Get Up Go Outside

Change of Plan

I woke up yesterday morning to the most beautiful wintery mist. Thick and deep across the landscape, post-bonfire night. I really wanted to get out to take some photos but didn’t have time so missed out on this occasion.

When I woke up this morning I was hoping for the same weather, the same mist, hiding the long flat landscape of Leicestershire. After waiting around for half hour, sipping coffee and scrolling through Instagram, the sun eventually started to rise, and I looked out of my window to see no mist, but only grey overcast clouds. Far from ideal conditions to go out and photograph.

Cup of Tea Before Work

When I first made this website, I wanted to help guide other people on how they can spend more time outdoors. I shared this post about small changes you could make daily to get more time outdoors and in nature. One of those changes was taking your first-morning tea or coffee outside.

Bradgate Park: A Video

When I first started this blog, it was to hone my skills as a beginner writer. I wanted to develop my own ability, to the point where I would be happy to share my own stories with people, and hopefully, they might enjoy reading them. I thought writing was the process I wanted, but I’ve come to realise that it is merely one format of telling a story, and storytelling is what I enjoyed most.

Peddars Way & Norfolk Coast Path: Part 3

Norfolk Coast Path (cont)

When we sat and ate breakfast the next morning, we planned out the day as we normally would.

Clear the last couple of miles into Cromer. (3 Miles)
Get to Mundesley for Lunch (13 Miles)
Walk as far as we can before stopping (20ish Miles)

The problem is it’s hard to plan the day when you’re travelling. Some days your 10 miles in before you stop for 2nd breakfast, other days it gets to lunch, and you’ve only done 5 miles. Today would be closer to the latter. We took a slow walk down to Cromer, walking poles finally out to try and take some of the weight off my feet.

Peddars Way & Norfolk Coast Path: Part 2

Norfolk Coast Path

We got up early again the next morning and packed away well before 7 AM. After a quick stop off at the village hall to make the most of their picnic bench and running water whilst eating breakfast, we walked back down the road, past the pub from the night before, and finished the final mile down to the beach, and the end of Peddars Way.

Peddars Way & Norfolk Coast Path: Part 1

Introduction

Each year I try to get away for a week or two, seeking adventure in places I’m yet to travel to. From cycling to Paris, to camping up mountains. Thanks to travel restrictions over the past couple of years, those weeks of escaping and seeking out adventure have been dialled back to a more local kind of trip. Two summers ago, I walked from my house to a nearby national park, and with it came a love for distant hiking. Wainwrights Coast to Coast walk across England followed the year after. Those travel restrictions are gone now, but I’ve come to enjoy the simplicity of putting on a backpack and walking through the English countryside.

Just Do Nothing

If you are anything like me, then it’s far too easy to get distracted these days. I can’t even sit and watch TV without checking my phone every couple of minutes and playing my Switch at the same time. Things get so busy, and there’s so much craving for your attention, that even 5 minutes sitting doing nothing feels like a waste of precious time.
But is it? I rush from post to post all day, every day and it’s not like I get to the end of every day satisfied I’ve spent every second productively. Even those times when I am ‘doing’ something. Is it always a productive use of my time? 2 hours into a YouTube binge-watching rock-climbing tutorial I could probably argue this is less productive than just going out climbing.

Climbing

I started this blog to document my attempts to try and spend more time outside in the hope that it might inspire some other people to do the same. It’s ironic then that I have taken a sport, invented as a means of outdoor exploration, and started participating in an indoor version of it.

Escape to the Hills

Life has slowly gotten in the way again. Busyness creeps up on you, and without realising you are merely bouncing from one task to another without stopping between. So, when offered two days off work for a bank holiday, I decided to make the most of it, packed my tent into the boot of my car and disappeared to the Peak District.