Happy New Year: We're Back to Walking!!

Here's hoping that everyone had a Merry Christmas and wishing a Happy New Year to everyone as well.

One New Year's resolution that I have no problem in getting into the swing with is to continue with our training walks. Because of the weather, the last walk was on 27th November and I certainly feel very sluggish after such a long gap in walking! Especially in the last week or so, when first waking up, I have been very conscious of aching hips and an aching back. This has been a niggling problem for some time (years?) that had disappeared once we started the training walks and I hadn't even noticed the aches had gone!! So ...... all this walking is a Good Thing and I aim to keep it up!

Some friends stayed with us over New Year and yesterday they came out with us for a gentle walk of 3.9 miles. Today we went out for a longer walk, just the two of us as our friends went home yesterday, and covered 5.73 miles. One of the highlights of our walks are the number of birds we see. The swan in the photo above was really close to the path; they are such majestic birds.

Here is his (or her!) friend! They did seem to be exhibiting the early nesting behaviour of gathering nesting material. Seems a little early? Or perhaps they know that Spring is on the way early? Here's hoping!

You may have noticed in passing the incredibly precise mileage figures? My Christmas present to John was a SatMaps GPS Navigator so he can precisely plan our walks and how far we go. Well .... you know how most chaps are with their love of gadgets :) This is only gentle teasing, by the way! After all ..... I can never resist any new crafting materials or paraphenalia so there's no real difference, is there?

Our walk today was round part of the Cheshunt gravel pits and then along a footpath across a field. This was incredibly muddy! At one point, I think I had several pounds of mud stuck to my boots! I suppose I had said to John that we needed the exercise but that wasn't quite what I had in mind! However, once we got back to the paths in the Lea Valley park it was much better.

It was at this point that we found this strange obelisk. I couldn't read the metal plaque explaining all about this, but it is some sort of piece of art to symbolise something or other! The imagery on it seemed linked to the sun and the moon in a pagan sort of way but I have no real idea! There are also images on the edges that seemed linked to map making, so your guess is as good as mine! However, it is in a fairly out of the way spot but strangely beautiful.

From here, we continued south to Waltham Abbey and then picked up the River Lea tow path and walked north back to Cheshunt Station and home. We actually walked past the recently completed White Water Centre that has been built as part of the facilities for the Olympics. You can get a really good view from the tow path but it was shut today, so we couldn't see it in action.

We feel much better for starting to get back in the swing of things. We walked for 1 hour and 48 minutes and walked at 3.2 miles an hour. Oh ..... the precision of this device :)