TAKE A BIG LEAP!

2020 IS A leap year, which means we will have our first February 29th since 2016 – and that’s a fine excuse for an ‘extra’ walk.

Leap years are needed to keep our calendar aligned with the Earth’s slightly irregular revolutions around the sun. They were introduced by Julius Caesar in 46BC and fine-tuned by Pope Gregory XIII at the creation of the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

And according to ‘tradition’, the leap day is the only day when it’s acceptable for a woman to ask a man to marry her. (CW quite happily views it as anyone’s right to ask anyone to marry them these days; whether the person says yes is entirely their own lookout).

The leap day proposal is thought to date back to the 5th century, and a conversation between the two Irish holy figures who would later become known as St Patrick and St Bridget. It’s said that Bridget complained to Patrick that women had to wait too long for their suitors to propose. So they struck a deal: Patrick decreed that the quadrennial leap day would be the one day when women could take matters into their own hands, and pop the question.

So if you’re planning a proposal, why not make it part of a walk? We can suggest a few romantic locations:

Queen’s View on Loch Tummel (grid ref NN863597) was named by King Robert the Bruce for his wife Isabella of Mar, who adored its dreamy view of loch and mountain. The story of Lover’s

Leap in Dove Dale in the Peak District (SK145517) starts out sad – a girl throws herself from this rocky pinnacle, believing her betrothed has been killed in the Napoleonic Wars – but ends happily, as her skirts act like a parachute and she lives to discover he is still alive. Or think laterally and go for Yes Tor on Dartmoor (SX580901),

Chanctonbury Ring in Sussex (TQ139120) or Diamond Hill in Connemara. Maybe just avoid Point

Noe in Cornwall (SW782613) though.

“I prefer winter and Fall, when you feel the

bone structure of the landscape--the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits

beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show. ” ANDREW WYETH, ARTIST