A couple of months working on Duke of Edinburgh Expeditions as an instructor and assessor, then four days walking along Hadrian's Wall meant I spent rather a lot of time outdoors, and lots of nights sleeping in a tent. Great Stuff.
August saw me back at home in Somerset and back in the classroom working with students at Sherborne International on their summer school programme. With only weekends and evening free I still managed to get out walking and clocked up just over 100 miles. Lots of short evening and early morning walks with the dogs, and a
handful of long walks.
I had some problems with my car and left it in the garage in Bruton, walking 6 miles home, then back again the next day to collect it, then again the next week. I linked together a few familiar paths at each end, with new paths in between. As usual I found lovely countryside, now back to green again after a very dry and brown July, and some new views of familiar landscapes.
I met some lovely dairy cows, their milk destined to produce
Godminster Cheese.
I also managed an extremely wet walk, from Cadbury Castle one of the supposed sights of Camelot with Bruton Walkers.
The human walkers moaned, then laughed at the weather, after all what's the point of waterproofs if you don't wear them in the rain. The dogs didn't seem to notice the weather and had a great time roaring around.
I needed to practice walking on a bearing, finding myself at the edge of a large grass field with no hedge or trees in sight. It was rather fun to do this, you learn these skills and its good to practice, this was hardly a life or death situation, but being able to walk on a bearing could get you out of one.
Looking forward to September, on the 5th I head north to Edale by train to get to the start of the Pennine Way with the intention of walking along it, to the end 268 miles later.