Rambling (UKese for - well - walking) is Britain's most popular outdoor recreation. At least, so say the Ramblers, Britain's self-styled walking charity. Whatever the potential bias of this claim, it's certainly true that walking enjoys a pretty impressive popularity here. It's logical, if you think about it; this country rather lends itself to it, what with its moderate climate, relatively small size, and largely level terrain. There's something simple and lovely, too, about just stepping out and striking off when a spell of rubbish weather has broken, which is precisely what I did the other day.
I didn't go terribly far - started at the motorway north of Oxford and walked down alongside the Cherwell towards the university, then back up through the fields that lie between the river and Headington, once used first for haymaking and then grazing cattle each summer.
Funny story: I bit into an apple while standing here, and this was instantly New England in the fall,
instead of England in the spring.
and the kissing gate.
It's fun to come across these: in the midst of a stretch of forbidding barbed-wire fence, they feel like an wordless welcome, an invitation to share the land, which is so much more often carved up and parcelled out into private hands. In a way, it seems both product and acknowledgment of the deep history here - an understanding that whatever legal claim may be laid to a particular patch of this country, it is a fleeting thing compared to the ceaseless tide of humanity that has gone and will come. And those travellers - what motivated all those journeys? How many plans, cares, intentions were represented by each footstep, and how many thousands of footsteps, each carrying its load of thoughts, did it take to beat out the path on which I stood?
Then I realized I was probably getting a bit pretentious. So I went and looked at some flowers.
Sunset over the meadow.
This is by a pub called the Victoria Arms; they have a mooring area for folks to tie up during a day's punting (which I've still yet to try out).
I imagine the river is probably rammed with boats and fun during the summer...but still, there's something to be said for the offseason.
