In calling this blog 'The Outdoorsy Type', I hope to blend my love of the outdoors with my love of reading and writing, my devotion to poetry above pretty much all else, and also my lifelong interest in following literary trails. Over the years, my interest in writers' lives has probably been more central to my sense of self than my taste for venturing outdoors, but this is changing, perhaps as a result of lockdown more than anything. Like so many of us, I found that my daily walk or run began to feel like so much more than a pleasant pastime, and more and more like a deep-seated need. In my youth, I enjoyed walking but was rarely the instigator. Because many friends, my husband and also his parents enjoy a "leg-stretch", pleasurable walking became a regular feature of my life too. And then there were the more dramatic and deliberate missions requiring planning and the right gear, long walks on which I really pushed myself - climbing Cader Idris in Wales, for example, some fifteen years ago now. I love this picture of me at its summit; having reached the top, I took my book from my bag and read peacefully for a while, a second-hand copy of Seamus Heaney's Preoccupations that I'd bought in Hay-on-Wye during the same trip if I remember correctly. I spent time gazing at the view too of course, but there was also so much contentment to be derived from reading in that spot at that moment.
Another gloriously memorable holiday from around the same time in my life - just before we became parents - involved us spending a few days walking in the Grand Canyon as part of an adventure that took us across parts of Arizona, Nevada and California. I remember how clear the skies were and how gilded the canyon looked during those early starts before the sun had too much heat in it. I recall my envy of more sure-footed creatures on the narrow paths (mules in this case, sheep on the Welsh trip). I began to understand how long strenuous walks are confidence-building and character-building. They leave me with a sense that the day could have been spent in no better way.
Much more recently, as lockdown restrictions began to loosen, I decided it was time to explore solo travel a little more, to experience more of an adult sense of agency as a walker, to travel under my own steam and at my own pace, to remember that walking doesn't have to mean following others (the child in me) or supervising, motivating and tending to others (the parent in me). In spring 2021, I planned two days of walking along the Dorset Coastal Path from Lyme Regis to Weymouth with an overnight stop in Bridport and then, for my final day, I turned inland and walked to Dorchester, almost fulfilling a long-held wish to visit Thomas Hardy's home Max Gate. (The house turned out to be closed but I marked the end of my expedition by catching a glimpse of it anyway before catching my train back to London.) It was an incredible and arduous few days, the first time I had needed to carry at all times everything I needed for my whole trip, and to deal responsibly with fatigue and blisters and rain and my own map-reading errors. I loved every second, so much so that I have an Exmoor-based walking tour booked for this spring.
In the New Forest a couple of weeks ago, it made me happy to hear from a fellow runner that a literary giant's grave - that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle no less - was ten minutes up the road in All Saints' Church in Minstead. A quick internet search informed me that this interment was in fact a 1955 reburial in the traditional recumbent position; Doyle had originally been buried upright in Crowborough in 1930, and I was reminded of his deep convictions regarding Spiritualism, and felt intrigued to find out more. A little more research this morning has taught me that just eight days after his death in July 1930, the Spiritualist Society hired the Royal Albert Hall and attempted to make contact with the departed author. His wife - also a Spiritualist - and his family members sat on the stage in the hope of communicating with him, an empty chair on the stage reserved for him should his spirit join them at the séance.
Finding landmarks and learning their stories are such powerful motivations for me when I travel. I realise I have spent the best part of my fifty years never turning down the chance to explore a bookshop or a bookish connection. As an English undergraduate, I sometimes felt that my interest in writers' lives was a little quaint and old-fashioned; I felt more at ease with this particular passion once I had become a schoolteacher of English, perhaps sensing more permission in that role to unleash my inner geek and unfashionable leanings. I was probably worrying unnecessarily then but, whether I was or I wasn't, this is not a worry that need preoccupy me now. We can put such heavy brakes on ourselves due to self-consciousness, to worrying overly about how we're being perceived. I hope I don't apply the brakes too much this year. I am setting out to cover many miles, and many pages too. I'm travelling for my own good though I won't always be a solo traveller. As Robert Frost says in 'The Pasture', "I shan't be gone long. - You come too."
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