Footnotes

Meanderings we couldn’t fit into the issue, but which seemed terribly important at the time...

Sara Mattick, Editorial assistant

Miles walked this month: 83 In the immortal words of Bananarama, it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it and that’s what gets results. What a result! I’ve completed my #walk1000miles – if not in the way I’d have hoped. With four kids at three schools and a full-time job, opportunities to get out and explore are limited. Luckily, school holidays gave us the chance for bimbles on the beach and forest forages. Admittedly, I racked up a lot of my miles on the three flights of stairs between CW’s lofty HQ and the postroom, making sure all you lovely lot got your medals, badges and hats. But it did it for me and that’s the beauty of this, it was my own personal challenge and I made the rules! There’s nothing like achieving a goal to get the serotonin flowing and knowing I’ve walked – WALKED – over 1000 miles in a year is an amazing feeling. Now let’s reset our counters – here’s to 2019!

Philip Thomas, Features writer

Miles walked this month: 103 Nature rarely performs on cue. It’s a privilege when it does. Last month, I was ambling along the River Nene when something in the water caught my eye: the briefest glint of silver. I stopped to investigate. As my eyes adjusted to the murk, hundreds of tiny fish grew into focus. Every few seconds, one would flick its tail and show up like a shard of aluminium foil. Just as I was thinking how easy it would be to pluck one from the water, a kingfisher streaked across the surface, expertly showing me how it’s done. And before I could process what I’d seen, a black-headed gull took its chance. From nowhere, it swooped down, squawking and flapping to emerge (far less gracefully than the kingfisher) with a writhing meal in beak. It was all over in 8 seconds – too fast to whip out a camera, so I’ve tried to recreate it in paint. I’m a shoddy watercolourist, but as luck would have it, in next month’s issue I’ll be following in the footsteps of a master.

Guy Procter, Editor

Miles walked this month: 76 When we first started the #walk1000miles challenge we were hopeful it was a fun idea that would catch on, but we had no particular expectations about the size it would grow to, still less the profound and varied ways it would affect people. I thought I’d have to cheer-lead and chivvy, drum up material to somehow fill the two pages we had allocated to it in the magazine. But the challenge fomented joy at a staggering rate, and very soon it was a case not of “How shall we fill these pages?” but “How on Earth do we decide which of all these wonderful stories we must exclude?”

One story that particularly touched me this month, and which I can’t let the issue go to press without mentioning, is that told by Pam Manning about her partner Tony Wood (pictured above). Both embarked on the challenge in January and were going strongly when in September, Tony suddenly developed difficulty walking. It took until nearly the year’s end before he was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour. But complete his 1000 miles Tony did – and to mark the occasion, his three children, eight grandchildren and Pam walked his climactic two miles in the Clent Hills before forming a tunnel for him to walk to the finishing line. “It was a very emotional day” says Pam; “One which none of us will ever forget”. I’m so proud of Tony, and so pleased that in the challenge he and Pam took on voluntarily they found a focus helpful, happy and in its own way hopeful, in the midst of a challenge they had no say in.