​On a recent trip to Wales, we visited an old friend of Martin’s family in the Taf Fechan Valley.  She and her husband are sheep farmers, and we were treated to a lovely meal seated at at a huge oak table, large enough, at shearing time, to seat sixteen!

En route we stopped off in Merthyr Tydfil to see Cyfarthfa Castle, and later parked  near Vaynor Church, at the southern edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, to visit the grave of Robert Thompson Crawshay, known as the ‘Iron King’. His grave is covered with a massive stone, which our friends told us weighed seven tons. The lettering ‘God Forgive Me’, often assumed in modern times to be an expression of remorse for his action of closing the Cyfarthfa Works at Merthyr (thus making hundreds destitute), or his own moral shortcomings, was in point of fact not uncommon in Victorian times.
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I know I am not alone in finding graveyards fascinating. As the historian George Trevelyan once said: “The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today ... once, on  this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow.”

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The church unfortunately wasn’t open but I hope to return sometime and attend a service there. We enjoyed reading the gravestones and visiting the earlier church, now a ruin, just a short walk away. One particularly poignant grave told of the Price family, and the grief that must have been the lot of Margaret Ann Price,  during almost a century of life. Her son Idris Lloyd died at 11 months old in 1921, her daughter Nancy Muriel at 5 years 9 months  in 1921, her son Trevor Glyn Price at 21  in 1940, and her husband William Henrey Lloyd Price in 1951, aged 68. She was to live as a widow for another 32 years, dying  aged 97 in 1983.

Thanks to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, I was able to look up the details of her son Trevor Glyn Price, who is buried at L’Herbaudiere, and learnt of another tragic story from the Second World War.

L'Herbaudiere is a hamlet of Noirmoutier-en-L'Ile, a small town on the island of Noirmoutier which is situated off the west coast of France. A causeway gives access to the island.

There are 40 Commonwealth graves from the 1939-45 war commemorated at this site, 22  unidentified. The majority of these forty were aboard the "Lancastria", hit by enemy action on the 17th June 1940 off St. Nazaire. All told about 4,000 men, women and children lost their lives when the ship sank 20 minutes after it was bombed by the Germans near the French port of Saint-Nazaire on 17 June 1940 , fewer than 2,500 surviving. The Lancastria was the largest loss of life from a single engagement for the British forces during World War Two and also the largest loss of life in British maritime history - greater than the Titanic and Lusitania combined. It occurred just a few weeks after the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk, when the Lancastria had been sent to help bring home some of the estimated 150,000 British servicemen still in occupied Europe.

​Following the sinking of the Lancastria, Prime Minister Winston Churchill imposed a media blackout, as the government feared the news would be a terrible blow to British morale. American newspapers  finally broke the story at the end of July. I wonder how long it was before William and Margaret Price received the news of their son’s death? And whether they were ever able to visit his grave on that small island?
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For visitors to the Vaynor area, a remarkable sight locally is the ‘Spanish House’  - a now dilapidated but once stunning Italianate villa,  built I understand by a local solicitor and amateur astronomer in 1912 for his Italian wife. Our friend had been inside the house as a child, and recalled the beautiful Majolica tiles, the araucaria tree in its courtyard and an eagle statue. Local legend has it that after only about six months, the lady had had enough of Welsh weather, and returned to Italy, never to be seen again!

As an avid fan of anything to do with local history, I was delighted to buy a copy of Taf Fechan Valley: How and Why has the Taf Fechan Valley changed between the mid nineteenth century and the present day? which was researched and written by the Ponsticill Local History Study Group. A good read, which included many fascinating nuggets of information. It is likely that the lifestyle of those inhabiting the valley in the mid 19th Century was not dissimilar to that experienced there in the 16th, surviving by hard work and traditional farming, quarrying, and a range of rural crafts. The book details some of the changes since the construction of the reservoirs, the impact of the two World Wars, advent of the motor-car etc. Highly recommended!
 
Links:

Lancastria sinking:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-33092351
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/56/a4103056.shtml
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/72/a2334872.shtml

Taf Fechan Valley
welshwildlife.org/nature-reserve/taf-fechan-merthyr-tydfil/

Every year we come to that pleasant time when we talk about where to go on our annual holiday. The last few years we’ve got hooked on lakes and mountains. We love visiting museums, art galleries, historical sites etc, but culture-vultures like us can wear themselves out picking the carcass clean! When, for example, we stayed on Lake Garda a couple of years back, we spent three whole days ‘doing’ Verona, and came home still pretty exhausted!

So recently, although we toy with the idea of coastal destinations, cities, and new exciting countries, we’ve been drawn back to the peace, quiet, beauty and fresh air of the Wilder Kaiser region of the Austrian Tyrol.  We’ve already explored the local towns and cities on previous trips, and now we find that we want nothing more than to venture out each day with walking boots, rucksacks and yummy Austrian rolls and fruit, and wander in the mountains, listening to the birds and cowbells, resting our eyes on the views, exchanging friendly smiles and Grüss Gotts with other walkers, and having an occasional swim in mountain lakes. After another year of sitting at computer screens, being bombarded with information via social media, radio, shopping in supermarkets, sitting in traffic jams, etc, it’s the least we can give our minds and bodies. After a walk, there’s always a fresh buttermilk or coffee and an hour’s reading to enjoy before dinner! Bliss!

This area seems to draw many people back  -  some have been returning regularly for up to 50 years, bringing further generations with them. Must be something in the air!

We bought another walking map (our first one had fallen apart) - the Mayr XL Edition Wilder Kaiser: Ellmau, Going, Scheffau,Söll - a bargain for 5 euros at the Söll Tourist Office (the new edition is helpfully crease and waterproof). It comes in a plastic wallet with a little booklet that describes local walks, but we found these unclear and not detailed enough, so, for anyone who might be thinking of staying in Söll,  here are some of our favourite walks. Just one warning: most of the mountain Hütte and Stüben, where you can buy lovely homemade eats and drinks, have a rest day (Ruhetag), and it’s worth checking this before you plan your walk. The local Tourist Office have a pamphlet giving details of all the Hütte. The whole valley can be accessed via the yellow bus, the Kaiserjet, free to all visitors with their Wilderkaiser Card, and we usually buy (our biggest expense, but worth it) a lift pass, which gives you use of all the ski-lift gondolas and chair lifts. This year we spent the first week walking on the Wilderkaiser side, and bought the pass for the second week for the Going -Hohe Salve side of the valley.

Hintersteinersee to Söll

Ellmau to Söll along the Jakobsweg

Catch the 8.08am Kaiserjet to Ellmau dorf. Excellent packed lunch ingredients can be purchased at Billa in the village - another friendly small supermarket. The Jakobsweg is signposted - it is part of the pilgrims way to Santiago de Compostela (a couple of places are marked by the traditional white scallop shell), and this beautiful walk is along the Schattseite (shadow side) of the valley, through meadows where farmers are mowing and raking the organic grass, full of clover and wild flowers. We hardly saw a soul except farmers. There is a spring along the way where you can fill your water bottles (all of the villages have fountains where you can do the same, with clean mountain water). We got slightly lost at the Scheffau Brandstadl lift station, where we exited the car park at the wrong place. You have to walk to the end of the car park past the former lift building on the left, and cross under the main road to the hamlet of Blaiken, go though the houses towards Söll, then take the left-hand fork (the 70) marked Bärbichl, and back under the main road, for 54/55 paths. We arrived at the Ahornsee in Söll at 1pm, having stopped for lunch en route, and had a swim in this wonderful man-made lake. Spring water runs into it, and about a third is roped off for ‘regeneration’, planted with bullrushes and lilies, with dragon and damselflies scooting over it. In the winter, the lake is used to fuel the snow-making machines.

Summary: paths 3,1,30,14,70,54,55. Three and a half hours’ walking with half an hour for lunch and water breaks.

Söll to Scheffau via the Steinerne Stiege

Oh we love the Steinerne Stiege! We were first told of this way by Adrian, an excellent Thomsons Rep. It’s become a favourite, but we always give it a few days’ training before we go up it, and there are lots of heavy-breathing breaks to get the heart-rate down! This year we were only overtaken by one white-haired local, so that was OK! We set off from Söll at 8.30am, walking past the Moorsee and across the Kufstein Road at the Oberstegner Inn. You turn left along the 55 and follow it along the riverside (there’s a No Through sign and a little link chain across the path at one point but that’s just for vehicles) and up hill, past a farm or two. It comes down for a (very) short time onto the main road, but you can walk on the verge till you come to the sign for the Steinerne Stiege on the right. It’s a steep old path through lovely woods, going up and up. There a bench part way up (labelled the Schwoicher Aussicht but I think this should bear the translation The Most Welcome Bench in the World!) which is always further than we think!  Eventually you come out at the top of a green valley, and pass the Hagenhof farm before coming to the Pension Maier (we arrived at 10.45am) where there is a gorgeous view of the Hintersteinersee and excellent refreshments available. You can then enjoy a walk along the left hand side of the lake before catching the Seebus down to Scheffau and the connecting Kaiserjet back to Söll (Tip: consult the timetables for both buses before setting out - available from Tourist Offices).

Short and sweet - Hochsöll to Filzalmsee and back

If you fancy a light day on the walking, you could get the gondola from Söll up to Hochsöll, the middle-station, and walk to Filzalmsee, which takes us about 45 minutes. You could stop along the way to play the Giant’s Xylophone, and on arrival at the Filzalmsee you could give your feet a treat on the Kneipp trail (complete with peat bog - wunderbar!) and then have a dip (free) in the lake. As with every middle-station in the valley, if you have children, you’ll find wonderful playgrounds and activities both at Hochsöll (Hexenwasser) and at Filzalmsee. Needless to say in the Tyrol, you’ll always find sparkling loos. You could also catch the gondola on up to the Hohe Salve, and eat delicious Nettle and Spinach Dumplings at the Gipfelrestaurant and then walk down to Filzalmsee via the Jordan Spring, where local legend has it that the water is especially good for eye-troubles, but the path is very steep down from the Hohe Salve, and you would be wise to take walking-sticks for this one.

The Big Yin - Going (Astberg) to Hochsöll

We walked part of this route a couple of years back (Tea with a Wild Mountain Man) on a cold rainy day, but this year we were determined to go the whole way. On a sunshiny day with blue skies and just the occasional cloud we walked through some wonderful terrains: woods where raindrops still hung from the pines and the air was fresh and clear, meadows with cows and calves, roads past farmhouses, moor, heath, streams and swamps, with fantastic views as the way between the Wilderkaiser and Kitzbühel valleys.

We took the 8.08am Kaiserjet to Ellmau and popped into Billa for rolls, walked along the road to the Going Chairlift (road forks at the end of the village, take upper fork). We took the chair-lift up at 9.30am onto the Astberg, then took the 11 path (straight ahead from top of lift) through woods and heath, then turned right at the bottom of this path where it met a road and past a red bench (lovely to sit on and gawk!), and beautiful farmhouse ‘Kathen’. On past the Hohenangeralm, Boden Alm. Then we took the 11/99 direction Brandstadl Scheffau/Jochstuben See, and then the 11A, up, up up!

At sign marked 1388m we turned right up a path through woods (99/11) and then the 99. We sighted the Hohe Salve at 12.55pm, stopped for lunch, then left at 1.15pm. Before you get to the Jochstuben, take the 96/99 for Filzalmsee. Arrived Filzalmsee at 2.15pm, had a coffee, a Kneipp, and left at 3.10pm for Hochsöll, getting downward gondola at 4pm!

Incidentally, for a shorter version of this walk, you could walk from Astberg to the hut at Jochstuben (SO welcoming and gemütlich!) and then take the lift down from Brandstadl to Scheffau and get the Kaiserjet back to Söll. Or even shorter, just do the Astberg round walk through the woods, and go back down the chair-lift and Kaiserjet back!

I’ll finish with my husband’s amusing off the cuff comment on this long walk:

Me: Pyrenees are supposed to be good for walking.

Martin: Yeah, I’d be lost without my knees.

A couple of weeks ago I set off, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with a mini-bus full of Sarah's Runners for our second go at the South Downs Relay Marathon. I was doing the second leg again, but this time I took the immediate first hill nice and slow, having learnt from 2013, when I found my heart beating rather alarmingly about a third of the way up, that it was worth using it as a warm-up!

About four miles along, on a stony uneven patch, I stumbled and, bringing my left knee forward at speed, hit a tree root with full force. It was shockingly painful initially, and I rocked with it for a while, fighting back the tears, before getting to my feet and carrying on, half hobbling, half slow-jogging, the next two miles or so. There were plenty of sympathetic runners who stopped to ask if I was OK, whether I needed a first-aider, and to let me know they too had suffered a fall in the past and fully identified!

When I finally handed over to my team member I sat down and pulled up my capri leg to look at the bruise, and was surprised to see a deep cut below the knee-cap, which rather surprisingly had hardly bled at all. I was first-aided at the race end, and later in the day visited both Crowborough Memorial Hospital (clean, bright, friendly, calming, no queue, and a lovely big mug of tea) and A&E at Pembury (soul-less, unsmiling reception, depressing large-screen ads on a loop, nothing to read, grubby loos) where I waited three hours for a doctor to tell me that Crowborough had done a good job cleaning the wound, squirt some glue in it, and send me on my way at 10.30pm with a pack of anti-biotics.
 
I could have felt a bit sorry for myself at that point, but life sent me a reminder of my great good fortune in generally having very sound health: I spotted a friend in A&E who was there for a bad case of cellulitis. He is a stoic, who has had a large part of his tongue and gums removed because of mouth cancer, yet remains singularly lacking in self-pity. 

Someone once said that if you enjoy good health, you could say to yourself every day that you have genuinely won the lottery. I write 'good health' on my gratitude list most nights, but even so can take it for granted.  I had a few early brushes with the Grim Reaper but was fortunate to survive them (eg when I was two, my mother called out a young locum doctor in the middle of the night. I was screaming, and couldn't be calmed. Our regular family GP had told her on several occasions over previous weeks that I was just after attention by crying incessantly. The locum told Mum to get me to hospital immediately, where an emergency appendectomy took place. They told Mum that with a few hours' delay I would have died of a burst appendix).

It was scary having a wound, even if relatively minor. I avoided taking the anti-biotics (I'd rather save them for true need) and instead cared for myself with salted boiled water, calendula, herbal salves, and arnica. I felt at times quite fearful about hurting the knee again.

It's healing well, I'm thankful, and hopefully I'll soon be back running - but even surfaces from now on!

At the end of last week I was due at a meeting down in the town. As I was expecting a low turn-out, my husband, who wasn’t going to be able to pick me up till later, suggested I might walk back if no-one appeared. I transferred the necessary items from my crazy-big shoulder-bag into a small rucksack, donned my trusty water-proof Lidl boots, picked up my Cormac McCarthy, and got dropped off at the meeting-place. I set up, waited half an hour, read my Cities of the Plain, then closed up and headed back home.

Samuel Johnson once said “To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.” I’ve been feeling a tad tired and grumpy the last day or so, cooped up in a small office with five others looking at a screen and making tiny wrist movements with a mouse, and under other circumstances I might have looked at a half hour walk on a damp winter evening as a drag, but luckily I saw it as a blessing.

Martin and I always walk on our holidays, and when courting, spent many happy days walking on the Gower coast. I took up running just under two years ago, and this has become a wonderful part of my life – I feel so much more connected to my body, and often feel it’s thanking me for taking it out into the fresh air and giving it a chance to breathe and get out of breath, to allow the blood to flow and the heart to beat faster.

My mother, now nearly ninety, used to walk three miles to school and back as a small child, and I’ve met others of her generation who had similar experiences. When our son was small we often drove up to High Beeches, in Epping Forest, on Sundays for a walk through the beautiful tall trees followed by a snack at the biker’s hut. Walking is a great joy – you can do it alone or with friends, and it’s free. There are so many public footpaths in the High Weald – I know I’d rather be walking under trees, looking across fields and listening to birdsong than tramping on a static running-machine. If I manage to get a little walk in before work, it always helps me get my day in proportion, and to right-size me in relation to the world around me. After all, I’m an integral part of the natural world, a human animal.

I once heard the German film director Werner Herzog talking on the radio about his love of walking, and how he had walked across the Alps to propose to his girlfriend. He also, when he heard in 1974 that an old friend was seriously ill and on the verge of death, walked from Munich to Paris to visit her, honouring his hope that she would still be alive when he arrived. He wrote of this journey in Of Walking in Ice, but sadly it’s out of print in the English version. If I ever get round to improving my German, I’ll buy it!