Friday saw me out on the hills for the first time in months, the back problem now well and truly put behind me. I’ve been out walking a lot but this was the first time that I’ve done any sharp ups (and more significantly) downs.
This summer feels a write off although there is still a chance to get some more miles in before the longer nights come. No trips to Snowdonia this summer or even the Pyrenees which was a plan lurking around and waiting to happen. Ambling around the South Shropshire hills I realised what I’d been missing, and some of it I was quite surprised about.
At the bottom of Ragleth Hill is was nice to meet a group of ageing ramblers, about thirty of them, all laughter and exuberance as they looked forward to their day on the hills. I was soon climbing alone experiencing once again that sudden sharp realisation that some of these inclines are far harper than they have any right to be in this part of the world.
I was walking without poles and although setting a reasonable pace I was slower than usual. With poles I would have just powered up the hill but at this slower pace I found myself taking a path into woodland that I’d not noticed before. I’ve climbed this hill countless times before but have never walked through the woodland that surrounds it. It wasn’t the most spectacular of woodland walks but it still had that sylvan, mystical, quality about it. Some early morning sun found its way through the dense overhead foilage. Sometimes the slopes were steep enough to make me place my feet with real care. At other times other obstacles such as fox holes and allen trees had to be negotiated with care. Also, here in the woodland, sheep were grazing. You seldom see sheep in woodland in England although they always seem to be here whenever I descend back down through this woodland.
A quiet, wet, Friday is the bets time to stroll through these tiny Shropshire villages. Postmen were delivering. Retired residents tended their gardens with care. The village church and gardens looked as immaculate as ever. In a cottage (next to another called ‘The Ancient House’) a women who looked in her nineties was being chatted to be another resident, keen to check that her senior charge was feeling better illness, that she was eating well and that she had no immediate shopping needs.
The Little Stretton campsite is usually crammed full in good weather in August. The change in the weather had obviously frightened folks away although a few hardier families were setting up their tents for the weekend. A little further along the track I was delighted to find that Ashes Hollow Cottage, which has been refurbished after years of sitting empty, is now inhabited and with signs of children in the garden.
By now the rain was beginning to fall heavily. It was a Janet Street Porter day, “if you want a quiet day on the hills go out when the weather is shit!”.
I was alone as I climbed this quiet and secluded track. Use just a little imagination and you could be somewhere in Snowdonia. It was on these quiet and lonelier paths that I really realised what I had been missing; the ability to just get lost in the landscape, and I this case to be lost in the rain and the clouds. I’m not sure whether this state of mind actually helps me sort out problems, or even if it leaves me a more relaxed and better person at the end of it. But to be lost on high landscapes like this is a wonderful experience, one that I appreciated even more for my few months away.
Strolling downhill towards All Stretton I felt not so much a sense of achievement as one of relief. As an outdoor blogger I can feel legitimate again. It feels something of a fraud to be sitting at the computer and talking about the hills when I haven’t seen or smelt them in ages.
It was good to be back.
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