I am typing these words into my laptop, at my desk in my bedroom, facing the window. It’s exactly 9.30am and the Norfolk village of Brundall is covered in a milky white blanket of cloud. A drizzle is falling, the sort of rain that no one would describe as ‘chucking it down’ but the sort that leaves you soaked after a short while.
The summery scene from my bedroom window
It must be high summer. The weather has been warm and dry for much of April, May and June – I believe May was the sunniest since records began in this country. But, of course, since today is supposed to be the first day of international cricket in England this summer the weather is poor.
I’ve just had to look it up, but England’s men last played a Test match in January. On the 27th of that month they completed a victory against South Africa in Johannesburg, winning an entertaining series 3-1 and looking ahead to two matches in Sri Lanka in March.
England’s men playing in Johannesburg in January – the last Test match they’d play until today
The coronavirus was around at that point. It had mostly been the third or fourth item on the news – this disease that was causing problems in China. It might have been the same week that the UK recorded its first official death from it. But no one could have predicted that it would have such a total impact on every single aspect of our lives.
163 days since that last Test, England should be playing the West Indies at the Rose Bowl – near Southampton – today. Months of planning have had to go into staging the series. It had to be worked out how to ensure everyone’s safety. The West Indies squad had to be convinced to come over. Protocols put in place. And so England’s first Test of the summer will not include that familiar buzz unique to cricket crowds. That way a day’s play starts with excited conversations going on in the background to the action, evolving into a beer-soaked chorus of chants and cheers as the day progresses. Instead the stands will be empty, everyone forced to watch on TV or listen on the radio.
The Rose Bowl near Southampton will be behind-closed-doors for the Test match
It will be strange, but at least it’s cricket. Not in my lifetime has the sport I loved been absent for as long as this. I’ve continued to read cricket magazines, watch old matches, seen a couple of documentaries about the game – but I haven’t half missed it. Much more, it turns out, than I missed football. I’ve often said that no matter what is going on in my life, everything feels alright with the world on the first day of an England Test match. And that’s exactly what I need right now.
The weather is rubbish, yes, but the forecast I keep checking on my phone for the Rose Bowl does not suggest a total washout. With just over an hour to go until the scheduled first ball, I have that familiar sense of anticipation. Cricket’s back. All is well.
There’s a lot going on at the moment that can really get you down. If the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t enough, keeping us away from our family and friends, ruining our plans and making us worry, then the events in the US over the last week or so have only added to the load.
I am a big Twitter user. I find it useful to keep up with what’s going on, connect with a wide range of people and to try to get my writing seen. However, I find it really difficult to avoid getting into arguments on there. With the topic of race right back at the top of the world agenda, I’ve been coming to blows with some who I feel have truly abhorrent views.
To drag myself out of that particular tunnel I have started something called #GoodStuff, where I share things that have made me laugh, smile or simply made this whole situation easier to deal with over the last couple of months. Here are my first selections.
Mark Church’s Garden Cricket
When sport is your thing, a global virus pandemic bringing the whole thing to a sudden halt for a while is tough. Football and cricket are my two biggest loves and there hasn’t been any live action to watch in this country since March – except in Mark Church’s garden.
Mark Church is the cricket commentator for BBC London. Usually at this time of year he’d be busy reporting on all of Surrey’s matches, but the coronavirus has left him with a bit more time on his hands.
He’s been playing in his garden, against his garden furniture. A full schedule of five Test matches, five One Day Internationals and some upcoming Twenty20 games. Some might describe the whole thing as one man’s slow descent into insanity but, trust me, it will put a smile on your face.
This week I should have seen Blossoms supporting The Killers at Carrow Road, but that’s been rescheduled for next year for obvious reasons. I’ve been a fan of the Stockport band for a while and loved Foolish Loving Spaces, their third album, released in January.
They haven’t let the fact that they’ve been locked down in different places stop them making music, though. They have recorded some of their own songs and a few covers in isolation, and the results have been incredible.
My favourite is their cover of Tame Impala’s The Less I Know The Better, with Miles Kane from The Last Shadow Puppets. It sounds great, you’d never know they were recording their individual parts – and at one point drummer Joe Donovan plays a potato peeler. Have a listen.
Elis and John’s Isolation Tapes
I’ve been a big fan of Elis James and John Robins for about three years now. At the time, they presented the 1pm-4pm slot on a Saturday on Radio X and the start of their show would coincide with me driving home from work.
I really liked how the show was basically two mates having a chat. They talked about all kinds of stuff, and it never felt forced or fake. They’re both comedians by trade, Robins an Edinburgh festival fringe comedy award winner and James a proud Welshman who now does a lot of gigs in the Welsh language.
I started listening to the podcasts of their radio show and have done ever since. I went to see them at the UEA in 2018 when they released a book and did a tour of the country to promote it. At the end, I even got my copy signed!
My signed book
Last year they moved to BBC Radio 5 Live and during the pandemic they’ve been recording extra episodes called The Isolation Tapes. I’ve found them a wonderful slice of normality amidst the chaos.
It’s limbs in the studio as a box of brownies and a couple of books have lifted Elis out of a funk. What great news for bookworms with low blood sugar. But the internal glucose alarm isn’t the only one going off as a fire alert causes chaos. We also get psychological as the boys unpick the idea of the inner monologue, and with that the terrifying engine steering John under the bonnet. Would Freud enjoy this? Potentially. Would it frighten him? Almost certainly. And from brains to bodies, the show gets panned as the least erotic thing possible, whilst we have a couple of fantastically zoological Mad Dads.It’s elisandjohn@bbc.co.uk or 07974 293022 on WhatsApp if you’ve got any comments on the above. But please nothing too close to the erotic bone. Keep it PG.
It was only the year 2007 and yet it had already been quite the ride for Arctic Monkeys. Entering their fifth year since forming, they already had two number one singles and the fastest selling debut album by a band to their name. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, even claimed to be a fan – though when pushed he couldn’t name any of their songs. The time had come to tackle the difficult second album.
On 23rd April 2007, Favourite Worst Nightmare was released. Not as raw as the previous year’s Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, the twelve songs feel more polished. Alex Turner’s superb observational lyrics go a little deeper and branch out further than musings on Sheffield’s nightlife.
The album opens with Brianstorm, a loud and confident start which apparently describes a man the band met backstage after a gig in Tokyo. ‘Brian’ left such a big impression on the Monkeys – ”Cause we can’t take our eyes / Off the t-shirt and ties combination?’ – that he became the subject of a song. Brianstorm has become an absolute staple of their live sets, a real crowd pleaser, and they are still performing it now. Here it is from Lollapalooza in Argentina in 2019:
Next comes Teddy Picker. If you’ve ever been to one of the arcades at the seaside, you’ll know what a teddy picker is – those machines that have a claw you try to grab prizes with. Turner uses those teddy pickers as a metaphor for the pursuit of fame and the downside of it. ‘And it’s the thousandth time that it’s even bolder / Don’t be surprised when you get bent over / They told you, but you were gagging for it’. It’s basically a warning to be careful what you wish for.
Track three is D Is For Dangerous, the chorus of which gives the album its title:
‘D is for delightful And try and keep your trousers on I think you should know you’re his favourite worst nightmare’
Love is certainly not an unexplored topic in music, but I have always admired the slightly different way Alex Turner approaches the subject. Like in the first album’s Mardy Bum, which describes a row between a couple, D Is For Dangerous is about being in love with someone you know it won’t be easy to deal with.
Matt Helders, Alex Turner, Nick O’Malley and Jamie Cook in 2007
The album moves on to a song about casual sex. Balaclava, with its catchy bass throughout, is all about not becoming emotionally attached to the girl you’ve just pulled. ‘The confidence is the balaclava’.
Next is my favourite song on the album, Fluorescent Adolescent. It’s probably the best known one on it, and the one you’re most likely to have heard somewhere else (it was, for example, on the soundtrack to The Inbetweeners). It starts with two guitars crashing into each other, leading into Turner’s lyrics about getting older. I can do no better than to relay the whole of the first verse:
‘You used to get it in your fishnets Now you only get it in your night dress Discarded all the naughty nights for niceness Landed in a very common crisis Everything’s in order in a black hole Nothing seems as pretty as the past though That Bloody Mary’s lacking in Tabasco Remember when you used to be a rascal?’
Turner was just 20 years old when he wrote that with the help of his then-girlfriend Johanna Bennett.
The band slowed the song down and added a snippet of Dion’s Only You Know to it to make for a highlight of their headline set at Reading in 2009:
Like most albums, Favourite Worst Nightmare has a slower tune in the form of Only Ones Who Know. I would almost describe the guitars on this song as haunting. It’s great to listen to with headphones on. It feels like a sad song, and sets this album apart from their debut, which had a cheekier tone throughout.
In Do Me a Favour Turner once again turns the classic break up song on its head by writing it from the perspective of the person in the wrong. It starts with Matt Helders thundering on his drums and describes, in Turner’s words, ‘a goodbye’.
‘It’s the beginning of the end The car went up the hill and disappeared around the bend Ask anyone, they’ll tell you that it’s these times that it tends To start to break in half, to start to fall apart, hold on to your heart’
We are into the second half of the album and This House is a Circus signals a change in tone for the album. A wild night out is described in what Turner calls his favourite song from the record.
Next, it’s If You Were There, Beware and we are back onto the topic of fame. In this one, Turner talks about how annoyed he is at the way the media treats his loved ones. In terms of the instrumentation it’s the clearest hint we get of what was to come on the third Monkeys album, Humbug, which represented a major shift in sound for the band. Lyrically, it seems Turner’s girlfriend is being hounded by the paparazzi:
‘If you were there, beware the serpent soul pitchers Can’t you sense she was never meant to fill column inches Ain’t you had enough? What you’re trying to dig up Isn’t there to be dug; the thieves help the thugs As they’re trying to beat the good grace of a sweetheart Out to the point she’ll comply’
The bad thing in Do The Bad Thing is having an affair, and Old Yellow Bricks is all about finally getting out of your hometown and realising that the rest of the world isn’t up to much after all. An interesting one, given that nowadays two of the band live in Los Angeles while the other two have settled back down in their native Sheffield.
The album closes with 505, a song recently named the best of all Arctic Monkeys songs in a radio station poll and a track the band have used to bring the curtain down on countless live performances over the years. It starts off with the sound of an organ, the same chords you can hear in the Western film The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and suddenly ups the tempo in the final third of what Turner described as ‘the first proper love song we’ve done’. Additional guitar for this track was provided by Miles Kane, who would form the supergroup The Last Shadow Puppets with Turner later in 2007.
So there we have it – the twelve songs that made the difficult second album something of a breeze for Arctic Monkeys. Favourite Worst Nightmare went straight to the top of the album chart and secured the band their first headliner slot at Glastonbury. I will leave you with the band’s brilliant performance of 505 from Glastonbury 2013.
It’s a fairly long running podcast (I was on episode 398) by the people who do the sports pages of the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News. The topic is all things Norwich City.
As I’ve been writing a regular column for those papers for the last five years they asked me to appear, and I was both delighted and terrified to be asked. I’m very comfortable with the written word but actually speaking with my voice fills me with dread. I knew I’d regret it if I turned them down though so I said yes and I’m glad that I did so.
Alongside the host – journalist David Freezer – I was on with the chairman of the Canaries Trust Robin Sainty and ex-Norwich player Darren Eadie. Esteemed company!
We discussed the proposals to resume the Premier League season that is currently suspended due to the coronavirus epidemic and our memories of our first Norwich City games.
Darren Eadie had something of a bee in his bonnet about the way the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) have been handling the crisis, and the things he said in the podcast turned out to be newsworthy enough to make the board outside my mum’s local shop!
You can listen to the podcast below, by clicking the link in the first sentence of this post or by searching for ‘The Pink Un’ where you usually get your podcasts (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc.)
We’re in the third week of lockdown. It’s a really weird time for everyone. By now, we’re starting to get used to the idea of staying in and finding new ways of doing things. I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve been doing to keep myself occupied and stop myself going stir crazy.
Film night
I have never been into films. I can watch hours and hours of sport but sitting in front of a film for two hours or so has never appealed to me. I’m a bit like Michael Owen. I haven’t been to the cinema since 2008 and even that was a sixth form trip to see a French thriller.
The lockdown and the consequent extra time at home, however, has given me the opportunity to watch the occasional film. Where I live we have a semi-regular film night where we sit and properly watch (no devices allowed) with some snacks. The most recent one we watched was 24 Hour Party People.
Games
What’s going on at the moment can make you feel helpless. The news is relentlessly depressing and there’s no end in sight to the pandemic. I’ve found it really helpful playing games. Games give you something to focus on, some achievable goals (as in you can’t stop the pandemic but you can win that game) and a form of escape.
There are three types of game I’ve been playing since this all started. In my house we’ve been playing games such as Uno and Bananagrams to give us all something to do together of an evening.
I’ve also been playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on the PS4. It’s not the sort of game I’d usually play, but it features a massive open world that you can explore and that seems pretty appealing when you can’t really go anywhere in real life at the moment. Some might think it’s daft finding solace in computer games but apparently Salman Rushdie played a lot of Mario when he was in hiding and says it helped him through it.
A few times a week I also play FIFA or GTA with a friend of mine who lives in Cambridgeshire. We talk to each other over a headset while we play so there’s a healthy social aspect to our sessions, even if we are not very good at the games. The video below, for example, is my friend missing the most open of open goals.
A stay-at-home pub
My landlord and I like to go to the pub every now and again, but that’s obviously not possible at the moment so we’ve dedicated Wednesday nights to our very own stay-at-home pub. We’ve called it The Head In Hands.
We sit around the fire, have a couple of drinks and listen to music. Each week the music has a theme. Last week the theme was Brians (don’t ask) and this week it was originals that are less famous than their cover versions. One great example is Gloria Jones, who recorded Tainted Love nearly two decades before Soft Cell had a number one hit with it.
What these themed nights are doing is giving me a way to mark the days of the week instead of allowing them all to blur into one boring mess. They’re keeping me social and broadening my horizons. I recommend everyone give them a try.
A few years ago I wrote a newspaper column in which I listed a few of the things that annoyed me about football and would lock away inside Room 101. Here are some more.
Transfer speculation
Sky Sports News goes into overdrive during the transfer window
Sky Sports News was practically unwatchable during January. The channel is famous for its ability to hype up the most mundane of sporting events but in what was a fairly quiet transfer window they outdid themselves. Constantly banging on about players I have never heard of going/not going to teams I don’t care about. Several times a day they would have round table discussions about transfers as if they were the most important thing on earth. I saw one bloke on there who seemed genuinely angry at a club for deciding that they were happy with their squad and that they wouldn’t buy anyone. Why wouldn’t you sign someone? It’s the transfer window! It is your duty!
Yes, Jim White, I do vaguely remember Nabil Bentaleb in his Spurs days. He was pretty average. Why are you getting so excited about him moving to Newcastle? Since its 2011 peak, deadline day has ceased to be even remotely interesting but that doesn’t stop Sky Sports News counting down to it like it was Christmas. The fact that the current system means this is all condensed into one month makes it even harder to stomach – my other passion is cricket, and even though the England team were in the middle of a fascinating tour of South Africa, news about it was pushed down the running order because Bruno Fernandes (who?) had been seen in a Homebase just outside Manchester. Or something like that.
Nabil Bentaleb in his Spurs days. I didn’t care then and I don’t care now
‘What do they need a break for? They earn millions!’
As I write this, the Premier League is embarking on its first winter break. It seems crazy that it has taken 27 years for the English top flight to take a leaf out of the books of nearly every other European league, but better late than never. Each of the 20 clubs will get a two week break in February, staggered over four weeks so the TV broadcasters still have some matches to show. Everyone’s happy, right?
Far from it. I’ve had several arguments this week with people who seem incredulous at this highly sensible intermission in a long season. Here’s a summary of the sort of comments I’ve seen online:
‘They earn millions. Why do they need a break?’ – I don’t know if I’ve missed something, but how does earning a lot of money stop you getting tired?
‘They didn’t need a winter break in the good old days’ – they didn’t play as many matches back in the ‘good old days’. Even so, I’m sure the players would have loved a bit of a break. Most other leagues in Europe have one and players have been calling for one here for years.
‘It’s not even cold, they should man up’ – the break has got nothing at all to do with the weather. This is simply the best time to have the break. It keeps the precious festive fixture calendar in tact and comes just before the return of the European competitions.
‘I play for the Dog & Duck right through the winter. I don’t need a break’ – well done, Barry. I’m sure your fellow regulars at the local boozer love a kickabout on a Sunday morning, after your fry up and before your roast beef. But we’re talking about Premier League footballers here. Elite athletes who are expected to perform at their best all the time. It’s usually around this time of year that performances dip and muscle injuries become more common – don’t you think this would be a good time for a little break?
The manager makes a joke about a journalist’s phone going off in a press conference
The Ghost of Arsenal Past with a textbook effort here
I have had it ratified by at least three other people that I have what you would call a ‘good’ sense of humour. I am, indeed, a laugh. But I fail to see what is amusing about a football manager making a joke when a journalist’s phone rings in a press conference. It might have raised a bit of a smile at first but it’s happened too many times now. Yet, the video of the ‘hilarious’ moment will be posted online and we are all supposed to watch it.
VAR
I don’t feel like I have to explain this one. Get rid of it and bring the fun back.
What winds you up about football that you’d happily see the back of? Let me know by leaving a comment at the bottom of this article or by tweeting me on @ncfclee.
England’s tour of New Zealand was a bit of a let down. It was a much anticipated first meeting of the two teams since the World Cup final, the sides evenly matched and now rivals full of mutual respect. The series of five T20s, however, was four too many. I understand that preparations for next autumn’s T20 World Cup are now the focus but five felt like too much.
The tourists rested most of their biggest names for those white ball matches and went with fresh faces. There was no Jos Buttler, Jason Roy or Jofra Archer to name just three, but there was Tom Banton, Pat Brown and Saqib Mahmood. While it was intriguing to see how these youngsters got on, it left the T20s without that star quality – especially as New Zealand were without their captain Kane Williamson, who was injured.
Somerset youngster Tom Banton got his first chance to impress in England colours in New Zealand
The cricket was good, to be fair. England won the first game, then their inexperienced bowlers suffered and they found themselves 2-1 down. Dawid Malan then scored the fastest T20I century by an Englishman, smashing an unbeaten 103 from 51 balls, and leg spinner Matt Parkinson took four wickets on his debut to level the series.
After the drama at Lord’s in July, incredibly, the last match ended in a tie. Reduced to 11 overs a side in Auckland due to rain, both teams scored 146. This time the Super Over was decisive, with England comfortable winners.
New Zealand’s Jimmy Neesham couldn’t believe it when another match against England went to a Super Over in Auckland
There were only two Tests, which is never enough but especially not when it’s England versus New Zealand. The Black Caps have become a very fine Test team in recent years and deserve at least three matches against the ‘marquee’ sides. Reportedly the New Zealand board lose money when they host Test matches, which rather forces their hand unfortunately. Neither of the Tests were part of the World Test Championship either, which gave the whole series the feel of a warm up for bigger things to come.
As beautiful as the cricket grounds of New Zealand are, the pitches prepared did not provide a great advertisement for Test cricket. The Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui hosted its first Test match but saw the hosts bat for 200 overs and then dismiss England for 197 to win by an innings. A week later in Hamilton the England captain Joe Root made a very welcome return to form with 226 but rain and a placid surface meant New Zealand easily played out a draw and took the series 1-0.
New Zealand wicketkeeper BJ Watling batted for 11 hours in scoring 205 in the first Test against England
Williamson’s men were using the series to prepare for crossing the Tasman, as they had been given the rare opportunity to have a proper go at Australia. For the first time in more than thirty years New Zealand will be part of the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The Aussies are resurgent at the moment and thrashed them by 296 runs in Perth – it remains to be seen if they can bounce back from that.
England will be playing on Boxing Day as well, in Centurion in the first Test against South Africa. It feels like a properly big series, this one. Four Tests, two well matched sides, playing at grounds that have produced exciting cricket over the last few years. For the TV spectator back home, the time difference between the UK and South Africa means the first ball of each day’s play will be bowled at either 8am or 8.30am. Wonderful. Especially when the New Zealand games were real through-the-night affairs.
Jimmy Anderson, England’s all time leading Test wicket taker, looks set to return to the team after a year blighted by injury. He has not bowled a ball for his country since limping off after sending down four overs on the first day of the Ashes at Edgbaston in August. It would be great to see him back. The tourists will also hope that Root’s double hundred in his last outing means the skipper has turned a corner, as well as that Jofra Archer can bowl at his quickest once again.
Jimmy Anderson is fit and ready to return for England in South Africa
South Africa have been in chaos off the field. Among other things their board’s chief executive was suspended following allegations of misconduct, their players were apparently considering going on strike over a breach of commercial rights and a number of sponsors announced they would be ending their association with Cricket South Africa, raising concerns about the board’s financial security.
The team itself were recently hammered in a Test series in India, and earlier this year were surprisingly beaten at home by Sri Lanka. Former captain Graeme Smith is now interim director of cricket and has appointed his former wicketkeeper Mark Boucher as coach so the Proteas will be hoping some form of stability at the top will enable the team to be somewhere near their best against England.
Well the weather is cruel And the season of Yule lifts the heart but it still hurts You’ve got your career spent the best part of last year apart and it still hurts So that’s why I pray each and every Christmas day that it won’t end
Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) by The Darkness
I’m no Scrooge, but Christmas isn’t my favourite time of year. I always struggle to decide what presents to buy, I’m not keen on turkey and that weird week between Christmas Day and New Year messes with my head.
This is also the tenth Christmas period I will spend working in a supermarket. As soon as we are into December the dreaded Christmas music starts getting pumped through the PA system. The same few festive pop hits, the ones we hear every year, joined by dreary choral gibberish. Over the course of two shifts, I must have heard at least ten different versions of Santa Baby.
If only they would add what I consider to be the best Christmas song of them all to the playlist – Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) by The Darkness.
There’s a chance you might have forgotten about The Darkness by now. They were briefly massive in the early 2000s when their debut album Permission to Land went to number one, led by the single I Believe in a Thing Called Love. In 2004 they won three BRIT awards, including Best British Group. For us here in the east of England, the band had added significance by hailing from humble Lowestoft.
The Darkness
In the build up to Christmas 2003, The Darkness released Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) – and it was a breath of fresh air. Kicking off with a heavy guitar riff, the lyrics are delivered in falsetto style by frontman Justin Hawkins. They almost sound upbeat, but if you listen closely they are tinged with sadness – he only sees his lover at Christmas, and he doesn’t want it to end and her to go away again.
Those lyrics might just be a reason we don’t hear the song alongside Slade, Wizzard and Chris Rea every year. As Hawkins put it:
We managed to get bellend into a Christmas song without it getting banned!
Justin Hawkins, The Darkness
Yep, they knew exactly what they were doing.
The song was in the race for Christmas number one in 2003 but came in at number two behind the utterly miserable Mad World cover by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules. It was accompanied by a hilarious video in which every single Christmassy thing anyone can think of was packed into 3 minutes and 41 seconds, then topped off by Hawkins shouting ‘BELLS END!’ in front of a choir of children.
As for The Darkness, Hawkins left the band in 2006 after finishing rehab for cocaine and alcohol abuse. He and his former bandmates were involved with new, separate projects before The Darkness reformed in 2011. They released a new album in October this year – but it’s safe to say the glory days are in the past.
But I urge you to make this song a part of every Christmas from now on – it’s the perfect antidote to the musical crimes that have been committed at this ‘most wonderful time of the year’.
With Norwich City bottom of the Premier League, my column for the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News this month is a rallying call to the more fickle fans of the club to stick with the team through a difficult period. You can read it online by clicking here.
A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.
Unknown
There have been two major additions to my life in the last five years.
One, taking up walking. Following trails, exploring new places and getting different perspectives of scenes familiar from the window of a car. Walking has subconsciously kept me reasonably fit and healthy, both mentally and physically. I used to do a lot of walking alone, usually on old railway lines. I am also often joined by my mum, who I have a bit of fun with by interviewing her at the end of one of our adventures. Nowadays, I tend to be joined on my walks by the second major addition to my life: friends.
Walking in the Norfolk countryside offers some stunning scenery
I will readily admit that I have never found forming friendships easy. I am crippled by self doubt – I am not good enough, not worthy of anyone’s attention. I had a few school friends, as must of us do, and at university I had one friend that helped make being in a new town that bit easier. I am glad to say that friendship remains, albeit long distance, today.
But in the last few years I have found myself with what I believe are the best group of friends anyone could wish for. Four people who I have laughed with, shared with and tackled life’s hurdles with. They have made me a better person. It’s not exaggerating to say that my life has been utterly changed by them.
One of these friends, Katie, is my regular walking buddy. We’ve been heading out with her dog Oscar for more than two years now, exploring the Norfolk countryside. Walking with someone else is now such a desirable thing for me that I find walking alone dull. Katie and I have mostly used the disused railway lines towards the north of Norfolk to chew the fat, have a laugh and talk over something that’s bothering us.
Oscar was yawning before we had even set off
Our walks are usually between four and six miles, but on a few occasions we have gone, quite literally, the extra mile. In early 2018 we walked from Aylsham to North Walsham and back, a distance of 14 miles, and later on in that year we did a 10 miler.
Yesterday, we did the Aylsham to North Walsham trek again, this time learning from the errors we had made the first time around. We made sure we had enough fluids with us to avoid becoming as dehydrated, Katie had organised for her mum and her daughter to be waiting at the halfway point so we could have a ‘pit stop’ of sandwiches, and Katie also went through three pairs of socks and two pairs of boots in an effort to avoid the blister hell her wet feet had caused her the first time.
Oscar enjoys the walks as much as we do
The weather was just about perfect for the occasion – dry, not too hot and not too cold. We had been building up to this with several walks in the weeks before so we were in decent shape to hammer through the miles.
Four hours and forty nine minutes after we had set off, we had done it.
When we had told people what we were planning, the most common question was ‘why?’.
LEE PAYNE 