Sunday 30 July 2017

Walkies


Sometimes I am amazed at the repetition of life. You know when you think "I've been down this road before". Well this time it is both literal and metaphorical in that I walked to get fit for my trekking in Nepal all those years ago.

Steep climb

On my way to the top


... and Gordon and myself at the top


Then walked to get fit for the Moonwalk in  2008

Some gear eh!

We had to wear a fancy bra and this was my idea of fancy!

Marathon walk starting at midnight now whose crazy idea was that?





Walking round Cumbrae Island
... and now here I am walking again. This time to get fit and for the chance to spend time with a friend in September as she comes over the border to Scotland as part of her Land's end to John o' Groats walk.

I have offered to walk 32 miles over a two day period on the Clyde Walkway and so far am increasing my fitness level incrementally every day.


 On one of my solitary walks round Cumbrae I realised that I had lost my identity as a fit woman. As a child and a teenager, I walked everywhere and thought nothing of it. As a teenager I played hockey, tennis, netball, skied and swam. Continued to ski and swim regularly in my 20s and 30s and learned to play golf and squash. Then in my late 30's something happened...

It wasn't just that I became ill... it was that I stopped thinking of myself as a fit person. She no longer existed...  and although since then I have repeated the walking to get fit for an occasion, I never took on the identity of the fit person just because!

So here I am, as they say fit and well, and living in gratitude for being given a chance to rediscover that woman I lost all those years ago. Welcome home Eileen... you have been much missed.