Happy New Year from Christine, David, Artie and Riley! Here’s hoping 2019 is a year full of love, laughter and friendship!
It’s taken a while but below find the annual video sharing the most memorable moments of 2018. Here’s hoping 2019 will just be as wonderful!
I want to thank you all for coming on the journey with us!
Thanks for all your support,
Christine x
Welcome to my second #walk1000miles post!
2018 has been the second year I’ve participated in the initiative by Country Walking Magazine. My story was even a feature for their 2018 campaign. You can read all about the positive affects of walking on mental health by reading my post here.
For the past 12 months, I’ve been busy counting my miles daily and tallying my weekly totals. I’ve counted workouts on the cross-trainer, walks to work, exercising the family dog, Riley and of course holidays and days out with David! My overall mileage for 2018 has been a wonderful 1,871 miles. Beating my 2017 total, by over 500 miles!
As in 2017‘s post, I’ve split the year into seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter, and give the miles for each of the three months. It will be good to see how different my mileage accumulates over the year and how it differs per season and against 2017’s totals.
So without further ado, let’s begin with my favourite season of all, spring!
Spring: (March, April and May)
I don’t know about you, but 2018 has simply flown! Spring seems such a long time ago! However I can still remember the excitement I felt when the first buds in the yarden began to sprout and the days lengthened. During this quarter there were many days out to the Lake District. As well as walking Riley at local parks and nature reserves. I even completed my 500 miles by April!
Total miles for spring= 481. That’s 150 miles more than the spring of 2017! Riley accompanied me on 133 miles this quarter.
Summer: (June, July and August)
Summer 2018 was simply fantastic! I had so much fun! I saw and shared with David (and you) so many diverse experiences. June for me is always about The Wildlife Trusts‘ 30 Days Wild, and what a wild month it was! David and I visited many new nature reserves and even managed to fit in a few days holiday to the Lake District. I swam in cold tarns and walked alpacas. In July, David and I saw art trails of robins and bees in Nottingham and Manchester. I completed the #walk1000miles challenge and my friend Jennifer visited from California.
Total miles for summer= 442.
I was surprised that 2018’s summer miles were lower than spring’s! However my overall total for summer was higher than 2017’s. I probably would have achieved more miles if it wasn’t for the heat. 2018 saw the NW of England roast under a heatwave for about two months (May-July). It was glorious to feel the heat and sunshine whilst sunbathing, but not good for walking! I really need better footwear for the summer months. Many blisters are not conducive to walking miles!
Autumn: (September, October and November)
Though I’d completed this years #walk1000miles by the 13th July, I decided to continue to count my miles and see what mileage I’d achieve by December 31st. Autumn is a beautiful season and I managed to enjoy the changing colours by getting out more. I got off the bus earlier, then walked 40+ minutes to work. I took Riley on more walks to the local park and spent four days touring the Highlands of Scotland.
Total miles for autumn= 479 miles.
I manged to walk 100+ miles more than Autumn 2017! Perhaps walking the two miles to work everyday helped? I also discovered that the totals for spring/autumn were once again similar both in 2017 and 2018!
Winter: (December, January and February)
I was determined to make the most of the daylight hours come winter. A 10 mile walk around Derwentwater in February helped kick start my #walk1000miles! David and I also went on many dog walks with Riley. Over the course of the year Riley clocked up a total of 285 miles, not bad for a 9 nine year old! Perhaps he can make 500 miles in 2019?
Total miles for winter = 469 miles. Surprisingly better than summer’s total!
Annual Total = 1,871 miles!
Achieving #walk1000miles in a year is greatly satisfying. My certificate and medal have pride of place on my gym’s wall.
#walk1000miles has a wonderful, supportive Facebook group. Through participation in this group my name was among the many others on the We Did 1000 Miles page of the January 2019 edition of Country walking Magazine. I also discovered that my story which featured as part of their website to advertise 2018’s challenge is still on their website for 2019 under the happiness tab. Which makes me happy indeed. 🙂
I was unsure whether to sign up for 2019’s challenge, however I decided to once again see how far I can walk in a year. Walking is such an easy, free activity, much underrated if you ask me. I will continue walking the miles I do and see how I go. How about you? Do you feel inspired to give the challenge a go?
If you fancy signing up, click the link below and join me and thousands more, walking that little bit more than we did last year!
https://www.walk1000miles.co.uk/
Thanks for reading, Christine x
I’m back to writing a Sunday Sevens, the wonderful series devised by Natalie at Threads and bobbins.
It was George on his gardening blog, here, who alerted me to this annual initiative, coordinated by Defra. The aim of this week (9th-15th July 2018) is to raise awareness of pollinators and help in sustaining their numbers by planting more flowers, cutting grass less and letting your garden grow wild!
The Yarden:
At the weekend we visited Rivendell Garden Centre, Widnes. I bought a beautiful delphinium and also managed to replace my salvia mystic spires. I was so happy, it’s the small things! Among the many bee species that visit the yarden, I spied a male early bumblebee enjoying the cat mint.
Common Frog
Later on in the week David and I had a surprise in the yarden. I had thought our tadpoles, who had seemed happy in our little urban pond, had sadly passed away. We had not seen any in or around the pond for weeks. However on pottering about the yarden David called me over excitedly and pointed to a frog clinging to the wall. I was amazed! One of our tiny tadpoles had grown and metamorphosed into a frog!
Hoodwinked:
This week David and I visited Nottingham to see their round of robins. (I tried to find the collective for robins, but there were numerous suggestions!) Once we had spotted 17 of the 33 we decided to have lunch at Sherwood Forest. I blogged about the day here.
Book I am reading:
The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne
The current book I am reading is The Ice Twins, a suggestion by my mum. She said it was a page turner. It is billed as a psychological thriller, based around the death of a twin girl, the other claims mistaken identity. Set among the highlands of Scotland, the plot follows a family who have been broken by the death of a child and an affair. They relocate to an isolated island in the hope of a new beginning. I doubt very much that will happen!
Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?
I broke the 1000 mile mark on 13th July 2018. I celebrated in typical Christine-style by taking a swim at Llyn Dinas, Snowdonia. I will write further on that adventure soon.
Celebrating at Llyn Dinas
So, that was my eventful week, how was yours?
Thanks for reading,
Christine x
My love for Wild in Art trails comes as no surprise, given the amount of art trials I have seen in past years. You can read about my colourful celebration of such art trails here. This year is no exception. I await (in)patiently for Manchester’s Bee in the City. It was seeing their Cow Parade in 2004 that started all this mad cap trail following!
At present Nottingham have a fun take on the Robin Hood connection to the city with their Hoodwinked trail. 33 colourful robin statues bring a splash of colour to the streets. The trail runs until 30th September 2018.
David and I drove the 2.5 (ish) hours from Liverpool to take in a visit. We parked at the Trinity Square car park, which at £4.40 for up to two hours I felt was a little steep. The city is compact and easy to navigate. A friendly gentleman offered us tips on how find all the robins, though we were only on a whistle stop tour. We managed to find 17 robins out of the 33, not bad for an hour and a half walking. Below is a collage of some of the robins we found!
I was happy to see that it was people of all ages who were looking out for the robins. It was nice to visit a city I have not been to previously, and would probably visit again if there’s another trail.
Have you visited Nottingham? What were your thoughts?
We decided to lunch at Sherwood Forest. How can we visit Nottingham without taking in the forest associated with Robin Hood? So we drove the 40 minutes from Nottingham to Sherwood Forest, where we paid a reasonable £3.00 for all day parking.
Sherwood Forest, though reduced by deforestation, housed some striking looking trees. We luncheoned surrounded by many oak trees and visited the Major Oak. Estimated at around 1,500 years old, it looked I thought, not much older than the Allerton Oak at Calderstones Park! We only spent an hour at the forest before we headed on our long journey home. There were many walking trails for visitors with more time. I would have liked to have walked further into the forest.
Have you visited Sherwood Forest? What were your impressions?
Thanks for reading,
Christine x
Christine Lucas 