I am writing this in mid-January when our members who are here in Murcia are confined to their municipalities and only able to meet with family members; a type of lockdown. Thankfully at the moment this is not as strict as the initial Spanish version where even exercise was prohibited.
We have also had a flurry of snow and some very cold overnight temperatures. Despite these difficult times, some people have still kept walking. WARM has a Facebook page and I thought this month I would share with you some of the adventures of our members, together with some of their stunning photographs.
Two of our members who are stranded in the UK, were delighted to get a delivery of our walking book from Santa. They made this comment “One of these days”, but for now they can only read about the walks. We have two new members in Corvera, Diane and Larry and they managed a coastal walk at Bolnuevo recently enjoying stunning coastal views. I am sure they could offer to lead this walk for others once we get some normality.
One of our very talented members, Rick, put together a fabulous video with Christmas music showcasing photographs from last season’s walks. It certainly helped replace our usual Christmas walk, which includes silly hats and a bit of Carol Singing. It cheered up so many people and there were lots of very positive comments, including; Wonderful! Happy Days! Very Poignant! Fabulous! and it also set off a conversation about making sausage rolls and mince pies!!
Some people created ‘walking bubbles’, (within the limits of 6 people and observing the rules about spacing and masks). The Moratalla folk enjoyed a spectacular day from Moratalla out towards Socovos and an exhilarating walk that was rewarded with beautiful views as you can see from the photos.
Our President Jessica is still keeping up her walking too, braving the weather to keep fit and active. I have been trying out using the Strava app and it seems to be fine. It uses GPS signal to plot your route and allows you to save it to share with others.
The bravest of all of our members is David who put on his winter gear and walked in the recent snow. He posted; “A short walk on Monte El Castellar this morning. Had a surprise visit from a fox trotting up the track. He stopped to allow me 3 photos then trotted off. It was so lovely walking on pristine snow apart from a few animal tracks.”
This reminded me of the adage by Alfred Wainwright; “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing!”
Wainwright was a fascinating man and anyone familiar with walking in the Lake District will recognise this description and his small guides to the fells make very interesting reading. His Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells are a unique mixture of beautiful pen-and-ink sketches, maps and musings.
I think I mentioned in a previous article that we have been trying to develop a logo for the group and we think we are now pretty close and we will begin to use this on our communications. Here is a sneak preview although there might be some final tweaks.
As I look out from my terrace onto the Sierra Espuña, still with a little bit of snow on the tops, I am wondering where we will be in a month’s time. Hopefully we will be seeing reductions in the numbers of COVID cases due to a combination of the strict measures and the increasing use of the vaccines.
Until next time.