Walking and thereafter…

Most of our walks take a couple of hours to complete – although some are longer – and generally we partake of a short pause part way through for walkers to consume any refreshment they have brought with them. You’ll find details of the length and time of the walk on our Forthcoming Walks page . And please note, it is always good to bring a bottle of water, and possibly an item of fruit or a sandwich…)

Our Thursday walks are all circular walks, and from time to time some of us do linger a little longer after a walk if there is a cafe or pub close to our start/end point. Such lingering is of course entirely a voluntary activity… sometimes no one stays, sometimes a little group of three or four stop for a chat. Occasionally a few more.

The words “Anyone fancy a coffee?” and the alternative “Anyone fancy a pint?” quickly reveals if there are any who want to relax for a short while before the drive back home – so if you do join us for a walk, and you hear those magic words, and then you feel like lingering for another 20 minutes or so, please don’t be shy. Indeed even if you have just been on your first walk with us you’ll be welcome. Although we should add, not every walk ends at a socialising location, and indeed, not every walk ends with a few people wanting to socialise.

Above all, if you join us on a walk, please do enjoy the extraordinary beauty of the local countryside. In that we are truly blessed.

But to return to the issue of lingering… I’m not a regular visitor to public houses so for me the occasional visit, or indeed as happened recently Ashton, the outside of pubs, is a change. But I do enjoy the chats.

I suppose the starting point is that anyone who does linger knows that we all have something in common (ie we have all just been on a Ramblers walk and we all live somewhere around the area) but otherwise we are as diverse as a very diverse group of people who come from a diverse set of backgrounds and do or did a range of different (or perhaps even diverse) things for a living.

I recall recently two of us who had previously done little more than exchange pleasantries venturing into the George at Stamford, just because neither of us had any reason to rush off, and chatting, only to find that not only did each of us have rather unusual jobs, we each had jobs which took us into very similar areas of work. The chances of that were of course a million to one, but such things happen.

And then there was a recent moment where after a walk which ended just as the rain began to splatter down four of us scurried into the Royal Oak in Castor where, for reasons that will not become clear at this time, we ended up finding out about the annual jazz festival on the island of Islay – the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides. Quite how that topic came up I have no idea but I certainly learned a lot.

I must add, in case you are just contemplating joining us for the first time, lingering after a walk is not obligatory, and the majority of members do not partake of this particular extra, but for anyone who ever feels like it, who fancies a little extra companionship, or even simply doesn’t have anything better to do, a half an hour lingering at the end of the walk is an option – as long as we can find somewhere to linger.