Mark's Practise Walk Day 2 of 3

Sadly (or happily) it was going to be difficult for Jess to taxi me to the next part of the Cotswold Way due to work commitments. Mark the Idle rejoiced, Mark the Idealist just couldn't be found to argue with anymore.

Amazingly I managed to extricate myself from the comforts of home and hit the trail near the house by 10am heading towards Cheddar http://www.thestrawberryline.co.uk/. The Strawberry Line is an old railway track, so it's a little on the flat side. And very straight

... with tunnels, for which I will remember a flashlight in the future (the risk of bicycle - pedestrian interaction is high)

... and occasional, artistically strewn underwear

... and if you ever wondered what a first person view from 6' 4" looks like, here are my boots and perfectly ironed cords:

Nine miles down the Strawberry Line is the medieval market town of Axbridge. It's a place I normally associate with a great farmers market selling local beefburgers barbecued to order. I think this means I've only ever visited Axbridge on a Saturday morning, as Wednesday mornings are definitely devoid of burgers, markets and even farmers.

Three miles on down the line from Axbridge is the cheesy town of Cheddar. The ice cream is pretty good too.

Cheddar is the turning point in the walk where I started to head back towards our home town of Yatton. To make it more interesting than just following the train line back (and practise going up as well as just along) I headed for the hills around Cheddar. As you climb up above Cheddar some great views start to form. Glastonbury Tor is on the horizon in the first snap, and the Iron Age fort of Brent Knoll in the middle of the second, looking out over Bridgwater Bay and then Exmoor in the far distance.

These hills are far less well trodden by tourists and walkers, and have a strong sense of not having changed for centuries. There are the dry stone walls of course

But there are also magical spots which feel deeply ancient and peaceful. The wide grassy paths, walls and outlines of dwellings in the hillside hint at human industry from a time long since past.

Then there's a time not quite so distant. Walking past a quarry there were some strange vehicle choices quietly rusting away. The fire truck is Romanian.

After around 20 miles I wound my way back down to the Strawberry Line. Public transport never looked so tempting as the cumulative walking started to take its toll on my legs and feet

But I resisted and ended up back on the straight and narrow as the shadows started to get longer again. I'm quite proud of my Darth Vader helmet in the second photo (or is it a really tall Twiki the robot from Buck Rogers?)

I crossed a river where the algae was doing a great representation of South America, and a paddock where the My Little Ponies (a local breed called Exmoor ponies) were out in force

The joy of a circular walk that starts and ends on your doorstep is magnified when it feels like all you've been doing for two days non-stop is putting one foot in front of the other. Jess came home from work about the time I got back, which allowed her to remind me earnestly of the importance of stretching - for which I was most grateful!

Day's stats:

45,000 steps

2124 kcal,

27 miles

[Total of 60 miles over two days]

Mark's Practise Walk Day 1 of 3

Jessica here: I'm pleased to announce that Mark is doing a guest blog slot over the next couple of weeks, to fill you all in on how his training has gone and to share the experience of his
Hadrian's Wall Charity Walk.

Over to Mark:

Disclaimer: the opinions and observations of the guest blogger do not in any way reflect those of the owner of this blog. In fact the blog owner is fully entitled to not feed the guest blogger should she deem the contents of this blog obfuscating, untrue, or otherwise poorly expressed. NB: Use of the font 'Comic Sans' by the guest blogger will result in immediate dismissal and a large dose of mockery and public humiliation.

Practise Walk: Day 1

The original, typically idealistic, schedule for the 'practise walk week' was to complete the full 102 miles of the picturesque Cotswold Way. As the first day approached, thoughts more in keeping with my inherent idleness made themselves known, such as "These are my rare and precious annual leave days I'm throwing away in pursuit of something as banal as walking when I could be at home doing something genuinely rewarding. Like nothing."

Fortunately Jess had previously committed to transporting me to the starting point of the Cotswold Way (Chipping Campden) on the first day; so as she was implicit in the scheme on the side of Mark the Idealist, Mark the Idle lost out. Temporarily.

We took two cars. Car A was parked at the finishing point (the side of a busy road with no particular land mark or point of reference) and we went together in Car B to the starting point. The drive from the discarded Car A to Chipping Campden took about 45 minutes, an intimidating measure of how immense the return journey on foot would be.

At 10am (very late for a full day's walking) a strange, mis-shapen silhouette started up the path.

Chipping Campden itself is typical of most of the Cotswolds that I've seen; that is to say it appears to have been painted into existence by a romantic watercolour painter with the words 'quaint, olde, English' squarely mind. Plenty of that to come.

The path itself is well sign-posted and well kept.

Even the farmers are considerate enough to leave gaps in their crops.

The local tradition of individuals staring down large inert flower pots did confuse me a little.

Just as I was warming up to the routine of putting one foot in front of the other - rather than 'squeeze clutch hand briefly, depress left foot, roll back throttle hand,' a more naturalistic set of movements for forward travel - the brutal red and yellow reality of working life appeared, trying to camouflage itself awkwardly in the trees. That ubiquitous logo tracks me everywhere so I shouldn't be surprised.

The first 6-7 miles of day 1 centre on http://www.broadwaytower.co.uk/ At Chipping Campden it is just possible to make it out as a blip on the horizon:

After 4 miles or so it suddenly appears, Monty Python style, over the hill.

Then after around 7 miles it shrinks to be a very large tree again

During the course of the day several other themes emerged with great and unsurprising regularity: gates, animals and walls. The gates were generally of the functional variety with over-elaborate closing mechanisms.

Occasionally the functional would morph into something quite special

Animal encounters consisted of the usual suspects. The ruminatory:

The thoroughbred (notice their 'tiny' home in the valley)

Ninja sheep (on vacation)

The 'scared stiff but can't move because of the darn wall'

The 'scare the walker stiff but he has to commit because there's no other way around'

The elusive and fleet of foot:

Walls, particularly dry stone walls (no cement, no adhesives), were ubiquitous and, despite the brain numbing excitement of the subject, deserve a mention simply because every single stone was placed very skilfully by an individual at some point back in time. The more of these walls I walked along, the more a sense of awe developed.

Initially they just seemed to be a redundant artefact, a bygone labour intensive method of dividing land, but to see them recently repaired, and see an old artisan painstakingly rebuilding a slice of wall (although I didn't get a photo) turned it into much more of a living tradition.

The day moved along. There were freely provided snacks along the way:

Due to the late start though, I didn't get lunch until around 1500 when I hobbled into the town of Winchcombe, about 17 miles in and with another 16 to go. The problem with picturesque ye olde town centres as I found to my cost, is that they don't tend to allow for big gaudy supermarkets that would conflict with the Tudor architecture. Or any kind of store that would offer any kind of food (the pubs had closed at 1400). I did eventually find a newsagent with a sad tuna sandwich being the sole provision on offer. It tasted good.

Olde and quaint are the undisputed themes of the local architecture (the gap in the house below was for the horses and coach to drive through).

With the occasional impressive facade thrown in to make unsuspecting peasants quake in their hobnail boots

There are old buildings, and then there are OLD buildings

And just plain bizarre buildings

The path took me up hills, through woodland, along streams, fields, roads, and up more hills. I kept visualising my peers of just about any part of history before a certain Mr Henry Ford and how feet were their only method of travel.

My shadow got longer and longer, and the sun started sinking over Wales

Eventually, at around 8pm, I found the busy road Jess and I had left Car A at 11 hours previously. The lack of landmarks meant I inevitably traced the road away from the car for a good 10 minutes before realising my mistake and trudging back, headlights screaming past, until the comforting, comfortable sight of the old Honda came into view.

Stats for the day (and reason to eat Burger King with impunity):

58,000 steps

2898 kcal

33.12 miles

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Gail's trusty pedometer for reminding me so regularly how much further I have to go!

Thanks to Jess's taxi service, stretching advice, and 'Mexican Week' culinary wonders to inspire me and keep me simultaneously supple and well nourished (schucks).

Thanks also to Jess for the temporary loan of her personal blogosphere

Many, many thanks to the generosity of all Horns and associated international sponsors! (And to Grandpa Huber – I hope the offer of the loan of your walker is for real – I'm going to need it!)

If you have any friends who would be willing to sponsor the good cause, here's a reminder of the links and the charities:

http://www.justgiving.com/dhltsa

http://www.justgiving.com/dhlgosh

(Mark heads off tomorrow. The walk itself is Thursday, Friday, Saturday, with Mark returning on Sunday. The rest of his practice walk blog posts will continue while he's away - so stay tuned! -Ed.)

Adventures in Preserving 4 and 5: Plum Jam and Gingered Courgette/Zucchini Jam

The next two jams I tried (a couple of weeks ago) I had full recipes for - from the preserving course.

The first is a plum jam recipe. I used three types of plums:


And then did the usual boiling and sugaring and boiling:



And it ended up as jam!



The other recipe I wanted to try was demonstrated at the preserving workshop day. It's called "Gingered Courgette Jam" which for some reason does sound better than "Gingered Zucchini Jam." For some reason, it feels like it would be normal to make a jam out of courgettes, but not out of zucchinis, even though they're exactly the same vegetable.

Anyway, we got to taste some on the workshop day, and it was pretty good - almost like candy, actually, because of the ginger. And I had a couple of courgettes that I had grown (yay!) that were getting a bit too big to eat normally, so I thought it was worth a try, especially since it was enough to make half a recipe - not a whole one, which I thought might be too much.

So you start out by peeling and grating the zucchini/courgettes and ginger - which is what turned out to be the most time-consuming part, since I don't have a food processor (poor me):



And then you do the normal boiling and sugaring and boiling:



And it also ends up as jam.

We haven't tried the courgette one yet, but I have been eating the plum jam, and it's pretty good. I tried the variation that uses orange juice and some nutmeg, which gives it a nice flavor.

Here they all are, plus two bottles of the previously mentioned shrub. I'm now up to four bottles total of shrub, having finished off my second batch this last weekend.


So not a bad output, considering I'm brand new to it, and not taking it too seriously. And it's not just about jam, as you'll soon see...