Thirty-odd years ago now - too scary to contemplate - I read a book which totally inspired me. Not your usual Jane Eyre (although probably one of my favourites) or Wuthering Heights (never really did understand all that brooding passion at the time). But Turn Right at Land's End, John Merrill's account of his 7,000 mile walk around the coast of Great Britain.
Given my two loves at the time - walking and the seaside (we'll conveniently forget about The Jam and Squeeze for now) - this seemed like a Project To Aspire To.
And so the seed was sown and I spent a vast amount of time over the next twenty years plotting and planning and poring over maps, until I could put it off no longer, and I started it in 1999. For a few years, it was my entire focus and all my annual holidays and spare weekends were used up in the pursuit of a giant coastal walk and good steady progress was made. In 2004, with Andy being posted to Iraq though, I knew it was the appropriate time to step things up a gear. So I quit my job, our company flat, gave back my company car and bought Dizzy, my trusty campervan. And for the next six months, we were inseparable. We had amazing adventures in the summer of 2005, but, sadly, life and normality caught up with me and it was time to part from my beloved Dizzy and get back to the real world. So sad - I had loved being on Planet Susan for such a long time.
And, for the last ten years, I've made no progress whatsoever. That summer was so special that I knew I couldn't recreate it, so I basically just gave up, although knowing it would be something I come back to one day, quite possibly in retirement. However, that's all changed recently - I'm pushing 47 (for the fourth year running!) and I know it's Time To Get Back To It. I've been breaking myself in gently - I've had a week's walking in April 2016 and another two weeks planned in October, with possibly some long weekends in between.
When I started my walk back in 1999, it was well before technology and t'interweb, so I diligently typed up my walk diary for every day, took hundreds of photos, and put everything into scrapbooks - how very Victorian! When I spent the summer of 2005 walking, I was still keeping up to date with the scrapbooks, but, of course, I had a digital camera then. I had a laptop. I had days off to go to the library or internet cafes to email the diary to everyone. Progress! However, my laptop is long since dead and is residing in IT heaven, which means the only photos I have are the ones in my scrapbook. I have started to get some of them scanned in and am putting a selection on the blog, but this is slowing things down - I had no idea how much time I'd end up spending in Boots photographic department!
I had hoped to try and get my walk diary onto this blog before I started walking in April, but that hasn't happened. Given that I've spent over two hundred days on the walk so far, I probably should have started posting them at least a year ago to make sure they were all on the blog before I set off in April. I could have just started typing up the diary from April, but I want it all in one place. I'm a bit nerdy like that.
So, this is the New Improved Walk Diary - and I have to say that, as I've been typing old bits up, it's reinvigorated me - I can't wait to crack on. So I've now got to get my fitness up again, dig out all my old maps (and hope that the coast doesn't look too different to how it did ten years ago - I don't want to buy new maps if I can help it) and get all prepped.
Let it begin .....
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