Almost two days in the house, mainly because I have been creating this site, saw me head out to get some shopping late last night. I hadn’t done any form of exercise all day neither. Last year I developed a 20-point daily checklist/routine. Up at 6, bed at 11, stretch daily etc etc. One of the health items is minimum 20 mins exercise per day. Even if it just walking round the block.
So last night after my shop, I resorted to a night time walk up Beacon Hill that overlooks Penrith. I first walked up here in the early 80’s with my dad when we lived in Penrith for a short while. My younger brother was actually born in the town. The Beacon is a sandstone watch tower and fires would be lit to warn of danger or invading hoards – which usually meant the Scots.
By the time I had reached the stop and took some deep breaths and admired the views to the not too distant, inky black, Lakeland fells, it was pretty damn dark. Just the many lights across the increasingly sprawling town below me and the twinkle of headlights on the M6.
I descended through some dank an muddy sections and at times it was very very dark. When I lived in the Lakes, I would often walk out at night. Just by moonlight or stars. People would ask – How can you SEE anything? And I would reply – I just use my eyes. Its true, your eyes can just adjust. It takes practice but you can see in almost any darkness…usually.
Once, I decided it would be a nice romantic thing to take a girlfriend up and around Stockghyll waterfall near Ambleside. Waterfalls in the moonlight are pretty cool places. Well, that didn’t go down as well as I had hoped. She was petrified. It was one of our first meet ups and she apparently thought I was going to ‘Do her in’ Oh dear. She said she would have drove home and never seen me again but for the fact she’d had too much to drink. She didn’t, thankfully, and we had many more great times together for a couple of years after that. I noted to self – not everyone is comfortable walking out in nature at night! Any other creatures of the night share this love of nocturnal adventures?
