Our walking
club will start the year with a walk in Durham and a meal at the
Seven Stars Inn at Shincliffe. We have planned walks led by various members of the club
and each of these will be based around themes ranging from fauna,
flora, woodland, fungi, local history and lead mining. The walks
will be timed to coincide with the seasons in order to take
advantage of our wonderful countryside.
Everyone is
welcome – we don’t do route marches. You will hardly notice who is
leading the walks. We take everyone’s ability into consideration and
we wait patiently for all to catch up and share the orchestra of our
beautiful rivers, woods, wild flowers, wildlife and meadows. We can
claim that our reasons for walking are to keep fit and healthy,
comradeship, a love of nature and history, temporary freedom from
the stress of work and so forth.
Our walking
club is not a panacea against all the evil in the world; we cannot
remain unaffected by events at home and abroad. Our eternal hope is
that each and every one of us can find some experience worth
preserving in our wonderful countryside – perhaps our walks together
will, in some small way, enrich our lives, improve our understanding
of nature, empower us with the knowledge of who and what we are in
the grand scheme of human evolution.
For myself,
I often walk in the footsteps of my lead mining ancestors, whose
lives have been revealed to me during my genealogical research. I
experience the same song of wind in the trees, the wildness of boggy peat moorland,
the music of our rivers, the scent of our woods and meadows, the
wild flowers and animals. I cannot hope to experience the harshness
and tragedy of life in the 18th and 19th centuries – we have come a
long way in terms of lifestyle and technology. I can only strive to
share some part of their environment.
During
the short existence of our walking club we have seen members come &
go. One dear lady died and some have been forced to stop due to ill
health. New members have come along and all have been touched by the
hand of nature. As we walk together each month I experience a
comradeship that I never knew existed. I have spent a lifetime
travelling, often alone. Life is short and must be grasped with all
the power of our beings. Our health is never to be taken for granted
- comradeship is what makes our lives worth living.
Perhaps
some of us have lost something of the simple wonder of nature during
our busy lives. If I have been deficient in one of life’s most
delightful experiences then I am undergoing a modern renaissance; an
understanding of nature, a quest for knowledge, a spiritual
awakening. I cannot guarantee that your lives will be changed (some
walkers have quietly confessed to me this very fact) but there will
be opportunities to appreciate and understand our rich countryside;
to converse with nature and one another, or not as you will, to
experience a beautiful contrast to our suburban existence, awaken
our senses and start a love affair with nature. All this for the
small cost of a share of the fuel for the drivers on the day!