Men’s Walking Group
Putting in the miles as men go out walking!
By Peter Morgan, Coordinator
The Monday Men's Walking Group - it does what it says on the tin.
New participants are always welcome to our activities, as long as you realise that there is more than one person who takes part ("Group"), it is for the male of the species ("Men"), we go out on the first working day of the week ("Monday") and that we get around placing one foot in front of the other ("Walking"). That said, routes are varied, with details send around usually on the preceding Saturday to alert everyone where we are meeting and any other details.
The length of routes varies, but tends to be between 4 and 7 miles, and is often an "all day" activity - meaning that we usually take a picnic, not that it takes 12 hours to cover the distance. A suitable lunch-stop is often a church/churchyard, where there are often seats, and a porch if it is raining. It is surprising how different a familiar country lane or field path can seem when undertaken at a different time of year, or when there is a frost, so the aim is NOT to necessarily find a new walk each week, but something that is appropriate for the time of year and the time available. If someone, for example, has a future morning doctors appointment but is otherwise fit and well, it may be that an afternoon walk is scheduled for that week. Strange as it way seem, it is not where we walk that is important, but that fact that we are doing it together, talking about a whole variety of matters and sharing advice and guidance from life's activities.
Peasedown is on top of a hill. If starting and ending from the village, that generally means we finish by climbing back up to the village. Thus a route that has a hill at the end is referred to by one of our group as "a proper Peasedown walk" - even if it is some miles from the village. Sometimes there is a car journey to the start of that week's walk; anything from 5 minutes to 40 minutes. Other times, a proper Peasedown walk that starts and ends in the village (almost invariably from outside Morgan Towers). Then there are occasions when we take a bus journey to the meeting point - all the current group of walkers have senior bus passes. We have on several occasions met at Odd Down and traversed the countryside back to PStJ. There are (at least) four different routes between that point on the outskirts of Bath and Peasedown that I can recall us taking, and several other possibilities that would make a lovely journey.
It is always pleasing if on a walk there is a stretch of track, road, path or lane that one of the regulars has never walked before. Surprisingly, during the dark days of the two 2020 UK-wide lockdowns (when the walking group ceased meeting, of course), Heather and I found small paths where we had never walked before, even less than 2 miles from home. During that time, we reached villages that we knew, but had never walked from home before. Some of those have been used as routes with the men on a Monday.
Most weeks, there are at least four walkers who venture out. We are five regulars (including myself), but with three who will come along at least every six weeks, and a couple of others who have threatened to come (but who have yet to put in an appearance). Over the years, some have come along for a few weeks or months, but then their circumstances have changed, and that is fine. The really nice thing is that we can see some of the glory of God's creation, comment on it (on Monday 6th February, we saw the first lambs any of us had seen in 2023), get some exercise and sometimes have deep and meaningful conversations, the latter especially significant because you are talking without having to look someone directly in the eye. The weather never stops us walking - some remember the famous "Westbury Whitehorse" walk where it rained incessantly. The amount of rain that fell on our soggy walkers increases by an inch every time the story is told!
So, as I mentioned earlier, new members are always welcome, as long as they are men, like walking, like to stroll as a group and are free on a Monday.