Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

After last weekend’s bout of madness on the web hosting side of things, this place is more or less back together again. Along the way, there may have been a lot of poking around backups to get things sorted but there are also were reminders of places where I haven’t been for a while as various entries saw reinstatement. In some cases, I ended up asking myself if it really was that long ago when I last was in some areas. The Brecon Beacons is one such hill wandering destination that hasn’t been savoured for quite a while and Pembrokeshire and Perthshire fall into the same category as does Galloway. Maybe I should poke around here more often whenever I run out of ideas though the likes of TGO should keep replenishing them, especially as I am catching up with a few issues of the magazine at the moment.

These inadvertent reminders have had me recalling how things were when I first started out blogging and how far things have moved since then; those early postings were more pithy and there may a point in returning to a little bit of that, especially if it means that you hear from me more often. There was a lot of talk about motivation and hibernation even in those days and those haven’t gone away though interruptions by work and family life make their intrusions known too. In one respect, seeing what I have already written should stop me repeating myself too often but being confronted by unfinished business is another counterpoint to those occasions when it is too easy to say that I have seen enough of hill country. After you, there always are new sights to see even if it is different light falling on a familiar location.

While the weather did its best yesterday to lure us into thinking that a heatwave was in progress, today has proven that it wasn't to last long at all. In fact, there's a stiff northeasterly wind to take the edge of the temperatures. While some may bemoan the cooling down, it does make things better for those who plan enjoy the outdoors in a more active way. This evening saw me take my bike for a short cycle and that wind certainly didn't make temperatures feel at all icy and I wasn't long getting up some heat of my own making.

Before all that, the latest issue of TGO arrived on my doormat this morning and it looks as if the magazine has got a dramatic overhaul. To someone like me who is amazed by what is being done to computing interfaces in the world of technology, it was a reminder of the period of change through which we are going at present; I even spotted copies of TGO on a shelf in my local Sainsbury's too! Some changes have to be fought and these include the mad experiment that is onshore windfarm technology or daft political moves like selling off Forestry Commission land and other such crazy countryside-wrecking initiatives instated by our current U.K. government. However, some change require adaptation and even embracing. It might be said that the alterations to TGO are an example of the latter.

So TGO now sports a brighter look with the sort of full binding that we haven't it lost a few years ago in favour of using a staple binding, now the more expensive option if you believe the editor of Photography Monthly. That change in presentation brings bigger pages and larger photos. With regard to content, there seems to have been a wholesale reorganisation with Wild Walks coming near the back now. It does seem that much of the usual stuff is in there though you might wonder if it is in danger of getting lost given the other changes. However, there's now a hill skills section and Jim Perrin's column is a single page affair focussing on works of outdoors literature that have inspired him rather than a double page spread of his ruminations drawing on various works of literature. That distinction may no sound so clear but it is how I see it.

While witnessing a restyle like that done to TGO does make you wonder if it is in danger of losing its soul, it's in the reading that you only can assess matters such as that and I have yet to give this month's issue more than an initial inspection. Nevertheless, there seems to plenty of continuity in terms of articles on walking and gear reviews. Those devoted to the types of related matters such as a photo essay on Patagonia or an interview with a landscape painter are not all that new to the magazine either. Big rearrangements can unsettle us but it does seem that nothing has been lost along the way in this case. Maybe I need to get reading and add to my list of trip ideas then…

Yesterday evening and overnight, a white blanket arrived in and around Macclesfield. A company Christmas night out meant that I was out in Manchester to see the white stuff blanketting there and Stockport too. Again the south of England seems to have been affected too with Twitter awash with transport companies telling what services are running and where. However, it seems that hardly anywhere has escaped with Wales and Scotland seeing some too.

There was a time when this sort of weather was enough to have me out doors pottering over the white coverings but it doesn't seem to hold the same appeal for me these days. Was it last winter's snows that broke the spell? Prior to that, snow was a short-lived visitor that never satisfied my curiosity and was enough to lure me out of doors, even to pace over local paths. Now, it seems that there is a feeling of extra effort required to get about instead, not that I don't have the ability of the kit to be able to get where I want to go.

All of this has me wondering if the same sort of becalming has affected my hillgoing. It's easy to point out causes such as changing job, having busy working weeks, not getting alluring weather or being tired at weekends but there may be another cause: have I more than sated my hill country appetite? With that in mind, it might be an idea to see if there are ways around this if it indeed is the cause.

Popping up accessible little hills might be one of them and my visit to Caer Caradoc last month was very much of this ilk; the fact that it wasn't crowded either helped for enjoyment of the walk. Ironically, this months issue of Country Walking has a feature on walking little hills and Hope Bowdler, not at all far from Caer Caradoc or Church Stretton, gains a mention in there as does Ysgyryd Fawr near Abergavenny. Maybe, creating a collection of little hills on my proverbial ideas shelf for easy planning could help to overcome any present torpor. This is far from list ticking because I like to go for walks to enjoy the surrounding countryside and not to say that I have "done" all the tops on a certain list or other.

The word "little" cropped again in my reading, this time in an issue of TGO that I was perusing on the way down to Oxford for a business trip. What I spied on those pages was a review of Cicerone's Scotland's Best Small Mountains. Since then, I have acquired a copy of the said guide as an eBook and discovered that smallness is in the eye of the beholder. With Country Walking, the sorts of heights are in the 300-500 metre category but many of the "small mountains" are in the 700-900 metre range. There are other contrasts too with some of the hills featured in the Cicerone book being out in pretty wild countryside, a counterpoint to the more genteel surroundings of those in the magazine. The guide starts in the northwest highlands of Scotland and works its way south and throws up a number of options worthy of exploring, some of which I have actually walked. Here, Ben Vrackie and Morrone come to mind but there are one or two others if my memory serves me correctly.

It might that both the magazine and the book are highlighting something of which I have grown short: ideas. There also is the need for time to ponder and plan such things, particularly for those longer excursions. Then, I might be able get things going again in 2011 but my ambitions are sure to be modest. After all, I have been developing a certain dislike for lofty terms like summits and peaks and now find referring to such things as tops to be much more amenable. Whatever I call them, there will be no obsession with these because it will be the walking, exploring and savouring that will matter above all else.

While on my recent trek to Wales, I spotted the quarterly Walking Wales Magazine. Confusingly, there also is a brochure published by the Welsh Tourist Board with almost the same title but that is a separate entity. While Scotland has TGO, Ireland has Walking World Ireland, and England has both Country Walking and Trail, Wales seems to have nothing apart from the slim compact periodical that I bought last Friday. However, it seems hard to get; the last time that I encountered an issue was while on an outing to Abergavenny a few years ago and I hadn’t seen one again until my visit to Dyffryn Ardudwy. Here’s a summary of what’s in the issue that I picked up (2007 Issue 2): feature articles on walking in the Wye Valley, in Gwydir Forest and among the Moelwynion, a "Great Walks" section sharing walks from around Wales, and news from the Welsh walking scene among other things. With content like this and an annual subscription costing only £12.95 and I must admit to being tempted, especially when I haven’t been seeing it on wider sale.

Having allowed it to lapse, I renewed my subscription to Country Walking, the magazine that let me in on places to walk in the British countryside, but this was not as easy as I thought it would be. These days, Emap is promoting direct debit payment for subscription to their magazines over and above credit card payment. Personally, I much rather the latter method because the idea of sending my bank account details over the internet doesn’t appeal to me, as secure as these things are these days. That said, the credit card option has become a little hard to find for Country Walking on greatmagazines.co.uk, Emap’s subscription store; in fact, I found it buried in the Spring Subscription Specials section after I had used the web address from the renewal reminder that they sent me. As appealing as the direct debit option is (cost spreading for the reader, continuation of revenue for the publisher), I still much prefer to pay by credit card.