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Our online scrapbook is
essential if we're going to remember where we've been and what we've seen. This is
because we've got the most appalling memories imaginable and would forget
everything in less than a week without a good scrapbook to put all of our
mementoes in. We've
already got loads of the old-fashioned, paper ones, but they
take up far too much room: the website also creates far less dust. 'Walking is Man's
best medicine' Andy started
hiking
at the age of around 11 or 12 when he was forced by the school against his will, up onto the
South Downs and later made to trudge up and down
rainy hills in Wales. This was back in the days
when schools were still allowed to kill you in any way they could think
of, without anybody being sued. However, despite the sadistic teachers, the
seemingly continuous downpours and
the howling wind: the wild beauty of the hills and mountains, the intense feeling of
freedom that scaling them awoke in him and the physical challenges involved in
doing it, developed into a real love for stomping around in the countryside.
Subsequent training in the
Scouts supplied the outdoor skills and experience to continue the hobby and in 1978
at the age of 16 he walked the 300 miles of the Pennine Way with a
school friend. It took over three weeks of wading through
knee-deep mud, over some of the harshest environments in Britain to reach the
end, and it literally
nearly killed him (hypothermia, a torn Achille's tendon and exhaustion). He doesn't have much recollection of
what they lived on, but it was most likely
tea,
biscuits and jam sandwiches. Several of our videos have turned up on TV, including Springwatch and several of the photos on our little website have also been published which shows that we must have been doing something right, on at least several occasions! When not wearing out boot leather he and Gill can instead be found tending to their garden, allotment and their thriving bee farm or burning rubber on their bike.
On teaming up with Andy
in the first year of the new millennium, Gill was immediately squad marched
along the treacherous
coastal path on the Isle of
Man, dragged kicking and
screaming along the
South Downs
Way and even forced up Snowden by the evil maniac.
Finally, after being pulled from her comfortable warm bed and tortured in this
way for months on end, she finally had to confess that she'd come to love it
too (Andy says its called
Stockholm Syndrome). Since then she's gone on to become a highly
experienced hiker in her own right and can now get out of bed on a Saturday
morning herself, without being pulled out by the ankle.
"If you pick 'em up, O Lord, I'll put 'em
down" 'Walking with a
friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light' |
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