Walks

Walks Introduction

I’ve mentioned in About Colette that I enjoy walking. I also love being out in nature, near water and preferably under a blue sky and sunshine although the latter too are not always possible.

I have a number of books of walks covering Windsor and local areas.  I am working through these books ticking off the walks.  I host a weekly Thurs After Work Walk with friends and local social group members and usually (at least in Spring and Summer), it is walks from these books that I select walks from.  For these evenings I generally choose walks that are on average about 20 mins drive from my flat in Windsor.  Sometimes I will opt for one slightly further afield if closer to where some of the other walkers live or near an activity I or another walking will be doing after the walk.

Due to some mishaps on the Thursday After Work Walks, I now also map out the walk in All Trails www.alltrails.com on my laptop prior to the walk and then access the App from my phone during the walk to help me navigate. This is free to do and very helpful because it can sometimes difficult to concentrate on the instructions in the guide books when chatting, sometimes the instructions are vague or there have been changes in routes / access since the book was published.

I also use Strava App www.strava.com to record the walk. 

I have also set myself the challenge of walking all the streets and main paths in Windsor at least once. I use the website www.citystrides.com to map out all the streets and paths I have walked so far and which are left to complete.  This works by linking with my Strava account or you can link it with other similar Apps. The only thing is I often forget to turn off my Strava and it ends up recording me walking around my flat or my drive home and although I can crop this in Strava, it doesn’t correct in Citystrides unfortunately.  Or at least I have not found a way to make this happen.  Note that there is no App for Citystrides.

I have discovered mindfulness walks too, noting what I can see, hear, feel, smell and taste. These are useful on dull Winter street based walks to make them more interesting. It’s amazing what one can notice when concentrating on the surroundings.

One of the things I love about walking is discovering things I didn’t know existed.  This might be a small old cemetery or pocket of green space when I’m on a daily walk around the streets in my local area or a brightly painted well on a remote rural path or a stunning view.

Thursday After Work Walks

Most Thursday evenings I host a walk with friends.  This tradition dates back to the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.  My friend Tina and I were both single, living on our own and working from home. Meeting for a walk at 6pm after the working day had finished was a way to get out of the 4 walls (a 2 bedroom flat in my case) when everywhere else we’d have been socialising was closed, some exercise and most of all, some face to face company and conversation, albeit whilst social distancing. 

Over time, on seeing our photos on our Facebook pages, other friends reached out and asked to join us and when the pandemic was over we had established a little group of us who continued to meet for our weekly walk on what was originally a Wednesday evening. Some time ago (due to other activities that I wanted to do that are only available on a Weds eve) we switched to a Thursday evening and with our numbers dwindling due to individuals now having various other commitments I have started advertising the walks on my friend Rob’s Meet Up group www.meetup.com/Maidenhead-Out-And-About and one of the Windsor social groups on Facebook, Windsor Social, Out and About www.facebook.com/groups/183677240194291.  As a result we have had some lovely new friends join some of our walks recently who have shared new conversation and suggestions for all sorts of things with us.

During Spring and Summer, with the light evenings we can explore our more rural surrounding areas with walks between approximately 4-6 miles. Unfortunately we have to switch to more town / street based walks on the dark evenings on Autumn and Winter, away from roads without pavements and getting lost in muddy and flooded fields.  The Autumn / Winter walks tend to be shorter too as there is not the same enthusiasm for being out in the dark  but still tend to be 3-4 miles and I try to make them of interest i.e. beside the Thames where suitable paths and scarecrow trails for Halloween. We don’t usually walk in the rain unless alight Summer shower.

Most walks finish at a pub (at or close to the end of the route) for a rewarding drink.

I love the evening walks especially during Spring and Summer. I love that they break up the working week with dedicated time for getting out in the fresh air, enjoying nature and the company of and conversation with my fellow walkers at the same time as getting some exercise.

Walks Blog