pain Archives - helpful mammal

CCXXXII – Dingwall to Inverness

ON THE Fifth of May 2022, I breakfasted in Dingwall in the small but splendid hall of Tulloch Castle Hotel after a night quite unhaunted by the ghostly Green Lady, for whom the hotel bar is named (well, that is where its spirits are found). Indeed, the only tortured soles causing me apprehension were those on the bottom of my feet, which were making a valiant effort to inform me that my hiking shoes needed replacing. Not tomorrow or the next day but today. And yesterday would have been far better.

CXXX – Millom to Ravenglass

I SHOULD know better than to try to make plans. Staying overnight in Millom, for instance, so that I could just get up early and start walking. That was a plan right up until the day before, when my hotel turned out not to have an actual room for me to stay in.

Some last-minute problem-solving saw me staying at St Bees instead, which meant that my hotel was right next to a beach but not, unfortunately, next to Millom. My earliness would now be constrained by the railway and the rest of my plans would have to be somewhat fluid…

XCIX – Aberdaron to Porth Oer

MY 99TH walk was supposed to carry me from Aberdaron from to Nefyn. And technically it did but not quite as I’d intended. As it turned out, I abandoned the coast path after only nine miles and walked the rest of it by road. This was in no way what I had planned and I quickly resolved that I would return and complete the coast path route next time. So why did I do this?

Let me take you through it step by step…

Interruption Due to Injury

IT’S summer! I can tell because the rain is warmer! And that means it’s time to go and do more walking… but I can’t.

Last week, I found myself running for a bus, which was immediately followed by keeling over halfway between the start of the run and the actual bus, while clutching my knee and making ‘nnnng!’ noises. That weird tingly numb feeling that you get when your body is trying to hide what you’ve done from your brain started to spread through my leg.

XXIV – Swanage to Kimmeridge Bay

MY LEGS hurt. Actually, I think even the hurt hurts. But on balance, I’m feeling pretty good about it.

It’s been a while since my last walk on account of a number of factors including, but not limited to, being a bit busy, my finances dwindling and not wanting to climb hills in the heat of the summer.

XIII – Eastbourne to Newhaven

ON FRIDAY night I decided that I needed to boot up Cleopatra, the old Windows 98 machine that lives in a corner of my bedroom, because I needed something on her hard drive. Perhaps because she is ancient in computing terms, or perhaps because she is still sulking over her replacement, Pandora, she repeatedly refused to boot up. But I am a stubborn mammal, and helpful, and eventually I got my way.

X – Dungeness to Rye

IT’S been a few months since my last coastal perambulation and several things got in the way, not least of which were snow and Christmas. I’ve realised though that I’m spending too much time sat on my sofa in front of my computer. Thoughts along these lines were then greatly exacerbated by two visitations of pain, likely related:

Firstly, I did something to the muscles in my spine, an unpleasant development probably not unconnected with the fact that my battered old sofa has become less an item of furniture and more a torture device.