the corner office

I'd started walking more in January, and feeling a lot better for it, but this is where my "walking" really started:

One weekend, I went to one of our local parks. Ronwen and the boys were away, so I planned to do a longer walk. I hadn't thought much about the route, other than having seen that one of the marked walks went out of the park before returning.

I ended up misreading a marker though, and took a wrong turn. Up a hill, then across a road, down a country lane, along a dirt footpath. I was obviously off course, but the countryside was pretty, I was enjoying myself, so I thought I'd keep going.

Before long I emerged from some woodland, at the top of a valley, and there was a small sign about a field being re-wilded, but it also said something along the lines of "this site is on the North Downs".

"The downs"... like "the moors"... magical words that have fired my imagination ever since I was a teenager living on the Highveld in South Africa, playing D&D and reading fantasy novels. Which is not to disparage where I grew up, which had a beauty of its own, but this was always the countryside of my dreams, and you take a few rolling hills, and no matter how beautiful they are, call them "downs" and they become more beautiful yet.

I walked down the field, into the valley - it was stunning. I walked up the other side, explored a bit, unsure of where to go, and eventually turned back, taking photos as I went.

I came home, intrigued. It sounds silly in retrospect: we live in the green belt, we have woodlands just down the road from us, but in my mind there was a distinction between exploring locally and then going to country parks. Now I'd been reminded that everything was connected, and that countryside walks needn't be limited to parkland (they never were, on holidays, and hadn't been, when we'd lived in Oxfordshire, now many years ago).

I started looking at walking websites, downloading brochures, and soon realised that even they were unnecessary. The English countryside is criss-crossed with public footpaths and bridleways and byways; demarcated on maps, almost always signposted - you can just plan a route and set out. I did a circular walk from our house, and got home after 9-odd miles having walked through at least 11 different named woods. I was hooked. Soon my spare time was spent poring over maps, planning routes, finding new footpaths and areas to explore.

Ronwen, relieved to have a less decrepit husband, happily sent me out for Saturday "morning strolls". Each excursion would see me walk a little further: soon 10 miles wasn't a problem, then 11, then 12, then 15 seemed a reasonable stretch, sometimes even further. To see new areas, I'd catch a bus or train to nearby villages and towns, and walk home.

I used to joke that I loved nature - from the other side of a window. But I've come to love being outdoors, actually in nature. I mean, I'm not crazy - I still have no love for camping or the like - give me a hot shower and a comfortable bed at the end of a long day - but being out there gives me a psychological fix I'd never have expected, and is quite a change from me seeing myself as happiest in an armchair or at a desk.

It's been implicit in a few things I've posted, but I avoided blogging about my walking habit last year, mainly because I wasn't sure how long it'd last - maybe I'd lose interest or get lazy. Over a year later though, I'm still at it. Since my blog is meant to be about what interests me, and because I'm posting many more photos, it's a bit silly not to write about it.

As for that field - I've been back to it a few times, in all seasons. I'll take a detour to visit if my route takes me nearby, take a few pictures, look around. It's become something of a special place to me. It doesn't have a name, I just call it "my field".