Walking Round In Circles Close To Home

Tags

Adventure, Blogging community, Hiking, hobbies, Inspiration, local, Mental health, Motivation, Street, Travel, Walking, Well-being

Exploring the urban landscape

I’m still having to stay close to home as I’m running errands for family members in different households who’ve caught Covid. It’s meant that I’ve had less time to get into the countryside, so I’ve had a new idea as to how I hike for the time being.

The idea is partly inspired by two influences: Alastair Humphreys, who did a hike around the circumference of the M25 in his book ‘Microadventures’; plus, it’s a revamping of the urban hikes I did during the first lockdown.

Recently, I was looking at a map of my hometown, Maidenhead, and worked out I could do circular walks of different lengths. Although these will be mainly urban hikes, it means that I can still be close to family. So far, I’ve created a two mile, four mile and six mile walk.

I did the six mile walk today. The accompanying photos are from that walk.

Spring is beginning to blossom

Then, when I got home, I decided to see how many miles the circumference of Maidenhead would be. I measured that out by using pins and string, and measured out the distance in accordance with the map scale. That totals approximately 11.5 miles. With the almost two miles it takes to get to the edge of town and back that would make a fifteen mile walk, which I’m planning to do sometime before Easter.

Pins and string – there’s the thing!

On these walks, I try to counter the noise of passing traffic and trains by deliberately seeking out the sights and sounds of nature in gardens or small stretches of woodland.

So, whilst these urban hikes won’t fully immerse me in nature, they’ve given me the creativity and stimulation to keep going in preparation for when I get back out into the countryside.

Hope you all have a great week. 😊

The Power Of Nostalgia

Tags

blogging, Blogging community, Childhood, Comics, Creativity, Dreams, Fantasy, Fun, hobbies, Subbuteo, writer's block

The last few weeks had been a bit odd for me. My creativity had been stifled. Sometimes life gets in the way, and I need to reset. Thankfully, I had some holiday due from work, so I used it to visit my brother in Cheshire. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

My brother surprised me when he got out his old Subbuteo set from his loft. I spent hours on end playing this tabletop soccer game in my bedroom as a teenager. Now, here I was again revisiting my youth. My brother beat me 1-0 in the game we played, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were kids again having fun.

On another day, we visited the town of Stockport. Here, I found a comic book store that stocked old copies of my favourite comics I’d read growing up. Normally, the comic book stores I visit are full of Marvel and DC Comic titles, as well as manga and other publications. They’re all great, but here for the first time ever I found titles such as ‘Buster’ and ‘Whizzer and Chips’ – firm British staples of my childhood that are sadly no longer published. Suddenly, I was transported back to Saturday mornings in the mid-80s when I’d run down the local shops and buy a big pile of comics and read through them again and again before school came round again on Monday.

I bought a few copies, and have been laughing my head off ever since.

Comics were so instrumental in me wanting to become a writer as they opened up endless worlds of storytelling and possibility to me. It was good to reminisce about this.

The result of all this is that the power of nostalgia has fuelled my creativity again. I’ve now got a pocketful of ideas for short stories that I’ve begun working on. Plus, I’ve also got a new tactic if I get writer’s block again.

If you’re creativity is lacking, remembering the hobbies you had a child could be one way to help you.

I hope you all have a great and creative week. ☺️