Lil' Miss "Can i ask you a question..? about how to get into walking..."
Its just SO nice to be asked a question.
And few are given my url.... you never know.
Part 2 as always everyone has places to be so be it...
THE one and only piece of equipment:
Having spent a decade joshing my my once friend who sold them, in Kington, yet rarely used them in her real life...
YET another piece of performative plastic, fucking up the planet, at 100 quid for the latest snazzy pair of 'walking poles' are not only likely to do you more harm than good if you trip over your own...
but steal from the necessary bodily skill that will always develop, balance. Only exception of you are climbing Everest or maybe have a back pack of 20 or so killos or more.
How.... ever, THE one most unfashionable doesn't look good in the India Jones snaps, is in fact what no one is down to earth enough to ever figure any more: how to save on all those damp tops, and drips down into your backpack...
a brolly.
But it all comes down to class. If 'laptop class' then usually ones every other day 10km can be fitted in around work, and the weather: jolly good no rain for a while off i go... no need to take brolly or waterproof coat or worry about the rains..
If in 9-5 five days a week class of course one may have to grab ones afternoon walking on a day that's manky, and almost always the following applies: if possible big fat showers, almost always one can stand under a tree if caught out....or if its more than 20knots and the brolly will get hurricained away..
but almost always showers pass or if one is caught out in even an hour at less than 20knots... its extraordinary how useful a brolly is - small collapsible if its only going to be 15ish knots no more... any more up to about 25 in truth a bigjob is nicer, and can usually be borrowed for free from church porches some lovely old thing forgot theirs ... (cos they dont walk enough my my it does the head good too, dodging the rains and all that)
and if you mjst can double as your walking stick if you havent bothered to train yourself to be a goat and walk in moccasins as did Lucas in his best ever non-walking, walking book, Uttermost...., or plimsoles
and about the only thing the towny neurotics of the weather centres - especially BBC can't overforecast (it seems to get worse by the year) as it is remarkably scientific - them isobars, is the windspeed.
and my ohh my the aggro they save you, drying off the fancy weather'proof' jacket that isn't quite as proof as it pretends...
