Walking. I love walking. I love that the streets of Hull and the vast views of The Yorkshire Wolds are our locality for exercise. During the last 12 months, I have appreciated them more than ever.
We started walking in the year we moved in to our house in Hull. Our first walks were out on the Wolds, getting to know local walking routes. J is a ridiculously good navigator. He doesn’t understand, no matter how many times I explain, that standing up and knowing which direction you are facing is not most people’s instincts. The abiltiy to read a map and understand what you will see in front of you is a skill I marvel at. I have tested this out – other people have walked with J and me, and we all agree – it’s a bit spooky. However, I explain all this because one of the funner parts of walking, even for a junior map-man like me, is maps. I love maps. J loves maps. Maps are gorgeous and are a delight of potential adventures. And you can plot out routes on maps, like the Chalklands Way, the first way-marked long-distance walk over 2 days we completed. You can send off for a badge, which we did.
We have walked hundreds of miles locally. We had big plans for 2020; we were both running as well as walking and had entered a number of walking and running events all over the country, including our first marathon, inspired by our friends Jen and Martin, who ran the 2019 Hull Marathon, and it was a joy cheering them on around the city. At the end of March, all the events were postponed or cancelled. Parkrun was gone for the foreseeable. The initial lockdown rules were for daily exercise for an hour, eased to local exercise for unlimited periods of time, so we did. Most weekends were walks, runs and cycle rides locally; weekdays were evening runs or walks before bedtime. It was great being out and about so much in the local area, particualrly cycling, more than I’ve ever done locally. I noticed much more the seasons changing, being local for the whole year. There were sunflowers, and pea crops, the wheat harvests. We walked the routes of some events near the weekends that they should have happened, and went in to 2021 with some rebooked events and a number becoming virtual events.
I did manage to take a few turns volunteering a Pickering, too – running a 150 year-old railway in a Covid-19 secure way was definitely a challenge but it was great to be a passenger, as well as a volunteer, a couple of times on the NYMR. It gives me an excuse to share two more photos – the 2020 Sunflower Challenge (thank you, Family Hurst) and the new NYMR mascot. In an unexpected year, my heart was full of joy at unexpected moments:
All the punks are pushing fifty years and are hardly feared 