Living the Dream: A good old countryside ramble

At the same time you want to raise a family that is independent, determined to succeed, but also caring and can also find their rightful place in society to support others around them, through actively seeking to give back to aid the lives of others.

Well, this next Saturday we have organised a walk for our church community, but as it’s been many years since we walked in the chosen area, we thought it best that we go and remind ourselves of the terrain and the timings. We will be walking with friends of all ages from young children through to well beyond 80 years and so it was obviously important we got it right.

It was a beautiful day for walking and Wendy and I had once again taken our youngest daughter Naomi along with us, although she didn’t need a great deal of encouragement to begin with, which was the first surprise of the day.

We set off from Brantingham village around lunchtime and as we walked it was great to just take our time and chat as we made our way under the multi-coloured canopy of autumn leaves above our heads, winding our way through the woodland pathways down into the village of Elloughton. From almost every angle there were stunning vistas, but it wasn’t the views that stunned me most that day.

As we walked, we found that we were at times making our way along parts of the Yorkshire Wolds Way, which as we know runs from the Humber Bridge at Hessle all the way through the Wolds in a northerly direction until it turns east, finally reaching it’s conclusion at Filey Brigg on the east coast.

It was as we walked across the top of Welton Dale woods that we made a rather remarkable discovery. Naomi, informed us that she would like to walk the Wolds Way, in it’s entirety, all 79 miles, from start to finish, in one go and she would like to raise money for a charity.

Now that’s a challenge and a half. I know that, because just over four years ago, I did just that, in a mad moment of madness. If hearing that news from Naomi wasn’t enough, the biggest shock was yet to come, as she then blurted out that she wanted to walk it all with her dad! She went on to say that she felt it would be a good way to spend some extra dad, daughter time together too.

I paused for a moment and asked her to repeat back to me what she had just said and yes, I had heard correctly. Well, you could have knocked me down with that proverbial feather. Apparently she had been thinking about it for some time and believed that late spring would be a good time to take up the challenge.

This would be a good time, she said, as it would fit into the plans Wendy and I have to walk the Coast to Coast route next summer, which we have spoken about for far too long and it would particularly help this fat lad to be ready for that challenge. So, she best get things organised, hadn’t she?