I'm Blathering Now...

Having spent the last three hundred thousand, thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand days on home turf since lockdown started, it was with unbridled joy that I jumped into my car on Saturday, (1 st weekend where Welsh residents were allowed more than 5 miles from home) drove 23 miles into England, met my friend Kate and we had a ramble in the sunshine. It was wonderful to meet up in real life rather than on a Zoom meeting but our first walk of the year came with a few caveats. Firstly, it had to be a gentle breaking in walk, not one of my usual “oh it’s not very far,” cue 15 miles later getting very threatening looks off what is likely to be a soon ex-friend if I don’t find the car again very soon after proclaiming “don’t worry, I sort of know where we are!” Secondly, the walk would not consist of clambering up any large hills…something I wasn’t going to argue with….I’ve been sat on a sofa eating cake for four months. I can easily roll down a hill, getting up one

During lockdown, I’ve tried to make a concerted effort to go on a long walk once a week. I call it an effort, because I mean at least an 8-10 mile walk because there are only so many outings you can do in your immediate vicinity without getting bored. I concluded that the longer the walk, the more scope there was for finding new places. Up until 6 th July, if you lived in Wales, you couldn’t travel by car to have a jolly day out, so the start and end of the walk from the house might be boring…but the rest of the route could open up new experiences. As I tend to do the majority of my walking alone, I have started listening to my audible books en route. I used to listen to books in the car, but as it’s now mainly sitting on my drive there is a backlog of books to be listened to. A book that piqued my attention was Diary of a Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley. I thoroughly enjoyed the book but was reticent to share my thoughts about it. Should I publicly admit to reading a book by s