Walking Class Hero: True Grit
Welcome to Walking Class Hero a regular blog about walking and the walking environment. Whether you like walking on your own, with friends or in an organised group this blog will cover it. It’ll embrace walking in cities and towns and villages. Walking in the countryside and along the coast and up hills and down dales. Walking through parks and by rivers and across heath and down and moor. It’ll comment on public rights of way, access to open country, permissive paths, public urban space and countryside protection. Basically if you can walk there it’ll be in this blog
True Grit (Saturday/Sunday January 9/10)
With the UK still covered in a blanket of snow the news has been full of items about gritting – well more correctly a lack of gritting and the dwindling supplies of grit. (Who’d have guessed we’d all become such experts on the ratio of grit to salt to make it effective? Apparently 50/50 is best.) There’s even been a spate of stories about organised thefts of the stuff – my word. Anyway despite continued snowfall, walking went on in London. In fact people seemed desperate for something to do – something that didn’t involve being indoors.
On the evening of Wednesday 6 January (the night Arsenal cancelled their Premier game with Bolton) 20 hardy souls had turned up amongst the snow flurries for a short walk from Temple to Holborn. This was the first in a programme of January Wednesday evening walks put on by the Met Walkers (all led by me) and all starting from Temple station at 7 pm to help people stick to their New Year resolutions. (I’m getting into the swing of it by sticking to a 2 pint maximum on Wednesdays!) This was nothing to the turnout on Saturday 9 January at Richmond.
For a joint Met Walkers and Hampstead groups walk over 70 punters pitched up at Richmond station at 10.30 in the morning. A heaving mass of 4+ layered, gore-tex wearing, gloved and hatted walkers with breath steaming from their mouths. (Judging by this assembled throng ear muffs were the gift of choice from friends and family. Socks are so last decade!) There were members from other local groups (all their walks had been cancelled) itching to get out. The 10 mile circular stroll was well appreciated by all who turned out and everybody thought a snowy Richmond Park was magical. I know we’re all getting mightily tired of these ‘unprecedented’ sights that now come with each day of snow but Teddington lock was frozen – I didn’t expect that and don’t s’pose that’s been seen since the big freeze of 1963 when all the canals froze over.
Of course this time of year ain’t just about walking it’s also about overindulging – I’m such a traditionalist me. Have you ever wondered why ‘a hair of the dog’ actually works? Well those who know me will be quick to tell you I’m no scientist but here’s what I’ve read. You know that unpleasant effect of vertigo you get when try to stand up and walk around when you’ve got a bad hangover. Well that’s caused by too much alcohol in your bloodstream. (So far so simple and so obvious). Your organs of balance are 3 semicircular canals roughly at right angles to each other filled with fluid located in your inner ear. That’s your inner ear not your inner child – easy mistake to make. One canal detects rotation of the head round a vertical axis, another nodding movements and the final rotation from your nose to the back of your head. Still with me? On a normal alcohol-free day the density of all this fluid is similar to that of your blood. And this is important because the correction data needed to balance changes when the density of this fluid changes. As alcohol levels rise this fluid becomes diluted. Your clever old brain then compensates and makes you dizzy. Taking another drink dilutes the blood and keeps you, quite literally, in balance. Cheers everyone.
Our final walk of this blog went from Blackheath to Woolwich via Oxleas Woods and Shooters Hill. A much more normal 17 turned up for this one. Regular readers will know that despite living in the heart of suburbia in south west London and being a lifelong Chelsea supporter I’m a sarf east Londoner through and through. (You can take the boy out of Lewisham but… ) The heath was nice and snowy but we’re all pretty tired of these snow covered scenes now I guess. Oxleas Woods is one of the few remaining areas of ancient deciduous forest and it dates back over 8,000 years. Shooters Hill rather unromantically gets its name from the archery that used to go on there. In time honoured tradition we finished up in the Wetherspoons in Woolwich and I trekked back across London using the DLR as the overground was closed due to engineering work.
The next Wednesday January evening strolls both start at Temple at 7 pm and will last a couple miles or so. (About an hour.) Everybody is welcome. Please check out the Facebook page of a new group recently setup – Capital Walkers. If for some strange reason you fancy seeing the dull prosaic work of the Ramblers in a meeting the Inner London Area AGM takes place in the Methodist International Centre, 81-103 Euston Street at 6.30 pm on Thursday 11 February 2010. All members welcome though I’m thinking all you British Sea Power fans will be off to see them play in Kingston.
More information
o Ramblers Business Plan 2009/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PWPm8-aLKw&feature=player_embedded
Useful links:
o The Ramblers http://www.ramblers.org.uk/
o Capital Walkers http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=183092363750&ref=ts
o Grit and salt supplies http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=7192206
o Capital Walkers on Facebook http://www.facebook
o Metropolitan Walkers http://www.metropolitan-walkers.org.uk/
o Hampstead Ramblers http://hampsteadramblers.org.uk/
o Inner London area http://www.innerlondonramblers.org.uk/
o MUJI earmuffs http://preview.tinyurl.com/ykuzuzy
o Hangovers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangover
o Oxleas Woods http://preview.tinyurl.com/4ns75
o DLR http://preview.tinyurl.com/5jhezo
o The Great Harry http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pubs/the-great-harry
o Methodist International Centre http://www.micentre.com/
o British Sea Power http://www.britishseapower.co.uk/live
Listen to:
Snow Patrol – Up To Now
Belle and Sebastian – The Fox In The Snow
British Sea Power – Victorian Ice
Squeeze – Footprints In The Frost – Saturday Sequence 19/10/1989
Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby
- This entry was posted on: Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
- Filed under: Blogs
- Tags: Capital Walkers, hair of the dog, New Year Resolutions, snow, Walking Class Hero
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