Not yet anyway (as of 13th May 2026) – if you’re reading this in the future, that statement may no longer be true of course!
I say this because I’ve just an email from a long-time reader asking if everything was OK – the subtext of course being, “are you still alive?” Thanks Jim, yes, I’m still here and apologies for not updating the website for such a long time. A combination of factors have kept me from doing what I’m doing right now.
My last post was following my early exit from the second half of my north to south Pennine Way – almost two years ago! I still haven’t finished that walk and probably won’t now, despite my full intention of doing so at the time. I still harbour a faint hope of doing the route again in the proper direction, but I need to do an awful lot of work on my mind and body to make that a reality. I haven’t pencilled in a date for that yet, but I don’t think it could realistically happen before 2028.
I did very little walking other than a few short (and low level) walks on Skye in November 2024 and a couple of local walks with friends before the end of the year. Early 2025 was quite productive however and I worked hard to get fit for the first half of the Southern Upland Way which I had booked for early May 2025. I did quite a few walks in the Dales with Chris, a couple on my own using the campervan, and started a local long-distance path – the Cheshire Ring Canal Walk – with a couple of friends I’ve been walking with recently, Steve & Andy.
When I set out for the Southern Upland Way on the 16th May I’d done about 20 good hill / canal walks and I felt really good. The SUW was brilliant, I felt fit, the weather was superb and the path is utterly sublime. I have the first 2 or 3 days written up in full, but there was never a good enough WiFi signal to upload them at the time, and so I saved them. I think this resulted in me getting lazy in the evenings and I just wrote short notes for the remaining days, rather than a full journal. I have still not been back over them and written them up, although I will at some point!
Although I finished the first half, I decided to cancel the second half of the walk, which was booked for August – my heart just wasn’t in it and rather than cancel half way through I pulled the plug early. I managed to do plenty of other walking, mostly in the Dales with Chris, and with Steve & Andy I pretty much completed the Cheshire Ring.
In August however my knees started to really give me some issues and I pretty much stopped walking by the end of that month, the discomfort both during and after a walk was putting me off. I did almost nothing for the rest of the year – I didn’t even plan a long distance walk for 2026! I was pretty distressed about the stare of my knees and booked a visit to the doc to see if there was anything they could do. I eventually got an x-ray appointment in early December and by late January I was referred to the physiotherapy team. Apparently my knees are pretty bad, but not bad enough for any surgical intervention – not at my age. If I was younger, or older it would probably be justifiable, but it seems I’m of an age where I need to see if strengthening exercises can help. Almost six months later and I’ve just had my first physio session (last week) and an exercise regime to get used to, before my next appointment in 5 weeks.
I had an absolute disaster of a walk in February, with Steve & Andy on our latest project, the Greater Manchester Ringway. I was desperately unfit and struggled to finish what should have been a fairly average hill walk up to Chew reservoir. I vowed that wouldn’t happen again, and I knew something needed to change.
I’ve started to walk again – albeit sticking to low level routes – the doc and the physio both pretty much said walking can’t do any more harm – and if you don’t use it you’ll lose it. I’m banging out the local ‘dog walks’ along the canal again, and feel my fitness slowly returning. Hills still hurt, both up and down, my left knee makes an audible crunching sound with every step, and my right knee clicks and crunches when I go up or down hill.
I’m absolutely gagging to be out walking ‘properly’ again, so I’m determined to work hard, regain the fitness and hopefully get back into the hills later this year. I still have some weight to shed though and I need to get back to the point where I actually trust my knees.
Hopefully it won’t be another two years before my next post! I’ll try and get the SUW 2025 report done before the summer’s out.