mutteringhousewife

Oh hi. It has been a while, hasn’t it. I did start this blog as a housewife, and through the usual series of life’s twists and turns I now have a secure full time job that I enjoy very much, but doesn’t leave me much time for blogging.

Until now. The Commander has had a bit of time on his hands this year, and wanted to go on An Adventure. The fact that I am in full time employment with limited annual leave did cramp his imagination a bit, until he discovered a travel agency that specialised in big walks. To cut a long story short, we are booked to walk across England in little under a week. And I am currently at the airport, wearing my very well broken in hiking boots, waiting to get on a plane to London.

The deal is that we rock up to St Bees, I want to say next Thursday, meet the travel agent human, hand over our big bags, and start walking. Their side of the plan is that they’ve booked us into a series of pubs in a chain across England lying on a walk devised by an eccentric character called Alfred Wainwright that he named the Coast to Coast walk. They’ll take our bags from pub to pub, and we take our day packs and rain gear and get ourselves from pub to pub on foot, over the course of eighteen days. And I rather thought that would make a nice series of blogs, and save me the trouble and expense of having to tell everyone what we’ve been up to, and save friends and family the bother of trying to look interested.

Eighteen days! That sounds like a lot of walking. If you’ve met The Commander, you’ll realise that we’ve been in training for this for at least six months. In all weathers, over as rough terrain as he can find in Sydney, and never the same track twice, except for our local Bay Run walk (about ten kilometres round trip from our place), with which even I was getting bored these last couple of weeks. So even though I think the first couple of days (mountains in the Lakes District) sound challenging, it should be enjoyable rather than taxing.

So here I am at the airport, fairly sure I’ve packed all the essential walking gear – excellent socks, ankle braces, knee support strap, contact lenses, rain gear, walking poles, a collection of water bottles, my leggings collection. Sparkly eyeliner, obviously. I’m wearing the boots, and carrying the day pack. My knitting got through security, so I won’t be bored on the plane. I think all I need to do now is go get myself one last salad and fill up my water bottle with lovely Sydney water and try not to think about the forever chemicals that come with it for free.

There might be an adventures in London post before we start walking, but I don’t want to promise anything. I’m out of the habit!