I love to go a-wandering . . .
Breaking in walking boots the Max Wall way
What is it with walking? It’s a pastime that seems to ensnare a vast number of people as they get older, and I speak from experience. How did I go from being someone who spent their holidays recumbent on the beach, working on a tan, to someone who goes who actually goes on Walking Holidays?
I even have quite a lot of the gear by now: proper walking boots, spongy socks AND the lovely fine wool ones to go underneath them, a metal water bottle, and, last but not least, the sticks. Ah, the sticks . .
I have a love/hate relationship with my sticks. I’m not one of those walkers you see out and about with them on all inclines and surfaces, flicking them daintily by their heels. According to Mr Verity, my stick technique is poor. My efforts to tackle climbs by planting both sticks ahead of me and heaving myself through serve only to make me look like Anthony Sher as Richard III, but without the talent. I can’t abandon them, though, as my knees need them for going downhill (‘long, loose descents’, in the jargon of the walking notes, which sound a lot more fun than they are). On level ground, well – the rubber ferrules have fallen off, so I proceed with a ‘tap-tappit, tap-tappit’ sound. Add to this the fact that I walk quite slowly and often forget to take my sunglasses off in the heart of the forest, and you will understand why Mr Verity, forging ahead of me by some 100 metres, gets disapproving looks from fellow walkers: he is clearly leaving his blind (and possibly crippled) wife behind to fend for herself.
To be honest, a lot of this special equipment is unnecessary for all but the most rugged of walks. I proved this conclusively one Sunday on the Long Mynd in Shropshire. I had not brought walking gear for a weekend with the inlaws, but it didn’t matter, as my loafers were quite adequate, and I had a warm wool cocoon coat. It was very bright and very breezy up there, so I put on my sunglasses and wrapped my white pashmina round my head. So there I was – surrounded by a tide of North Face, Gore-Tex, fleece, hi-tech boots, etc. – walking the Long Mynd dressed as Grace Kelly.
The Long Mynd clearly belongs to the category of moderate walks. In fact, the grading of walks is a serious matter, and is sadly lacking in anything like consistency. One person’s category B moderate walk may be another’s (well, my) north face of the Eiger. The need to scramble acts as a bit of a benchmark here: as far as I’m concerned, if you have to use your hands (or your bottom) as well as your feet, it ceases to be a moderate walk. The trouble is, I suspect I resort to supporting body parts more readily than most other walkers, partly because nowadays vertigo kicks in very quickly. I have had the humiliating experience of crawling across a slight incline of rock with a shallow drop into bushes while everyone else was blithely tripping across. It’s just that on terrain like this it suddenly seems highly unlikely that two feet could keep an entire body upright.
So why do I keep on going back for more? It’s almost one of those activities that’s lovely when you stop doing it. I suppose the views, the unexpected encounters with nature, the contemplative rhythm (some of the time), and the sense of achievement at the end of the day must make it all worthwhile.
I’m with you on the walking poles Verity. That tapping is very irritating; what do you do with them when you don’t need them? On a recent walk I started with one at half length, by the end I had both fully extended with me suspended between hauling myself along. 100 yds behind? Pfft, I was about 1/2 mile behind my companion; we practically only met up for supper! Still, she’s up for another in July and the poles stay at home.