Walk with Berkshire Walkers. Shiplake, Sonning, Binfield Heath and Harpsden Woods. 14 miles. Challenging.

This was a local walk set as challenging for its distance rather than the technicality of terrain. Once again it was a lovely day. Although the terrain was easy I did feel, after 14 miles, that I was ready to finish the walk.

It’s easy to be dismissive of walks close to home as we never appreciate what is on our doorstep. However, rural Berkshire/Oxfordshire has a lot to offer. Also, walking around throws up ideas of good places to live. Despite popular belief, you do not need to move to the back of beyond to find peace and tranquillity. It is nearer than we think if we take the trouble to find it.

We walked through some very pretty areas and of course, in May, bluebell woods are a sight to be seen.

The rapport of the group was good, as usual, and also many meaningful conversations took place. We had a scary moment when a field of horses decided they were interested in our lunch but by keeping still and not crunching crisps too loud, we managed to convince them that we were not of interest.

A lovely day out.

Diane 13/5/11

Here was my second away trip of the year in a lovely part of the country. I went with the Spice group and we stayed in the Glamara walking centre. The walks were organised for us and there was a choice of difficulty each day.

Due to my known weakness in climbing, I opted for the medium walks throughout. This turned out to be the right decision because I found all the walks about as difficult as I wanted them to be.

Easter Saturday. Walked 10 miles with 3,000 ft of ascent. Esk Pike.

This walk followed the harder walkers out past Borrowdale Yews and went upstream to the beautiful pack horse bridge crossing Grains Gill.  After a steep ascent up Seathwaite Fell we were rewarded with views out to the Helvellyn Dodds and down the Seathwaite Valley. The summit was Esk Pike with its craggy and colourful rocks, ascended via Esk Hause.

The weather was cloudy until midday with mist and fog and then it drizzled all afternoon. But that’s the thing with outdoor pursuits; you have to endure all weathers as long as it’s safe, so with waterproofs, you just get on with it.

On the way up we did a bit of scrambling. This is not something I have a particular interest in specialising in but I did find that despite my little legs, I was able to make the moves quite quickly.

Coming down a steep descent in the wet was challenging but the camaraderie was great. One memory that remains with me was when I was at the front of a group descending and came to a difficult part with a sheer drop if I got it wrong. I hesitated to think about the best place to place my foot, aware that others behind me were waiting. Soon an outstretched hand from the last person of the group in front was there to help me make that step safely….and that is what it is all about.

Some great photos were taken…..what a shame I accidentally deleted them.

Easter Sunday. Walked 9 miles with 1650ft of ascent. Kings Howe and Jopplety Howe

This walk commenced with a beautiful riverside stroll. However, before we got to the river we passed lots of sheep with their lambs. Such a beautiful sight which I always find moving. The riverside stroll brought us down to Grange. Next a steep shady climb, which boy did I find hard, lifted us up to the rugged heights of Kings Howe and its panoramic views. After that we went over to Jopplety Howe and onto the perfect hamlet of Watendlath and the wild and tranquil Dock Tarn. Laid in the heather here, you’d never know it was the busiest bank holiday of the year.

Once again the descent was challenging with a relentless series of steps which were all a bit too steep for my little legs but I still find it easier than climbing. The old knees are good to me.

It was a lovely sunny day with not a cloud in the sky.

Easter Monday. 6 miles with 1,000 ft ascent. Tarn at Leaves.

This was a shorter work scheduled to let everyone get on their way back home. Leaving the centre we had the opportunity to warm up along the lovely riverside path to the meeting of Greenup Gill and Langstrath Beck. The route then ascended the deep cut ravine of Little Stranger Gill to emerge on the deserted undulations of Rosthwaite Fell and on to Tarn at Leaves. After enjoying the tranquillity of the hidden tarn we began the steady descent back to the centre. On the way down I turned round to laugh at a joke made by the person behind me and …ooops my ankle went over. I immediately sat down to take the weight off my leg and the cry went out to the leader that someone had been injured. For a joke someone told the leader that I had fallen on my btm and he decided that for health and safety reasons he would have to examine it…..not on your life! I had only sat down to take the pressure off my ankle. I leapt back up and soldiered on home. We had a lot of mileage out of that mishap….all at my expense of course. Not a bad sprain…, sorted itself out in about a week but just goes to show why you should always walk in good boots.

Lovely weather again.

Conclusions.

This was a fabulous weekend helped enormously by the lovely weather for the time of year. Walking with guides takes you off the beaten tourist tracks which can be so congested in the Lakes. These weekends are very similar in style to chalet skiing holidays in the way they are organised. I looked at the lifestyle the guides had and the way they went about their work and thought, “yes, this is definitely what I want to do.”

What a shame I lost the early photos.

This was a 9 ½ mile walk from a book that I planned to do with a close friend of mine. I have to say it was not one of my major successes although the weather was great.

The easiest way to describe this is through the lessons learned. I hope you will see the funny side of my abject failures

Lesson one-if you are travelling for a day trip on any day other than Sunday you must leave early to allow time for traffic. Obvious, but I was too relaxed about the timing. You have to find the start point and think about parking , which , when you have a camper van, is not always straightforward.

Lesson two- written walks seem to be sometimes written by people in the area for people from the area. They are not always clear. We spent virtually an hour getting through the first few points because the walk wanted to send us round in circles. In hindsight it would have been better to have ignored the wording and just gone by the map.

Lesson three- always take a smaller scale map with you so you can see the context of the bit you are walking. Yours truly did not do this.

Lesson four- country walks are often much harder to navigate than mountain walks because of the absence of obvious features. One field looks like another. Sometimes you lose count of how many fields you have crossed and when the instructions say “cross the stile in the corner” which exact corner do they, mean? I do find it incredible that such general terms are used for describing a route-how about some specifics such as maybe north, south, east, west, left, right etc?

Lesson five- Sometimes roads are hidden from view. We reached a place where we were supposed to cross a tarmac track. For tarmac track read “road.” We could not see it but then suddenly in the stillness we heard a car passing beneath us. We were in an elevated field and the vegetation obscured what we needed to see.

Lesson six- Don’t lose your nerve after continuous setbacks and go for the road back. We did this, also because we were running later and later. The road was busy, noisy and dangerous and I suspect if I had had more confidence we could have eventually got back just by reading the map and almost abandoning the words.

When we got back we had a well earned cup of tea in the camper van and excessed on yum yums! Its good to get lost with a good friend because with a partner a domestic might ensue!

The conclusion I have come to is that it is time to abandon the written walks and create my own. The maps are in the bookcase, I have the Ordnance Survey online mapping service to use, so here goes. Constructing walks will, I’m sure, be fascinating but only to be done in the evenings or when its raining.

Diane 13/05/11

This was the first of my walks away from home this year. I went with a social group called “Spice” and we stayed in a barn in the middle of nowhere. The weather is always debatable in February of course and this weekend was to be no exception. A good 12 mile walk was done on the Saturday but rain, wind and bad visibility prevented a Sunday walk.

The Saturday walk took in Hatton Gill, Pen-y-Ghent, Foxup, Hubberholme and Litton. It was a hard walk taking 6 hours, 3 of which were spent climbing. 6 hours seems to be a reasonable amount of time to spend on a walk at this time of year.

The walk was guided so I did not brush up my navigations skills which are very rusty!

The company and banter was good throughout and we got a lot of mileage out of the non hospitable publican who tried to confiscate one of the  girl’s sandwiches because she dared to subtly eat them on the premises. Even the toilets at this place were under lock and key. A less strict approach in this non tourist season might have made the publican more profit….. but there we are. As they say in Yorkshire, “there’s nowt as queer as folk.”

What I learned from this walk is that I really need to increase my fitness in terms of climbing. I find the relentless pull quite difficult and although I recover quickly with a tiny stop, I find I am usually near the back of the pack. Plenty of room for improvement there.

I found the area very peaceful and beautiful. Definitely on my list of places to visit again.

There are only so many hours in a day and to be able to do all I now want to do I have had to think about what will happen to the Personal Training business. Over the period January to March I rationised my appointment times and then on March 22nd I left David Lloyd, opting to train people only in their homes or outside, not in the gym. To be able to run the business there I had had to give them 8 hours coaching time per week so that is what I decided to give up. A presence in a well known gym for a period of years does enable you to establish credibility in what is a crowded market place and the throughput of gym members has been invaluable but after almost 7 years there I decided this was the time to go. I was very pleasantly surprised that most of my clients wanted to train with me still so I visit them in their homes instead. Other gym members were prompted to actually sign up with me when I told them I was leaving as this had been something they had been planning to do for a while,.. these were encouraging developments that I had not anticipated.

Time Management in Personal Training is not easy as invariably clients want to see you early in the morning, in the evenings or at weekends. So I have had to be strict with how much business I have made myself available for. I also have to put in time to keeping myself fit in the gym. That is not to mention running a home, children and dogs and all that entails.

So now I have clustered my clients in Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and some Saturday mornings leaving me the option of some long walking or cycling weekends. Those days can be busy but it is the best option I can see. I train myself on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays leaving Wednesdays and Fridays free for my other love, tennis.

I wanted to train myself in a new environment where I would not be seen as a coach but just as a private individual so on 2nd April I joined the National Sports Centre gym at Bisham Abbey. It is a lovely environment for me and training as I overlook tennis courts is an added bonus.

I have to say that since I have left David Lloyd the sun seems to have forever shone so that must be a good omen.

3/4/11 One of the outstanding issues I had to resolve is whether I capable of leading people in off road mountain biking territory.

I love the concept of being both on and off road but my experiences of mountain biking have been less than successful. Most trips have ended up with me falling and hurting myself….not good to have injuries as you get older and very inconvenient when you do other sports like play tennis. When you come off your bike, not only do you come off at speed, you have to contend with where the machine ends up-usually mangled with yourself. The injuries are therefore often harsh.

So, my mission was to do the beginners mountain biking course for ladies run by Dirt Divas(www.dirtdivas.co.uk) to establish what was going on with me. Was I capable but lacking confidence? Was I incapable? Did I just not have a passion for the practicalities of this?

So far on this journey I have had a few surprises.  The hillwalking seems to appeal to me more and more and the biking has become questionable. What would the course reveal?

Well, the course was held in Crowthorne Wood (Crowthorne yet again) and, true to form, I fell off a lot of the time and ended up straining my tennis shoulder as well as gaining a big bruise on my btm-must have hit a rock. I began to analyse what was happening to me mentally and so came to understand what my personal issues with this are. I want to ramble in the mountains both on foot and by bike. For me it is about peace, tranquility and beauty as I have said in my introductory blog. However, the mountain biking I was being exposed to was an extension of urban BMXing. It was about man and machine, turns and jumps, balance and testosterone, speed and landings. This was not what I was about. However, it occurred to me that someone must be leading those like me who want to experience the same things I do from cycling in the mountains. I rang the Scottish Mountain Biking Organisation in order to get some more information before I closed the door on this pursuit. Surprisingly, I found out that it is possible to do just the entry level mountain biking qualification, that of Trail Leader which covers cycling on ready made trails and mainly non technical off road aspects. The route to this qualification seems to be a lot quicker than for the Mountain Leader walking qualification so I will put that on the back burner for now but certainly pursue it when my walking qualifications are well underway.

So the moral of the story is this,  if you like the idea of off road biking but see it as a natural rather than a man and machine pursuit you should not let others try to convince you that the fast and furious is the only way to go about it. There is space in this industry for us all.