Welcome to the new website. The old website has been given a decent Viking funeral and I salute it that it has served me well for over a decade. After all, I have met and made life long friends with some of you who are reading this. I hope you enjoy navigating your way through the new site and if you are one of the people I haven't met yet, I sincerely hope that these pages inspire you to…
The saying that crops up a lot "it's the journey not the destination" is the walkers equivalent of "size doesn't matter". In this day and age I am amazed at how often this comes up, and we all have done this. It is said, "well, I've got a couple of hours I can do 4 miles inbetween the school run and lunch", as though this is another chore to get one through the day, ticked off, good for the health…
The only time I can claim to have been prescient is when I saw Boris Becker at 17 years old win Queens just before Wimbledon and I thought this youngster is going to win the main tournament against all the odds and of those in the know. But I never put a bet on him. A treble of reaching the semis, final and then win it outright would have bought me a house for a £30 bet. Gut instinct never…
Over the past three years I have reflected a lot on life. Many thoughts are possibly a result of my new life post-divorce and probably more to do with the present climate crisis and the ongoing pandemic. The overarching question has been “How can I attain happiness and achieve a life that is the most satisfying and in the knowledge that we all have a ripple effect through being interconnected with people and place?” With an ever growing certainty…
Whilst walking around the Penryn Tremough campus of the University of Exeter where I have my office, I have become aware of long patches of what is presently mud and flattened grass. They veer around objects, connect low walls, merge and unmerge and basically connect buildings, major paths and areas of heavier traffic. These are known as Desire paths or Desire lines where people ignore what has been laid down as a route, normally a concrete or brick path and…
Having spent the best part of the day in my office pouring over the miriad of concepts that help explore a sense of place which in my case involves researching traversing Cornwall over the past 200 years, I ventured out on this cold crisp calm evening to stretch my aching legs (aching to get out I’ll have you know). My 1000 word proposal for my PhD on walking could not improve any further tonight. The experience is the walk, and…
I talk a lot about multi sensory walks. However it struck me today on my walk into the office that one interpretation and a basic, almost childlike, enjoyment of a familiar walk that appeals to the "keen rotarian" in me is the mathematical variance one can make on a familiar walk that has resonance on other levels. In short the number of steps one takes or indeed the number of actual concrete steps up or down to precise points of…
I haven't written a blog for a couple of years! That's about to change. Having watched Cornwall close down in the main for business over the winter and open up now with Spring firmly established it occurred to me that it is blindingly obvious that nature doesn't close down for anything. It obligingly carries on undiminished, undisturbed, uninfluenced by anything but its own forces and innate raison d'etre for where we can only be voyeurs, commentators and observers of its…
Perceptions of place. I'll let you into a secret about being a guide. One of my jobs is not to say what I personally think but to give the opinions of the many who have been before. To unearth the myriad of facts, fables and personal stories and fine tune them into an interesting and entertaining sliver of information. Religion like politics can be a very emotive subject and likewise if you look at the many perceptions of what…
Anthropomorphising is dangerous for professional naturalists but I swear this hat is smiling. And so it should be, it is new, it is on Dartmoor and usually on my head! My new Tilley is hanging around on a hawthorn tree on Dartmoor. Alas my old Tilley has served me well but has gone to the great hat stand in the sky to serve Telly Savalas, Yul Brynner and that little bloke whom Benny Hill used to pat very hard. A…
Intensity: Wind: Light: Waves: Perfect insects’ final dance: Natures last throw of the dice: Birds knowledgeable, warbling their mournful autumnal tunes. Blink and you miss the subtlety of change; the announcement that we are in the death throws of growth and vibrancy and we are entering the time of decay, death and reinvention. If you are tuned in to natures warning then sit back and enjoy the intensity. Of crashing waves: of the last dance of butterflies that care not…
It’s hard, this job, working out where to walk for future clients. Believe that? No, I wouldn’t. A solo walk can be an introspective, selfish existence so one has to remember to have the critical eye, to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, so to speak which is, may I add, not to be recommended on a proper walk. I might for example not care so much about the steep terrain and mile after mile of mud and puddles but…