Walks in 2021

After 2020, where our walking plans were ripped apart by the Coronavirus Pandemic, and given all the uncertainty over what would happen in 2021, our plans at the beginning year were relatively modest. Now looking back at the end of the year, we have not returned to our previous much-loved walking holidays, making use of public transport and moving on each day to a new B&B; with the Omicron variant raging, we are beginning to think it may still be some years before we can do that. However, we have much to be grateful for. We have now had three Covid-19 vaccinations, and regular ongoing jabs seem likely. Meanwhile, to use our son Michael's words, performing lateral flow Covid-19 tests (and, for Richard to remain an "essential care-giver" at his mother's residential home, PCR tests too) has become a semi-recreational activity. Taking precautions as dictated by the Government and (more especially) our own common sense, we have managed a pretty good year of walking.

At the beginning of the year, there were several routes which we had started and then had to pause, and further delay ensued when England went back into lockdown in January, with regulations easing in stages which allowed, first of all, some local travel, then for us to return to and travel from our flat in Milton Keynes, then (from mid-May) for us to stay elsewhere overnight. For this reason, as things began to ease, we started off by resuming progress on a route we could reach from home in West Norfolk. In early January (i.e. before lockdown) we had progressed as far as Norwich on the Cross Norfolk Trail and, between 3^rd April (Easter Saturday) and Sunday 9th May, we completed its final component, the Wherryman's Way, which goes from Norwich to Great Yarmouth. Once we were able to both stay in the flat (I'd been allowed before Richard, because since spring I have had permission to go onto the Open University campus occasionally for work whilst for him it gets classified as a holiday home!) we were also very happy to be able to resume our progress on the delightful Chiltern Way on Saturday 17th April. After all the delays, we didn't hang about and we completed the main circuit of the Chiltern Way on Monday 3rd May.

Completing the Chiltern Way's Berkshire Loop and Southern Extension will have to wait for now as will completion of the Grand Union Canal Walk, which needs public transport to get into London at the southern end of the route, and public transport and/or overnight accommodation to reach the centre of Birmingham at the northern end. In the first instance, it proved easier to start a path we hadn't walked before, though the one we chose to start, the Midshires Way, shares the southern section of its route (from The Ridgeway to Milton Keynes) with the North Bucks Way, which we had already walked, so we picked it up just a few miles from our flat, on Monday 31st May. The Midshires Way goes all the way to Stockport and although we have now progressed too far along it to be able to complete legs as day walks, it is very well served by Premier Inns, where (at the time of writing) we are prepared to stay. We are making excellent progress and are more than half-way along the 225-mile route. We have just crossed the border into Nottinghamshire, having been reminded of how much we like rural Northamptonshire and also having discovered the delights of rural Leicestershire.

It was our 40th wedding anniversary in September and fairly early in the year, we started planning a walk along a whole long distance footpath as our celebration. Our chosen option was the delightful Limestone Way which runs from Rocester in Staffordshire to Castleton in Derbyshire, though we extended it slightly to start in Uttoxeter. As part of the "grand plan", we had a short break in June, staying at the Rugeley Premier Inn (where we stayed when walking the first stages of the Heart of England Way). This enabled us to link from the Heart of England Way via the Staffordshire Way to Uttoxeter and so to the Limestone Way from Rocester. Our short stay in the Rugeley Premier Inn was also our first stay away from home, other than visits to our flat and our daughter's house in Wiltshire, since February 2020! For our main walk along the Limestone Way we rented a wonderful holiday cottage in the Peak District. The cottage also enabled us to see our son Michael and his wife Heather, who had been shielding because of Heather's health issues, for the first time in two years.

After too long away, we are now visiting our daughter and son-in-law and our little grandson Bertie in Wiltshire every three to four weeks. When we can manage to drag ourselves away from Bertie's company, we sometimes visit my sister on the other side of the New Forest and we have started exploring some of the many walking routes close to where Helen, Tom and Bertie live. We hoped to complete the Clarenden Way from Salisbury (where it links to the Avon Valley Path) to Winchester (where it links to the South Downs Way) in one weekend, but circumstances transpired against us. We eventually completed this route in three separate walks, one in summer, one in autumn and one in winter. That provided added variety to a walk that we would recommend whatever the season.

The final long-distance footpath I'd like to mention this year is the England Coast Path. The entire path around the English coast was going to be finished by 2020 but the reality is that only a few short stretches are complete, supplemented by many other sections of existing coastal path, some of which we have already walked. We re-walked sections of the Norfolk Coast Path last Christmas Day and in the summer with our friend Eileen. We have also had two brief encounters with officially open sections of England Coast Path, though these were so short and the entire walk will be so long that I don't feel we claim to be seriously walking this route. We have absolutely no intention of walking the whole thing in any case, though I could be tempted to try to fill in some of the gaps between the sections we have already walked on other named paths. The two bits we encountered this year are both bits we are likely to return to. The second, in late December, took us to a new [to us] section of the Norfolk Coast Path east of Cromer.

Our first encounter with the named England Coast Path was on a long weekend in Cumbria which serves as a useful reminder of the difficulties of the year, but also of the importance of family and the delights of the UK's network of long-distance footpaths. Covid-19 hasn't been the only challenge of 2021. Amongst other things, we had to contend with a petrol shortage in late September and early October, which unfortunately coincided with Richard's brother Phillip's marriage to Anne-Marie in Workington. We had no real choice but to travel by train, of which the less said the better, and the weather was distinctly wet and windy. However, we had a wonderful weekend of celebration with Anne-Marie and Phillip and their families, and discovered the wild beauty of the England Coast Path near Workington. We'll be back.