Welcome AND I’LL BE HONEST…

OH BOY DID I grumble when my parents used to take me on walks. What was the point when the destination was home anyway? Will there even be a shop? Can I at least take my airgun? Well how about you go on this great adult time-waste then and I see what I can find in the high cupboard where the unopened biscuits are? I can see the same thoughts framed in my children’s eyes when I use my Exciting Voice to propose another adventure where, admittedly, our feet will be our chief means of propulsion. But I’m pleased to say whatever combination of force, bribery and fraud I end up employing to get us out the door, we’re almost always glad we went. Our walks have furnished us with some of our most treasured memories, most laughed-about pics and a sense of collective achievement and frame of happy (sometime hapless) reference. They’ve also been the scenes of bickering, nettle-stings and how-far- now slow-walking complaint marathons. But here’s the thing. When I recall the niggly bits, we don’t get annoyed again; when we recall everything else we do feel happy. For me, I’ve seen walking grow from its beginnings as a forced march into a huge, happy part of my life. For my kids, I don’t want to tell them how to feel or what to like – but I would love them to have that sort of radioactive bedrock of happy energy, of curiosity about the world and delight in its discovery that walking has given me. And I suppose what I’m also saying is, don’t waste time worrying about getting it right first time, or judging yourself against some perfect experience peddled by posters on the Tube or posters on Facebook. Family walks are like families themselves: messy, imperfect and some of the best bits are unplanned.