Walks in 2022

In terms of walking, and in other ways, 2022 was a year of two parts. I get a generous leave allocation, and for the first time I can remember, in the leave year to the end of July 2022, I used the whole allocation. This enabled us to have three weeks primarily dedicated to walking in the first half of the year. We haven't returned to our pre-pandemic preference of moving on from B&B to B&B each day, and travelling by public transport - hopefully we will manage that in 2023 - but Richard's careful research found us three absolutely delightful holiday cottages (the photo on the right, across the Solway Firth, was taken from one of them).

The first week was planned to enable us to do some walking as well as getting some time with our daughter, son-in-law and grandson, who live in Wiltshire, close to the Hampshire border and not too far from Dorset. We'd expected that we'd end up with a cottage in Dorset, where there is lots we want to explore, and the cottage we found was close to Shaftesbury, which indeed is in Dorset, However, the cottage itself (Cow Drove Cottage near East Knole) was actually in Wiltshire. The cottage was exquisite, the immediate location was lovely (we were able to walk to the Wessex Ridgeway in about 30 minutes), and we got out and about with Bertie and co., visiting Stourhead, Old Wardour, Cranborne Manor Garden and Kingston Lacy.

On this holiday, we continued to explore Cranborne Chase on our "Cranborne Circles", a series of circular walks that we started - and add to - when we get the opportunity to get out walking when we're in the area on our regular visits to see Bertie and co. We love Cranborne Chase and our circular walks now link together in a way that means we have traversed the Chase from the Wessex Ridgeway (which we walked in 2013 and 2014) to our daughter's house and thence to Salisbury and beyond. Fortunately there is plenty still to explore. On the same holiday, we also managed a leg of on the Jubilee Trail.

About a month later, we had a rather longer drive to another lovely little cottage (Seasalt Cottage) overlooking the Solway Firth in the Cumbria village of Allonby. On this occasion we were able to combine our walking exploits with some time spent with Richard's brother Phillip and his wife Anne-Marie who live slightly further down the coast in Workington, and we also had a walk in the Lake District one afternoon. However, we spent most of our walking time on the England Coast Path, the Cumbria section of which we had discovered when staying in Workington last autumn for Phillip and Anne-Marie's wedding. The weather was distinctly mixed, but we had some lovely walks. We managed to complete a fair stretch of the England Coast Path to the south from its current starting point in Allonby, by way of Maryport, Workington, Whitehaven, St Bees, Sellafield and Drigg. For most of this section, we were able to make use of the Cumbrian Coast Railway to return to our starting point each day, and so to avoid retracing our steps. In the other direction (i.e. to the north of Allonby), Richard also walked to Silloth and I drove there to meet him.

Our final holiday cottage of the year, in July, was near Craven Arms, Shropshire. We don't have family here, indeed we don't know the county very well at all, though we had a family holiday near Church Stretton in 1993, have visited Ironbridge a couple of times, and walked across parts of the county close to the border with Wales when on the Offa's Dyke Path in 2006. We'd liked the look of the Shropshire Way and it didn't disappoint. On this holiday our walks on the Shropshire Way were mostly as part of circular walks of our own invention (including one which took us back along one of the most memorable stretches of the Offa's Dyke Path). However, progress was somewhat slower than we might have hoped, partly because we both went down with Covid. This didn't stop our walking, it just slowed us down, and fortunately we were in another extremely nice cottage (The Hay Loft). This one had a hot tub, which is not something that I'd expected to like at all, but it was just what was needed. We always knew that it would take a number of holidays to complete the Shropshire Way, so the fact that we didn't cover a great distance is not a big deal; we'll be back!

In addition to these three holidays, we also managed some walks closer to home, including on the Norfolk section of the England Coast Path. In addition to the walking on our Wiltshire holiday, on our regular trips to the area we walked legs of the Avon Valley Way and the Jubilee Trail and completed another Cranborne Circle. A couple of weekends away enabled us to continue on the Midshires Way, from Willoughby-on-the-Wolds to Buxton. It was soon after we returned from the second of these weekends, over the August bank holiday weekend, that we discovered that my sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Her health deteriorated rapidly, and on 18th October she died.

During Chris's final illness, and as we've all come to terms with her death, which has been hard, walking has not been a priority. However, a well-timed reunion near Harrogate with friends from undergraduate days gave us a much needed break, and we went on to stay at the Gargrave Premier Inn overnight then had a delightful, if rather damp, walk in the Malham Cove area the following day. Then, a week before Christmas, we had a weekend at the Highcliffe Premier Inn (near Christchurch in Dorset) with the aim of getting in some walking as well as doing a small amount of clearing of Chris's house, which is in Hythe (Hampshire). The weather was again not great, but we managed a walk along the coast to Christchurch Harbour, and a short walk the other side of the Harbour.