A summer full of walking
Wow, what a lot of walking has been going on in the past two months! It's our busiest time of the year so plenty to read about. There are still some great events to come and it's time to get the date of our End-of-season Party into your diaries. A change of plan this year, turning it into a triple celebration.
Plans for 2011 are already falling into place and we have confirmed bookings for our two away weeks next year. In May we'll be walking The Herriot Way in Yorkshire; more details inside. We need you to book for this now as we have room for only 12 participants because of limited accommodation available. If demand is great enough we could run the walk again on the following week, if someone volunteers to lead.
And then in September we'll be joining a Holiday Fellowship group in the Cinque Terre in Italy, a famously inaccessible part of the Ligurian coast where the five towns cling vertiginously to the cliff edges.
Weekend plans for the second half of 2011 are still to be finalised: so if you have places you'd like to explore, especially if you'd like to help to plan the event, do contact the Events Committee.
To kick the year off, we are now booking for our first away event of 2011, our luxury weekend, this year to be spent on the North Downs, right on the ancient Pilgrim's Way in a historic pub. And in March we'll be visiting our old haunt at Parc-le-Breos in The Gower Peninsula, where, amazingly, the owner still remembers our last visit more than ten years ago.
Full details of all these events in the Programme.
Of course, as always we still need volunteers for our usual programme of day and summer evening walks throughout 2011. Why not take your fellow ramblers on your favourite local walk? Contact the Events Committee to volunteer.
Herts Chain Walk for Isabel Hospice
The Chain Walk is a series of 19 walks all taking places simultaneously on Sunday 19th September 2010. Each follows a circular route of about 10 miles with a half way stop at a pub for lunch. They form a chain around the areas in which the hospice provides services. Each walk is lead by an experienced walker and a steward.
Walks start at 9.30am from the appropriate starting point, aiming to arrive at the next point for lunch at midday. After lunch walkers return to their starting point via a different route from the outward bound one.
The Chain Walk is celebrating its 10-year anniversary and is one of Isabel Hospice's highest raising fundraising events, with 400 walkers raising £20,000 last year!
For more details phone Maria on 01707382500 or e-mail maria.alexander@isabelhospice.org.uk
Crazy paving
Stepping-stones have an agreeable image, like toasting forks, candles, sundials, dip-pens, teapots, thatch, axes, honey, timber and sickles. They might not be as technologically advanced in performing their tasks as later inventions, but they can be beautiful in their place, they must be used with skill and they possess historic resonance.
"A set of stepping-stones crosses the river Dove in Derbyshire. Thousands have used them without mishap. Now the county council with accurate care has topped each one with a cemented slab at an equal height. Many walkers do not like the result. "Where has the fun gone of slipping off the old stones and getting your feet wet?" asked one. But fun doesn't come into it, or beauty. It's safe, that's the point - safe as a window that won't open, safe as a match that won't strike, safe as a life on nanny's apronstrings."
Editorial column of the Daily Telegraph on 5th August 2010
These boots were made for ...
Walkers are putting their own lives, and those of the rescue services, at risk by trying to scale mountains in Ugg boots, Crocs and even flip-flops, according to Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue. A third of rescues could be avoided if people wore appropriate footwear and clothing, they claimed.
So at least ten demerit points to Julia Bradbury, President of the Ramblers' Association, seen on TV recently tackling mountains paths in her Ugg boots. Not only dangerous but a fashion faux pas to boot!
Wow, what a lot of walking has been going on in the past two months! It's our busiest time of the year so plenty to read about. There are still some great events to come and it's time to get the date of our End-of-season Party into your diaries. A change of plan this year, turning it into a triple celebration.
Plans for 2011 are already falling into place and we have confirmed bookings for our two away weeks next year. In May we'll be walking The Herriot Way in Yorkshire; more details inside. We need you to book for this now as we have room for only 12 participants because of limited accommodation available. If demand is great enough we could run the walk again on the following week, if someone volunteers to lead.
And then in September we'll be joining a Holiday Fellowship group in the Cinque Terre in Italy, a famously inaccessible part of the Ligurian coast where the five towns cling vertiginously to the cliff edges.
Weekend plans for the second half of 2011 are still to be finalised: so if you have places you'd like to explore, especially if you'd like to help to plan the event, do contact the Events Committee.
To kick the year off, we are now booking for our first away event of 2011, our luxury weekend, this year to be spent on the North Downs, right on the ancient Pilgrim's Way in a historic pub. And in March we'll be visiting our old haunt at Parc-le-Breos in The Gower Peninsula, where, amazingly, the owner still remembers our last visit more than ten years ago.
Full details of all these events in the Programme.
Of course, as always we still need volunteers for our usual programme of day and summer evening walks throughout 2011. Why not take your fellow ramblers on your favourite local walk? Contact the Events Committee to volunteer.
Herts Chain Walk for Isabel Hospice
The Chain Walk is a series of 19 walks all taking places simultaneously on Sunday 19th September 2010. Each follows a circular route of about 10 miles with a half way stop at a pub for lunch. They form a chain around the areas in which the hospice provides services. Each walk is lead by an experienced walker and a steward.
Walks start at 9.30am from the appropriate starting point, aiming to arrive at the next point for lunch at midday. After lunch walkers return to their starting point via a different route from the outward bound one.
The Chain Walk is celebrating its 10-year anniversary and is one of Isabel Hospice's highest raising fundraising events, with 400 walkers raising £20,000 last year!
For more details phone Maria on 01707382500 or e-mail maria.alexander@isabelhospice.org.uk
Crazy paving
Stepping-stones have an agreeable image, like toasting forks, candles, sundials, dip-pens, teapots, thatch, axes, honey, timber and sickles. They might not be as technologically advanced in performing their tasks as later inventions, but they can be beautiful in their place, they must be used with skill and they possess historic resonance.
"A set of stepping-stones crosses the river Dove in Derbyshire. Thousands have used them without mishap. Now the county council with accurate care has topped each one with a cemented slab at an equal height. Many walkers do not like the result. "Where has the fun gone of slipping off the old stones and getting your feet wet?" asked one. But fun doesn't come into it, or beauty. It's safe, that's the point - safe as a window that won't open, safe as a match that won't strike, safe as a life on nanny's apronstrings."
Editorial column of the Daily Telegraph on 5th August 2010
These boots were made for ...
Walkers are putting their own lives, and those of the rescue services, at risk by trying to scale mountains in Ugg boots, Crocs and even flip-flops, according to Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue. A third of rescues could be avoided if people wore appropriate footwear and clothing, they claimed.
So at least ten demerit points to Julia Bradbury, President of the Ramblers' Association, seen on TV recently tackling mountains paths in her Ugg boots. Not only dangerous but a fashion faux pas to boot!