Temple Cloud

When I proposed to do another walking challenge, one of my reservations was the effect that over-exercising might have on my mental health.   Getting over-tired, or not eating enough because my body is too focused on walking to remember to be hungry, tends to knock me off balance if my body isn’t expecting it. When I last spent a month walking as much as possible, in 2021, a friend wrote an encouraging comment about walking being good for body, mind and spirit, but, as with most things that are good for the mental health of normal people, it doesn’t necessarily work that way for me.   2021 wasn’t a good year, and the best thing I could say about July of that year was that I was tired enough after days of walking that I didn’t have trouble sleeping. By now, I’m capable of being reasonably sane for a fair amount of the time, and for the first half of the month, I was fine as long as I kept walking.   I only really started to have difficulties when a few days of wet weather kept me in

At the start of this month, I resolved to walk as far as I could, every day that I could, health and weather permitting.  After all, there were bound to be days when it was pouring with rain and maybe even thundery, or when I was so tired that I needed a break, so I would need to make the most of the good walking days. Wednesday 12 th June was an extremely good walking day.   I had done only a little walking – just 8 miles delivering election leaflets around Ashwick and Benter - on Tuesday, so I was ready to get out for a proper day of exploration on Wednesday, exploring the Monarch’s Way path further north.   Sadly, the more northern reaches of the West Mendip Way were starting to be far enough west of my home that accessibility on day walks was becoming a difficulty, but the Monarch’s Way , which follows the escape route taken by King Charles II after being defeated at the Battle of Worcester, moves further east as it goes north here, coming nearer to the Chewton Mendip area.  

When I started this walk, I wondered whether I should schedule a rest day each week, preferably (especially as I’m a Christian) Sunday.  It isn’t that I think Christianity is about adhering to a fixed set of rules, but, as Mandy’s sermon last weekend said, it’s important to rest intentionally, instead of just keeping working until you collapse. At that time, though, I really didn’t feel that I needed a rest.   I had only just begun my walking challenge the day before, and I was still full of energy.   Walking didn’t feel like a chore that I needed to rest from, but a holiday.   Also, I didn’t know how long good walking weather could persist for, so I wanted to make the most of going walking on every clear day that we got, before torrential rain and thunderstorms – or extreme heat – set in. As my first week wore on, though, I noticed that I was slowing down.   From 20 miles on Saturday 1 st June, and 18 (because I took time out to go to church) on Sunday 2 nd , I went down to 16 by

One of the things I find hardest to get used to about life in the country is how small rural congregations are.  I realise that the majority of British people aren’t Christians, but I’ve spent most of my life living in towns where there were enough people overall that the numbers of them who went to church would still produce congregations of a couple of hundred or so, of all ages from children through to elderly people.  Some would hold several services each Sunday: a traditional Communion service early in the morning, a family service in the late morning, and a service for students in the evening. In a rural parish, it’s more like the scene in The Vicar of Dibley where Geraldine, newly arrived, asks in her typically irreverent way, ‘What kind of crowd do you pull at these gigs?’ and is told that the usual congregation is five worshippers.   ‘What about at Christmas?’   ‘Oh, that’s totally different – it’s four then, because one person spends Christmas with her sister.’ So church

Thursday’s was not exactly a full-day walk.  PDB11  and I arranged to meet at St John’s in Midsomer Norton at 12.30 for the Trio Paradis concert, go out to lunch, and go to Haydon in Radstock to deliver some flyers for the local Green Party candidate, Martin Dimery , after which I would walk home. If you’re wondering why, after having shown no particularly strong signs of party affiliation in this blog so far, I have suddenly taken up canvassing for the Greens, it’s because, five years after the government declared a climate change emergency , they still aren’t behaving as though it is an emergency.   None of the main parties seems to be taking this nearly as seriously as practically all scientists seem to agree that we need to.   The Conservative government seems to assume that, if we have made progress ahead of schedule so far in meeting emissions reduction targets, we’re going to reach net zero by 2050, and can therefore afford to relax and focus on other priorities.   It appare

The past couple of days have been days for retracing steps and trying to get things right this time. On Wednesday, I decided to retrace Tuesday’s walk to see whether I could find the lost camera.   First, though, I had a look at the Oakleaf Café’s rota and saw that no-one was signed up to clear tables and wash cups on Wednesday morning.   I decided to get some miles in by taking a shortish early-morning walk around Benter, T’other Side the Hill and Badger’s Cross (did I mention how much I love Somerset place names ?) and end up at the café around 10.30. When I arrived, the kitchen was fairly full, as another volunteer had come in, but just hadn’t put her name down on the rota.   She needed to leave by 12.15, so I could have waited nearly two hours to cover the period from12.30 to 1, but I couldn’t be bothered.   I had a camera to search for, dropped somewhere either in the lanes, copses or fields south of Shepton Mallet, or somewhere along the A37 or Fosse Way, or somewhere in the

As I had limited time today, I decided not to range too far from home.  I thought that, instead of trying to see whether I could actually find the West Mendip Way over Milton Hill this time, I might go to explore Biddle Combe, having walked along the edge of this wood the day before. The first part of the walk would be along easy, well-known paths, along Golf Links Lane to join Old Frome Road.   In fact, they were so well-known that I forgot to turn west into Old Frome Road at all, but continued south down Old Bristol Road to join the A37, as if I was walking to work in Shepton Mallet.   On the spur of the moment, I decided that there was no particular reason why I needed to go to Biddle Combe today.   I could simply continue south past Shepton, and see if I could get to – oh, why not Pylle? I texted PDB11 to tell him about the change in plan.   He texted back to ask whether, if I was going in this direction, I could drop into Thorner’s Farm Shop and pick up some apples, as we had

On the way back from Wells on Sunday, I had passed St Thomas’s Church , which bore a poster for a Trio Paradis concert on Monday, playing an assortment of flower-themed music.  Trio Paradis are a classical musical trio of pianist Jacquelyn Bevan, violinist Lisa Betteridge and cellist Linda Stocks, who play concerts of an eclectic range of pieces of music on a theme, usually in churches with coffee and cake available, for whatever donations people can afford.  They are probably the band I have been to see most frequently, even compared with greats like Steeleye Span. I had asked PDB11 whether he was interested, but he was expecting a delivery of materials for making into a new kitchen worktop on Monday, and suggested we go to see them at St John’s  in Midsomer Norton on Friday at 12.30 instead.   This looked more manageable than the St Thomas’s concert, which began at 11, meaning that I would probably need to leave the house by 7am if I wanted to walk there. At any rate, I set off