Ten Greatest Memories of my 2010 Big Holiday.

* For more details of any given memory on this list, you could check out my other blog, ‘LeJog’, but in the spirit of my blogs, the one you actually want to look into may be ‘Under Construction’.

1. Lots and lots of cute dogs and their fanatical owners.
2. Saving the sheep from the Montgomery Canal.
3. Walking along the Ridge. Amazing to be up over the rest of the world in a country of fifty-odd million people and feel (almost) alone.
4. The canals. I am a canal and a canal boat kind-a girl. Plus, on the walking side, it’s lovely and flat.
5. Lots of fabulous and mad road trips with A——.
6. Chatting to people along the way. One, it gets me out of my comfort zone, and two, it is a little empowering to explain your exploits. It makes you feel a little good about yourself.
7. Walking around the city walls of Chester and rhino-spotting. It was a great walk although having a little more fuel would have been a good idea.
8. The Another Place artwork. The space made it so amazing. I would have loved to be able to see the emergence of the figures from the water but I didn’t have/make time. To me the wind farm in the background and the busy shipping channel between the two made it a complete work. The farm and the ships—inorganic forms—moved while the human, organic forms stayed still and watched. It was moving.
9. Getting happy at the Cavern Club. I did have a momentary eek moment when I troddled out onto the street in a tipsy condition and couldn’t quite work out what direction the hotel was in. It was tipsy enough to require pizza.
10. Pushing myself up some of those crazy hills, with an arguably heavier pack, a no-need-to-argue worse ankle, a million and three horsefly bites, to get to four hundred and one point five kilometers.