Issue #52 - Join Us On A Christmas Day Walk

A short video, some photos and some words from the festive season

Greetings! We hope the festive season is treating you well? The weather here has been decidedly un-christmassy. Or maybe it’s been very christmassy. It always seems to be mild, wet and windy at this time of year doesn’t it? Either way, it has not been conducive to taking long hikes in the mountains or cold swims in glassy lakes.

Low clouds shroud the wasdale scree cliffs on Christmas Eve

One of my least favourite things about the festive season is the amount of rust that tends accumulate - a kind of sluggishness and itchiness that gnaws at me from the inside out. We have always tried to rally against the enforced hibernation that accompanies the Christmas holidays. One year we walked 20 km on Christmas Day from our woodland home along the South Downs Way to get to my family’s house for Christmas lunch. We did the same again a few years later but carrying Benji on our backs when he was two years old. Many of our Christmases in the woods involved cooking outside on fire. Other years I have insisted on surfing on Christmas Day. And there was the year we lived in Hokkaido, Japan - our only white Christmas and one we spent snowboarding.

A few frames from over the festive season

This year the stormy weather forecast prevented us from making any grand plans, but heading outside was always going to be part of our Christmas Day. We live surrounded by an abundance of places suitable for small adventures, so we donned waterproofs, packed snacks and headed up to the top of a local crag to let the mischievous wind sharpen our spirits and blow away the cobwebs.

Here’s a little video of our walk. The music is me on guitar playing something akin to the Vince Guaraldi Trio version of O Tannenbaum from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Please excuse any bum notes - I only just figured out how to play it in time for Christmas!

I am generally not a fan of New Year, but the end of the calendar year and start of a new one is a useful frame onto which we can pin future hopes and plans.

Me and Emma typically try to write down ideas for work related projects at this time of year. It feels like we’re in a good place to make some new things happen, but we’re lacking a little focus and direction. Perhaps we’ll share our ideas here over the next couple of weeks. We’d love to hear your ideas and plans too…

Well, here’s hoping all your plans and schemes come to fruition and that the holiday season has been restful and restorative!

With warmest wishes from the three of us,

Andrew, Emma and Benji

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