The Fat Bloke Diaries

Episode Forty-Nine – Misty Mountain Hop

There are many ways of keeping fit. Some run road races. Some pump iron in a gym. Some step on white plastic planks in front of their TVs. And others ramble.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has read my work to find that I’m a rambler. I love being outside, the breeze in my (short grey) hair, the sights and sounds of nature all around. Even the stench of the wild isn’t too bad once you get used to it. So a long weekend of hill walking in Derbyshire was a real treat for me.

The walks were easy and gentle; or they would have been if it weren’t for the steep hills, the sweating (through two shirts!), the shortage of breath and the scrambling over loose surfaces. For the uninitiated, that would be surfaces that are free with their stony favours.

We went up hill and down dale, quite literally. Just for fun we marched our way to the top of the largest peak in the area. The guide books may say different but the locals know it as a mountain, and my legs tell me to side with them. It was so steep that we gave mountain goats a leg up, and we were so high that we almost touched the face of God. I think that on that particular day He must have been under his sun lamp, because it was scorching up there.

We took a few moments at the summit to look down on the circling crows and paragliders and take in the beauty of the rolling countryside that stretched in all directions. It was so stunningly gorgeous that even the huge cement factory smack bang in the middle of it didn’t spoil the view. Well, not too much. After a gentle walk along a ridge to the next hilltop we began our descent, and that’s when things began to go literally, but most of all figuratively, downhill.

The path back home started off easy enough, passing through meadows that couldn’t have been more perfect if they’d had a singing, spinning nun in them. But then the track lead us into a limestone gorge that became narrower and narrower as it got steeper and steeper. Then it took a rather more interesting turn when a small stream flowed into it.

I’ve mentioned before how I don’t cope too well with slippery surfaces, so a steep stream bed covered with loose, lichen-covered rubble was never going to be my footpath of choice. Every bad writer yearns for the opportunity to use the cliché ‘raging torrent’ when describing running water. I’m still waiting, because this was a babbling brook at best, but it still cut steeply and sharply down the valley, and it was our only way home.

The sun was high, my pack was heavy (due to my Beloved’s many unwanted extra layers) and our isotonic drink supply was getting dangerously low. In fact the main source of liquid was my over-worked sweat glands. That is, if you don’t count the stream, which by now had become ankle deep.

With the sheep looking down on us suspiciously from the sides of the gorge, I was starting to feel like a character from an old ‘Commando’ comic book. Was it just me or did that innocent “Baa” sound curiously like “For you, Tommy, ze war is over”?

The next half hour were the longest thirty minutes of my weekend. Before I knew it I’d developed comedy legs like Scooby-Doo on roller-skates. I was slipping everywhere and more than once I relied on the stability provided by my hiking pole. Laugh if you will, but I’d rather look like a doddery old man with a walking stick than be a doddery old man in traction. Hiking poles (which are really walking sticks for the young and trendy) are great for helping you up and down the countryside, but terrible for the re-enactment of the classic Ben Kenobi – Darth Vader scene. For a start they don’t hum or glow like lightsabers. They also snap far too easily when fencing with them and they attract sniggers and pointy fingers. So I’m told.

A series of involuntary vocalisations rang out as my feet took on a life of their own. Cries of ‘Oooh’, ‘whaaah’ and the always hilarious ‘whoops’ all bounced off the canyon walls as we descended deeper and deeper. It was dangerous and it was more than a little scary but, astoundingly, I never fell. Eventually the promise of a hearty (and heart-damaging) meal in a local pub urged us down and the walk / climb / scramble was eventually deemed a great success, as should any yomp in the country that doesn’t end with me breaking an ankle, being mangled by a combine harvester or being eaten by wolves.

If it weren’t for the aching in my knees I wouldn’t know that I’d had any exercise at all, in the same way that you wouldn’t know you were in the country if it weren’t for the smell of the animals and their leavings, the constant rumble of distant tractors, and the inflated prices at the local shops. Perhaps they noticed that we weren’t local people? What at first seemed to be a quaint little country town – albeit one stuck in the 1950s – turned out to be a well-honed tourist trap. My wallet haemorrhaged money the whole time we were there.

It was a great weekend, but there was just one problem. The combination of fresh air and exercise doesn’t half build a more-than healthy appetite. Even with all the almost constant exercise I came home heavier than when I left.


© Shaun Finnie 2009

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