Panties whipped off her thighs like a cowboy’s lasso

The best walks often happen when I feel uncomfortably near the edge of what I can reasonably achieve. Perhaps today the cold drained my energy and I was pretty tired and achy in the last few miles. But the enthusiasm was there and I always felt it was worth the effort. If you have to ask ‘why?’ after all this time then you’ll never understand.

A fairly early coffee stop after about 4 and a bit miles and ‘good news’: I was fortunate enough to have a newspaper available to read but ‘bad news’: it was the Daily Echo. Local newspapers for sports fanatics are not great value unless you are a fan of the local team. Safe to say that I am not! But perhaps this was a punishment for me after I was served by a barista with one of the most sensuous voices, like that of Mariella Frostrup about 30 years ago plus a tablespoon of honey. Not that she was about to whip her panties off her thighs like a cowboy’s lasso, but I was undressing her with my ears. But no, I don’t want to try your special Christmas blend of coffee beans, but thank you ever so much for asking me.

Ok, that was most definitely the highlight of the day. Certainly better than the FA Cup commentary as Portsmouth struggled to see off Altrincham, three divisions lower than them. But at least they did win, and they are on a run of wins after a period when our form went so far south that it discovered the body of Captain Oates. It wasn’t quite as cold this afternoon as it must have been on his final day in 1912 but it was still a bit of a surprise to see a middle-aged man in Wickham in short trousers, very short trousers. Given the weather, you had to admire his balls. The way he was sitting, you were almost forced to.

As I say, the last few miles were more of a struggle but I have become used to aching. I popped into a convenience store as I had finished my drink, but no way was I going to pay £1.20 for a 500ml bottle of water. I wasn’t even thirsty and I felt I could last a bit longer, but it was just so annoying that I was almost tempted to place something really unexpected in the bagging area. Enter Poundland in Fareham and two bottles for a pound, and with some lemon & lime infused flavour too.

21 miles. Home, nice and warm now. Expecting many more views of this blog post than normal – the title is everything to draw in readers……………..

A walk of three halves

Yes, a walk of three halves. The second section – ok let’s call them sections – was with the ONS Walking Club and necessitated a 2pm meet at the Warsash end of the Hamble – Warsash ferry, so military precision was needed. I was desperate not to be late; I have rather an unbalanced fear of lateness, especially if it inconveniences others. I am often overwhelmed with fear in some fairly non-dangerous situations but lack fear in what some might consider highly dangerous situations. That must be some type of psychosis.

It didn’t start well, even if I was just about on time to start in the first (morning) section. I cannot remember if I forgot my woolly hat or lost (dropped) it but after a mile or so I realised I didn’t have it. Of course, then I felt extremely cold around the ears but soldiered on, considering my route and any stores where I could possibly purchase a woolly hat. No success at three candidate stores and instead I put my hoodie hood up, because my hoodie has a hood; the clue is in the name. With a short shower and drizzle for a while afterwards, this served the dual purpose of protection against both cold and rain.

Post-walk note: I can’t find the woolly hat at home. Guess I must have dropped it.

But I was a bit wound up by this. A few weeks after an almost serious and heated discussion with a woman at work as to whether or not shopping was a sport, I could suddenly realise what she meant. And this morning section was the hard yards. A coffee stop in Locks Heath after just under 8 miles (I hadn’t taken the shortest route, intentionally. In my defence, I could claim to be enrolled in the new Open University Cabbying course, and this was just homework I that no true taxi driver ever takes you the shortest way). A coffee, a sandwich, another couple of miles and I was waiting by the pink hut waiting for the pink boat.

The second section started with a walk up the Hamble river – there were 6 of us plus a dog Meg, who at one point veered off the path to chase a couple of deer. But it wasn’t to be venison for a mid-walk snack and we turned briefly onto the A27 and then up past Bursledon Station, and then through paths unfamiliar to me. Fortunately walk leader Ali knew where we were going, even if no-one else did, though we did come out onto Hamble Lane rather than Satchell Lane. We had a bit of walking on unpavemented road but then some more off-road paths that looked like the perfect place to dump the body of someone you’d just murdered, not to be found for months.

It was really nice to chat with each of the others in weather conditions that were now much more pleasant than in the morning. The wind was still there but had lost some of its teeth and one or two of the walkers even shifted one of their layers of clothing. These are obviously people who are pretty fit and weren’t going to put off by a weather forecast that wasn’t 100% certain to be dry. I bade goodbye as we reached the centre of Hamble, after about 6 miles.

Finishing that section in the light, just about, meant that I would have to stick to the roads on the third section, from Hamble to Sarisbury. I had something of a speed walk for around a mile that tested me and also startled a couple whom I whizzed past on Hamble Lane. I was feeling a little tired so I nipped into Tesco (other supermarkets are available, though not for a few miles) and topped up water and bought my snack of choice, a 150g punnet of blueberries – as well as a couple of sneaky Christmas gifts. I scoffed the blueberries and made my way home, for another 6 and a bit miles in total for that section.

22 miles. Dead chuffed with that. Aching a little but very satisfied with a good workout.

Justified and ancient

After what appears to have been the shortest autumn since records began, any walk now will require gloves and the woolly hat. It was cold today and not particularly pleasant, for sure, even with three layers (perhaps four were needed) but I consoled myself that real pioneers probably had to deal with rather more dangerous perils and hardships. You couldn’t really mention me in the same sentence as Captain Oates. Except that I just did.

No health or fitness problems today and I was chilled in both the main senses of the word. The first six pre-coffee miles were uneventful so as to leave few vivid memories though it is of course possible I could have pillaged a few village women, held up a motorist at gunpoint and come on as sub and scored a hat-trick in one of the local football matches taking place. Maybe I have Prince Andrew syndrome.

The caffeine kicked in with raised enthusiasm but not with raised energy as I felt light-headed a little while later. If I do buy snacks on my walks, I am likely now to get fruit as anything else. I am now up to six and a half months without chocolate and don’t feel any great longing despite every convenience store having racks of which Pamela Anderson would be jealous. Today, a small sausage roll supplemented by a 150g punnet of raspberries – my fruit of choice when walking is blueberries but raspberries are good too.

That seemed to do the trick and I was able to speed walk through Rowner towards Fareham. I walked through a few unfamiliar side streets, one with a limo with bridal ribbons on the side of the road. I scuttled past, aware that this could be a gangster’s wedding and, before I knew it, I could be in the boot of a car being driven to an anonymous industrial estate. Feeling more at ease once I approached Fareham, I took a different route than any of my usual ones, disorientatedly ending up going round in a topological circle, possibly puzzling a lady sitting at a bus stop both at the start and finish of said circle.

For some reason, Justified and Ancient was going through my head. Maybe I was revisiting a conversation with someone recently about a discussion he’d had with others about my age – he referred to me as having ‘indeterminate age’; well it could have been a lot worse! Not that I am ancient at all at nearly 56 – and I can justify that I still have plenty of years and miles left in my legs. 19 miles today but I must ensure really wrapping up against the cold now – it’s going to get colder than this before the winter’s out.

Ultra keen, but not today

I have committed now to an Ultra Challenge in 2020, after I skipped a year this time round. So after

• 2015 Isle of Wight Challenge – retired after 80 km
• 2016 London2Brighton Challenge – completed
• 2017 Thames Path Challenge – completed
• 2018 South Coast Challenge – completed

I have the new event South West Coast2Coast Challenge on the weekend of 25 & 26 July, starting on Minehead beach in North Somerset, finishing in Dawlish in South Devon. 100 km as always (except the Isle of Wight which is 106) walking through Saturday, the night and finishing sometime on Sunday. The route sees a very tough first few km with steep gradients (I assume that is Porlock!) to the highest point of Exmoor and then ups and downs in a generally southward direction. It certainly looks on paper, or tablet, that the first half is immensely tougher than the second, though that is balanced by walkers being fresher for the harder sections, and more tired for the flatter sections.

http://www.ultrachallenge.com/coast-2-coast

I am not seeking sponsorship at all and will be self-funding. The early bird 20% saving period ended this week, hence why I have booked up such a long way ahead. Though many do manage to get fit enough with an intense training period for a few weeks beforehand, I prefer to keep a decent level of fitness through the winter and will keep on walking most weekends. It’s just that it does take so much bloomin’ time!

I didn’t appreciate it at the time but the Coast2Coast clashes with the National Village Cricket Cup quarterfinal date though I am not making any presumptions that we will get that far again. I will miss the Saturday league game in any case.

Ultimately I would want to complete all the Ultra Challenges. There are even a few absolutely bonkers people who do all of them in one year; that feels well beyond me. But new events spring up each year and the ambition to do them all is really chasing one’s tail. I’ve got the bug though and I have missed it this year.

However, no significant walk this weekend. A busy week coming up and for a few days I have had a painful and slightly swollen big toe. Not quite sure how this has come about though I might have stubbed it and I have had problems before with that particular toenail. It’s not serious at all, I think, but I am going to rest it, perhaps treat with some ice, and do some other stuff today.

Pretty in grey

After a few days of inclement weather, the Sunday turned fair, cool, still and dry with a really popular day for runners and joggers, it seems. I counted 13 before I reached the end of my first half hour walking, all scuttling past me one way or the other, often through the leaves, twigs, branches and occasional mud that were the legacy of a stormy Saturday.

I was looking to make the most of perfect walking conditions, the temperature hovering around 10 Celsius. I hadn’t taken the Itchen Bridge route to Southampton for a little while, and it is a fact of life now that pretty much anywhere you return brings a fresh building site or fledgling buildings. That is, except on the Bridge itself, of course. Sadly, the Itchen Bridge again had small bunches of flowers commemorating past deaths unswayed by numerous Samaritans stickers at regular intervals.

I made good pace to my coffee stop in Southampton after almost exactly two hours and almost exactly seven miles. I take 3.5 miles per hour as a decent rate given the need to stop for traffic and road crossings. Of course, as ever, the observation that traffic lights don’t apply to some cyclists, speed limits don’t apply to some motorbikes, and some cars don’t have indicators meant some caution and patience was necessary.

The coffee shop was fairly well populated this late morning and the baristas rather over-worked. I found a newspaper and a seat fairly close to the two toilets. I was surprised and slightly amused that a number of people tried and failed to open the toilet doors before reading the notice that they needed to get a code from a receipt to open the door. Obviously the shop had been ‘suffering’ the heinous crime of people coming in to use the toilet without purchasing anything.

This seemed more trouble than it was worth. A middle-aged man was told by a member of staff that he would need to get a receipt but, a few minutes later, the same member helped a young attractive woman (pretty in pink, actually) by entering the appropriate code for her. I knew once I had finished my coffee that I would need the facilities and I hadn’t bothered to get a receipt (well, who does?). I stood up, hoping to meet someone just coming out of one of the toilets, holding the door for me, when a member of staff offered to tap in the code. I wasn’t wearing pink, so what does that say about me – pretty in grey?

A decent walk thereafter, past the train station and up the length of Shirley High Street, then right onto Winchester Road, Burgess Road past the university, through Portswood and Bitterne back to Sarisbury. A few hills in there and a very good 20.5 miles.

I will be booking my Ultra Challenge for 2020 within the next day since the ‘early bird’ discount period finishes tomorrow. I haven’t quite made my mind up whether to do the Peak District, Lake District, Cotswold Way or South West Coast2Coast Challenge. They are the four 100km events between 13 June and 25 July so they will be fairly short nights at that time of year but could be quite warm in the peak of the day. You can’t really foresee what the weather will be like on any particular day seven or eight months in advance but you just hope that it will be dry. I don’t think I’ll be doing those for charity – so I’ll be self-funding which is a bit of an outlay but I don’t feel I can keep asking friends to sponsor me over and over again. For three of those four, I have family or friends who live conveniently close to the start I may have to flutter my eyelashes and smile sweetly. But I am pretty in grey, so I won’t have to work it too hard.