I mean, if you had asked me a couple of years ago if I would ever take walking seriously, I would have laughed out loud.
For a start, I park almost 2km away from my office and every morning involves a frantic power-stride to try and not be later than absolutely necessary.
So why would I do that for fun?
I also was an avid runner and walking was considered naff; something you did at refreshment stops.
Then when a physio diagnosed my backache was a result of decades of pounding tarmac, I reluctantly packed it in. I now am a hooked countryside walker.
This, I initially imagined, was a simple matter of lacing up takkies and going for a stroll.
The English weather soon disabused me of that notion, but not as much as management did. She wanted to come along, but first she needed some walking boots.
No problem – until we hit the shops.
Management didn’t grasp that boots are designed for a specific task and not as a fashion statement. She thought they were ugly, even though I tried to explain that was the whole point. The final straw was when I said the best foot apparel in winter was rubber Wellingtons, owing to the fact that the ground was either ice or mud.
Then she needed a walker’s jacket. Again, fake-fur cocktail numbers were not that practical in the countryside, I explained.
I also tried to point out that you basically needed something waterproof as an outer shell, and an inner fleece. The best way to counter cold and activity is to have ‘peels’ of clothing, rather than a natty overcoat.
Ambient temperature
Also management has this quaint notion that when you’re trying on outdoor gear the ambient temperature of the heated shop is your guideline.
So far, the only item of clothing we have agreed upon is a scarf.
The next thing she wanted was to join a walking club. This is not to meet up with other hikers – on the contrary. Many hikers are fanatics on a par with the worst bird watchers.
Their obsession with putting one foot after another is boring in the extreme and they do hikes marginally short of scrambling up Everest only to tick them off their list, just as twitchers do when they sight the Rare Spotted Twit. In fact, unless you have hiked the whole of Britain’s coastal route (funnily enough, something I would like to do), you are a doddler.
Instead, you join these associations as an online member and download the best walking routes in each area, complete with ordnance maps. These are essential if you don’t want to get lost as Britain is riddled with what they call bridle routes, some dating back to the Dark Ages.
Management scorned my previous direction-finder, a book called Pub Walks of Berkshire, as it was strong on pubs but vague on walks.
However, the key thing about walking is that it gets you outdoors. Regardless of what they say about the English weather, there is seldom a day when you cannot go outside.
Also, the countryside is an ever-changing vista. For example, huge tracts of woodland are now a magnificent rusty-orange as autumn approaches. The brambles are bursting and after a brief foraging trip management will whip up a berry and cream crumble in less than an hour.
There are also sloe berries ripening to brew sloe gin, but these are picked to the bone the day after the first frost, as that’s traditionally the best time to pop them into a bottle of Gordon’s.
However, this year I have a cunning plan. I plan to harvest before the first frost and then pop them into the deep freeze. That’ll fool ’em.
However, despite now being armed with ordnance maps, management’s fancy footgear and natty outdoor threads, I still have one more trick up my sleeve.
Before setting off, I always sneak open my scorned copy of Pub Walks of Berkshire to check if there’s a boozer nearby.
