Way back, at a time when the world went about its business in the usual way, as long ago as January I think, the Idle Skiers signed up for a 50 kilometres walk in the Chiltern Hills.
As I have mentioned before, the people behind the walk organise several long distance yomps each year, but so far, in 2020, they have all been cancelled. It was a surprise to everybody therefore, including the organisers I suspect, when the Chiltern event went ahead yesterday.
There had been much hard work to obtain the necessary permissions and a few compromises had been made. The route, originally one long loop through the hills, starting and finishing at Henley, became two 25 kilometre loops centred on Henley show ground, with just a couple of short excursions into the hills. We were happy it went ahead at all.
It was bitterly cold at the start and though the sun came out quite early in the day, it remained chilly throughout, with a vicious wind during the morning. The countryside was beautiful though.
As usual on long walks, Mrs IS was off like a shot from a gun and after a couple of kilometres, she was out of sight. I next saw her near the lunch stop, where the end of the first loop and the start of the second loop coincided. In the afternoon, Mrs IS was back at the finish and ready to head for home whilst I still had several kilometres to cover. Fortunately, I had the car keys.
Almost home
A couple of years ago, I walked from London to Brighton for the Dogs Trust. We hadn’t arranged any formal sponsorship this time around. However, some friends are kindly giving us money for this walk to pass on to the Trust.
Idle thoughts from a mountain 