I knew it was tempting fate to write a post on dementia! Yesterdays stroll on the hills became a celebration of forgetfulness!
I started with the best of intentions. On Monday evening I (unusually for me) got all of my kit ready in advance and I made sure that the pack was packed. Yesterday morning I was up and ready for an early start.
Mishap one occurred when I jumped on my connecting train at Shrewsbury. The Conductor looked at my ticket, smiled and told me that this train didn’t stop and my destination, Church Stretton. I would have to carry on until Ludlow. He consulted in machine. If I crossed over the bridge at Ludlow and waited 10 minutes I could catch the train back in the opposite direction. This train did stop at Church Stretton. And — with a real flourish — he announced that this train would get me to be desired destination a full twenty minutes before the real train from Shrewsbury would have done! Result.
The Conductor had been a little concerned that his counterpart on the return train wouldn’t be so accommodating, so he wrote out a special chit thing explaining what had happened. But, on the return train, the Conductor just laughed. It’s a nice day for a trip she said. And she was right. As the train sped along the sun was breaking through the cloud cover, a lovely gentle winter sun that softly illuminated all of the autumnal colours that sat over the hills.
One of the nice things about these local hills is that I know them like the back of my hand. I seldom need a map and on shorter, winter, days I rarely have any idea where I’m going to go in advance. So, on the short journey from Ludlow I changed my ideas about the day’s walk for about the fifth time since I left Birmingham.
Safely in Church Stretton I ambled up to Mr Bun the Bakers and bought some lunch and then ambled down the road towards Little Stretton. There’s a lovely pub here — the Ragleth Arms that has a very simple but beautiful facade. I’ve tried to capture this before with a camera but somehow or another have never been able to. As I approached this time the conditions seem to be right. The pub is covered in mature Ivy, the door solid old oak and the pub sign above the door is a lovely traditional design. I framed the image to just catch these features. The early morning sun was bouncing off the ivy leaves and saturating the colours in the sign. I clicked the shutter without really looking at the camera settings. Looking at the camera I realised I’d shot at something around 1/20th. I went to review the image (for camera shake) on the back of the machine only to be told ‘No Memory Card’. Hmm, I’d checked the night before I could have sworn that I had seen one. Never mind, I hunted in my small camera back. I always have four or five cards with me. But today there was none. Then I remembered that my last photographic assignment had been the kind that required all of my kit. All of my memory cards were still sitting inside the many pockets of a Billingham photography bag!
So, no photos then. I continued along a few tiny lanes and climbed over a stile, walked through the deserted campsite and headed towards the Long Mynd. At a small bridge over the Ashes Hollow stream I stopped to assemble my walking poles. But there were only five sections of pole in my sack rather than the six required. Pacer Poles don’t really work singularly , so Poles were out for the day. Never mind, sometimes it is nice to be walking without them.
I walked more slowly without the poles, but used the time well. I spent more time considering the surroundings and looking for potential wild camp sites and, indeed, I did identify a number of sites that I’ve never really taken in before.
Ashes Hollow is one of the quieter climbs up to the Mynd — they get quieter as you move South from Church Stretton. It was a quiet day in many ways not least that there were few sounds. There were no people about and most of the bird life has left for the winter. There was no wind and no wind sound. As I climbed up the Mynd my only companion was the sound of the stream flowing briskly down the hill.
The only sense that was properly stimulated was smell. There’s a musky kind of smell that dominates much of the UK’s walking habitat during the winter, as the fall foliage begins to rot.
Weekday walking is usually lonely walking around this parts. At the beginning of the climb I did come across a geography class doing some serious field work. How times have changed. Nothing like this happened in my day. All I can remember about my O level geography lessons was a teacher who verged between going mad because he couldn’t control the class or feigning complete indifference to our chosen way of spending time with him, which usually involved throwing increasingly high items at each other. This group seemed completely engaged in their studies.
My only other human contact was with a couple who were descending as I was climbing. They were in their late sixties, perhaps even early seventies, I guess. Their trip was one of a number they were making in an attempt to find a place to finally retire to. Church Stretton they liked because it hadn’t changed that much since they had last visited the area about 8 years ago. I assumed that they were pleased that the area hadn’t got too yuppy-ish but there concerns were more contemporary than that. What they meant that there was a good health practice in the town, it was near to a general hospital and — most importantly — that there was still an active library and community hub present. These were obviously a couple who had access to all modern comms services but they recognised that libraries are key to rural life. The library in Church Stretton is the home to the local film club that shows current releases, the base for local historical societies and more besides. Across the countries library services are being subjected to swinging cuts, because their provision isn’t statutory. It is quite a salient reminder that incomers see libraries in their wider sense. A town without a library is not quite the same as one which has.
Up on the ridge the mist had rolled in and I was walking in the worst visibility I have experienced this year, certainly since last winter. I strode on up to Poll Bank. The views from the bank are often stunning and you gaze west towards mystical mid Wales; on a clear day you can see all of the way to Cadir Idris on the southern edge of Snowdonia. But, while the views are stunning, you often find yourself in anything but a lonely spot as you have to share the experience with mountain bikers, hill runners and — worst of all — huge parties of Ramblers. But today there was just me. And the mist.
Walking in the mist can be quite cathartic. I set out to walk north, covering almost the full length of the ridge. In such misty conditions I was able to set my mind to dealing with a current dilemma. My TGO CHallenge route for 2012 (or whenever I next get in) as more or less been fixed now. I shall be starting in Torridon, cutting through Struy, over to the Monaliadth and Kincraig, and on to Balleter via. Ben Avon (no Braemar on this trip) and then finishing somewhere near Stonehaven via the Fetteresso. Some of my days are long but not overwhelmingly so and I’ve walked through nearly all of this territory before one way or another. But the route is too fast. It has me arriving in Ballater a day too early and sees me finish in Stonehaven on Tuesday. So, I need to eek out another day or two. This give me the chance to take in more hills and to take advantage of a short day or two. But planning such changes is not that easy as the days, particularly in the North West, finish at obvious finish points. But the walk in the mist weaved its magic and by the time I had finished I had more or less come up with four or five new variants that can be explored on computer mapping systems.
As the Mynd begins to fade out heather uplands and bridleways give way to wide, grassy paths that gently take the walker down towards the village of All Stretton. Dropping out of the clouds I saw an wonderfully soft winter light warming the hills of Caradoc, picking out all of the reds, yellows and golds of autumn. Caradoc had been my original destination but it would have no doubt been in just as much mist as the Mynd. As I walked back along the road to the train station I was able to take a long, lingering look at this fabulous ridge.
It wasn’t the longest of walks but a decent one for these shorter, winter, days. Walking during the week is not easy for very one I know but it allows the walker to take back those popular places that heave with visitors at the weekend. The National Trust Car Parks are empty, there’s no manic dodging of speeding mountain bikes needed and no great parties of Duke of Edinburgh students to encounter. It was just me, the hills and the mist. Just the right conditions for envisaging longer routes and longer days.
Reader’s Comments