have at the moment. The ongoing cold spell is set to continue, yet that is not going to stop my outdoor recreation either, particularly should sunny days come my way.
My reading has been as wintry as the weather. It is impossible to avoid references to snow and ice when reading about Antarctica, so finishing off Gabrielle Walker's Antarctica became a sort of prelude to the ice and snow lying on the ground in my locality at the moment. Then, there is Bernd Brunner's Winterlust that I spotted in an Explore magazine newsletter nearly twelve months ago and I am working my way through that too. Suitably enough, it adds a quiet muffle spirit reminiscent of its subject as it courses the world while doing so.
Travel is not high on my agenda right now given the that things are going and I am not expecting so much of 2021 either. Its first few months may be occupied by an occupied by an ongoing lockdown if my sense is correct and vaccination will take a while to reach a level that helps us. After that, we only can hope that new variants will not outwit vaccines too readily.
Given that, it fills as if local walking and cycling will have a large part to play in my outdoor wanderings for a good while yet. Some will yearn for better, while just dreaming and hoping seems safer for now. Taking each day at a time probably is the best way to proceed.
Subscriptions and home deliveries
10th October 2020 This has been an exceptionally tough year for retail and hospitality businesses and it is not over yet. In fact, it looks as if the start of 2021 may be no better. My line of business differs from these so I am one of the lucky ones in many respects since I have been able to work throughout the whole episode. Even then, I have not been immune from the added tension of the times in which we find ourselves.
That also means that I am not doing many of the things that I normally would be doing. International travel needs to wait as does staying away from home. The fact that town centres got too busy for my sense of personal safety has had its own effects so I avoid them as much as possible. One consequence is that I now subscribe to every magazine that I read aside from ones that I can get delivered whenever their content appeals to me. Going to a bookshop to see what new books are out is postponed because going online does much of that for me. Even with hand sanitiser usage, you never know what you could spread by touching books in shops.
Given all this, I still fancy getting out and about in some hill country when circumstances allow. There is a walk from Hayfield to Chapel-en-le-Frith that I fancy reprising in brighter weather and with warmer clothing, should the day be chilly as we can expect over the next few months. That would allow visits to the tops of Mount Famine and South Head together with a repeat encounter with Brown Knoll. The latter has planted in my mind the possibility of going from Hayfield to Castleton that could take in Rushup Edge along the route. With the way that things are at the moment, that probably needs to wait, but ideas are needed for better times.
Speaking of idea collection, I have been catching up on unread issues of Scottish Island Explorer. In one sense, they have been planting in my thoughts the prospect of a long-overdue return to the Western Isles and Arran together with other unvisited islands along Scotland's western seaboard call too. After those, there are the nation's Northern Isles that have been on my radar only for other destinations to draw me to them instead. It is good to stock up with hope in the knowledge that some challenging months lie ahead, and my ongoing reading may add more to these.
Virtually goes it
22nd August 2020 Many events are becoming virtual these days. My first notice of the ongoing trend was with business conferences in my line of business but it has not stopped there. As it happens, the pandemic means that large gatherings of people are not the wisest right now so this is perhaps less of a surprise. That last point had me questioning the sense of even delaying events like the Photography Show for six months but even that is going virtual next month as well. This is a trend that applies to both business and lesiure.
After all, Wanderlust have a YouTube channel with recordings of a few of these collected. Some are recordings of live events from before the start of the current pandemic but others like Incredible Iceland or Uncover Guyana are entirely virtual affairs. In fact, I got to join the two events that I have mentioned and would not have got to them if in-person attendance was a must because they often have been held in London.
That last point has not gone unnoticed by organisers either. Regardless of the professional or leisure character of the subjects being covered, attendances are higher with more joining from different parts of the world. The ongoing pandemic may be keeping us apart in some ways but it is bringing us together in others.
There also is the matter of travelling virtually as well. This year, I might have hoped to get to Colorado but that became totally unrealisable and that reality even applies to the matter of getting to and from Ireland too. Normally, I should have gone to my home country at least twice by now and there should be two more before the year is out. 2021 looks more feasible now and it is hard to say how that might go at this stage. Given that, it is little wonder that services like Trek Ireland are turning up for those of us restricted to armchair explorations.
In my case, those home-based global explorations have cause me to survey Backpacker's Get Out More TV on their own YouTube channel. It is true that these feature a lot of product placement as well as segments from outdoor retailers but keeping our attention on a hiking film possibly demands a lot of patience anyway. Still, they do show something of the areas that each episode showcases so that probably will be enough to get me watching more than the first three episodes that I have seen so far.
Vicissitudes of publishing
4th July 2020 For many, 2020 will be recalled as being very testing whatever their endeavour. Thankfully, my own line of work continues throughout the turmoil but others are not so lucky and the world of magazine publishing is just as affected. Even without an ongoing global pandemic, market conditions for the publishing of paper magazines are challenging anyway even if many have embraced electronic delivery.
The effects of all the change are more evident in photography and other activities affect by rapid changes in technology. Looking at computer magazines, numerous titles have disappeared from what once were loading newsagent shelves during their heyday in the 1990's. Even long-standing ones like PC Plus were not immune nor were others like PC World, PC Answers, PC Format, Linux User & Developer, Web Designer and Net. As personal computing became more mainstream and mobile devices became more powerful, the preceding interest waned and anything that remained often went online for technology news.
Of course, this is not a technology blog but photography is closer to the interest in outdoor activity. Here, there also was a surfeit of titles but some have gone. Photography Monthly and Advanced Photography are among these but most remain, perhaps due to digitisation of photographic capture and other innovations. Photography also is a subjective practice so it is easy to concentrate on camera performance when it is the combination of composition and exposure mastery that really matters.
Maybe that is why Outdoor Photography remains the only such title that I read. It focusses on technique, experiences and results so the content feels more substantial to me and I enjoyed clearing my backlog of unread issues throughout April and May. Its publishing scheduled has been buffeted by the ongoing pandemic to the extent that it virtually became bimonthly instead of monthly. A lockdown cannot help when it comes to getting new photographic content and the economic impact also diminishes advertising revenue.
Outdoor and travel magazines are similarly afflicted. For instance, Backpacker skipped an issue (July/August) because of the falloff of advertising revenue while the team focussed on creating useful email newsletters and content like How to Hike During COVID. Its content may be American in focus but there remains some commonality for elsewhere too and I look forward to seeing what is in the next issue of their magazine.
Another title that has had its publishing schedule altered is Wanderlust. Admittedly, thoughts of overseas travel are something that many are putting on hold and I count myself among them. Maybe that is why the current issue of the magazine focusses on Britain itself and that follows surveys that they did. It could be that I am not the only one thinking of a staycation this year.
Even though there is a chance of flights to some destinations becoming more realistic, my own sights are set closer to home for the moment. A backlog of unread issues of Ireland of the Welcomes is being reduced at the moment and there are there are unread copies of Scottish Islands Explorer to follow those. Reading will be plentiful for a while yet. There are other possibilities like the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man but getting to any of these remains restricted for now.
Despite all of this, one still can dream about heading further afield. Giving the way that things are at the moment, it is better to be patient. That will allow one to see if Lonely Planet Magazine returns to news-stands as well as gaining greater experience in very changed circumstances. We already have learned much and there is more to add to our knowledge and experience. Given the risks, it is better to be vigilant and careful since we need a sustainable return to some sort of normality that will persist. That also is better for anyone adversely effected since there is nothing worse than a regression.
From north to north
27th June 2020 As a western European with a liking for cool temperate conditions, the sweltering temperatures we got on Wednesday and Thursday did not suit me so much and hot nights did my sleep little favours. One saving grace is that these did not stay around that long and today though is cooler if rainier. It would be better to have it dry too but I will more than make do with lower temperatures.
One thing that strikes me is my wanderings often take me northwards. Scotland was a favoured haven for many years and Scandinavia also retains my favour. Of course, we cannot travel so far at the moment and Swedes are even more restricted given their management of the pandemic. In any event, it is either Norway, Iceland or even the Faroe Islands that would lure me their way.
All of that is for the future right now so I am sating my wanderlust through my reading. This often takes me north and that especially has been the case with Gavin Francis' True North, Malachy Tallack's 60 Degrees North and Peter Davidson's The Idea of North. The first of these featured much of Scandinavian Sagas with the second being much more like a journey of personal discovery.
The last of the three is even more literary than the others and conflates British thinking on the north along with that in other more obvious places around Europe, North America and Asia. To me, it feels like a bifurcation even if some British authors and painters did venture to Iceland and Greenland themselves. It may be that the point happens to be that there is no universal feeling towards the northern reaches of our planet.
After all, it might be that what draws me north sends others south and that could apply to reading choices like anything else. As it happens, there is quite a canon of northern reading in my e-book collection. The list also includes Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams, John McPhee's Coming into the Country and Sara Wheeler's The Magnetic North. It may be that the spareness of the empty landscapes is what allows the creation of more meticulous prose or that the stories are about how insignificant humankind is in such places and is that which draws me. After all, my idea of a good walk is one that includes plenty of solitude.
A growing collection of Scottish could be added here too but for there then being too many lists in one blog entry. Still, there might be something to the explanation being the attraction of emptier lands. Nevertheless, many account feature stories of people too so there may be the sort of tension in my reading that Peter Davidson includes in The Idea of North.
When I went checking to ensure there was no title repetition, I met up with a post from 2014 written after I completed Paul Morely's The North. That was a peopled tome and included England's north-west that I read largely on buses and trains during a testing bunch of years when family bereavements turned over my life. Reading my own words now feels a bit like reading those written by another author. All it took was the passing of a few years to do the separation.
We all are going through testing times at the moment so you only can dream of long distance travel even if you see airlines restarting some of their routes. Until I go from north to north in reality, there could be more virtual travelling via accounts written by others. Some will be adventurous enough to start roaming soon enough but I reckon that it is better to see what their experiences are before doing the same myself. The pandemic journey is not over quite yet.
