So, Onward! Faced with the thought that my walking days were over and it was time to hang up my boots, I found it rather hard to grasp. It made sense that I hadn’t been right for years, I was always hit hard with chest infections and colds but it felt as though it was the end of the road for everything I’d known. I loved the outdoors and it was time to throw the towel in…
Cue a telephone call and visit to my GP (who couldn’t have been more upfront and honest with me – thank you!) and I felt knew me better than I knew myself, and so I was referred onto a mindfulness course. I am somewhat a skeptic about things that are woo, but I found myself taking to this guided meditation and the practice behind it, so this and the people around me certainly helped me through that dark lane, whilst some time away from work did wonders. At this time I was also looking for promotion or another role to develop myself , which came crashing down about my ears at interview – I was terrible and knew it, made all the more embarressing as I coach this in my current job.
With this break away from work, and with a need to not give up (or feel sorry for myself), I looked around for something to strive for, as I needed to be outside and working towards a goal each time. As I had walked a great deal in Wales, Scotland and England, I really wanted to continue this, and so set about wild camping on Dartmoor, the place I knew so well. As I was doing this, I discovered an iPhone app that listed all of the listed hills in Britain and Ireland, and as there seemed to be an endless list, I thought…why not? I knew my way around a map and compass, wasn’t daft in the hills (or so I hoped) and it was fitting that I would choose this as a way to escape from the daily grind. Plus, I would rather be up a mountain than sat watching the world go by. Easy choice…I would walk all the hills on that list in the UK until I couldn’t.
Walking with the Wolf 