Walks in 2018
This year we have only managed one walking holiday dedicated to a long distance path, and that was in July when we extended our overall exploits slightly to the north in completing the Berwickshire Coastal Path from Cockburnspath to Berwick-upon-Tweed. This was a short but most enjoyable and highly recommended walk.
Earlier in the year, in May, we had a delightful short holiday on the Scilly Isles in which we managed to walk around St Martins as well as exploring St Mary's and Tresco thoroughly and spending two and a half hours on St Agnes and Gugh.
Other than this, most leave was spent in rather too many visits to Richard's former family home in the village of Hartfield in Sussex, as we cleared it, checked it, and eventually sold it. We did however take advantage of the frequent trips to the Sussex/Kent border to complete the northern half of the Wealdway from Ashdown Forest (close to Hartfield) to the Thames Estuary at Gravesend. We also used a visit to our daughter and son-in-laws house in the village of Downton in Wiltshire (home of the Cuckoo Fair, which is what the photo shows) to start the Avon Valley Path.
Our regular Sunday walks were interrupted by absences from home on Saturdays (mostly to visit Hartfield) and thus needing to be in Norfolk on the following Sundays in order to visit Richard's Mum. The weather also stymied us, being rather wet (and sometimes snowy) through the winter and spring, then hot in the summer. Our walk along the Grand Union Canal, ended up extending way further than we'd intended - in addition to walking right through Buckinghamshire, we have now walked through Northamptonshire and into Warwickshire. Later in the year we completed the Marston Vale Timberland Trail and walked quite a lot of the Three Shires Way. On the very last day of 2018, we walked a couple of miles at the Lincolnshire end of the Nene Way, thus ending the year with a new venture to carry forward into 2019.
It's not the only new venture for 2019; as I write this at the end of 2018, we have exchanged contracts on the sale of the Sussex house and also on the purchase of a flat in the village of Simpson, near to my work in Milton Keynes and right next to the Grand Union Canal, so we'd walked right past it in November 2017! Both transactions should complete in very early January, so we'll have fewer trips to Sussex (though we will return to complete the southern section of the Wealdway) though getting the flat as I want it for my new Sunday to Thursday routine (with Richard joining me on Sunday nights) may prove something of a distraction.
Page last checked 17th February 2020.
