As I Wander
This blog is about walking but also what happens to me when I walk. That is – like with many of us – I drift, not off the path, although that often happens too (and that can be sometimes rewarding or challenging). No, the ‘drift’ that I’m referring to is the thoughts that occur as I walk.
I have come to refer to this as ‘slow walking’.
First and foremost I love the experience of walking. The landscapes, topography, plants, wind, light, wildlife and people I meet are a never ending fascination to me but also the experience often (not always) can inspire memories, thoughts, stories and physical happiness. And sometimes I get wet, cold and miserable too. Yet that is all part of it. I’m never sure what there’ll be. It’s all about the novelty of the adventure. I hope you enjoy it too.
James Rogerson November 2019
SWCP – Treyarnon to Harlyn Bay, February 9th 2025
It’s 9am and I’m at the car park in Treyarnon. There is only one other person here – a young surfer with a red sweat shirt and green jeans checking out the surf while humming a tune to himself. It’s still icy cold on the hands and face but the clouds have now disappeared and…
Keep readingSWCP – Porthcothan, February 8th 2025
It’s almost three and a half months since I was last here. It’s not that I don’t like walking in winter. I love it, unless it’s heavy rain but other things have been happening and hey, as always, what’s the rush? At my girlfriend’s house I have a favourite mug with a picture of a…
Keep readingSWCP Griffin’s Point to Porthcothan, October 29th 2024
Here I am still staring at the sunbeams that lance downwards onto patches of Towan Head, the small finger of land that points out to sea west of Newquay, the green of the land brighter inside those shafts of light. I think back to Newquay and the empty road train rumbling along the High Street,…
Keep readingCurry Rivel January 13th 2024
Up to see Jane, me squelching and slipping up the path between the tennis courts. Danni is there making tea and coffee for us. I wait in the kitchen while I hear the buzz of her stairlift as she comes down the stairs. She is now 94. Before Christmas she told mum she really felt…
Keep readingSWCP Griffin’s Point to Porthcothan, October 29th 2024
I sleep soundly in my little cabin near Newlyn East until I am shaken awake at 4.30 by a cockerel crowing about 2 metres from my head. It’s still raining, the pattering constant on the leaves in the trees surrounding me. I find the breakfast room, a small whitewashed barn – or probably an old…
Keep readingWotton-Under-Edge November 20th
A walled clump of pine trees stands sentinel above Wotton-under-Edge. They make an undulating rushing sound like the wind itself their needles quivering in the cold air. All around their base on the east side away from the sun snow has gathered itself into drifts. The first Arctic weather has arrived for the winter and…
Keep readingCurry Rivel November 12th
The papers have been reporting that there has been only two hours of sun in the last two weeks across the UK. I have just accepted it as the changing of the seasons but today there is sunshine, but also a cold wind like a harbinger for the long winter ahead. I think back to…
Keep readingSWCP – Watergate Bay to Griffin’s Point October 28th 2024
There is a sheen on the road leading down Tregurrian Hill from my car towards Watergate Bay. It’s nearing 4 O’Clock but instinctively I can feel the day is nearing its end. It’s the mental adjustment we all make in the days after the clocks have gone back each year (it was last weekend). We…
Keep readingCurry Rivel November 4th
Back at the cottage after a fantastic two days in Snowdonia as a belated 50th birthday present. Perhaps in a cliche of other middle aged men around the world focusing on their health I have become a ‘hoffer’, a follower of Wim Hof and his breathing method and crazy cold water treatments. I’ve always been…
Keep readingStanton Drew September 13th
Beautiful chilly day. 11 of us to have English heritage tour around the stone circle. Sun is still strong and scores of swallows swoop above stubbly fields while jets start their descent to Briz. Great black drums glint in the autumn sun at Norton Malreeward and heat haze above the grass makes the houses behind…
Keep readingCurry Rivel October 7th
A perfect Autumn day. The first of the year. Rain water on the blue lias wall outside the cottage. The last of the pink roses droop over it reaching almost into the way of anyone who might walk past. The flower heads nod deliberately and have drops of moisture that catch the light. Everything is…
Keep readingSWCP – Crantock May 11th 2024
I’m still cursing myself for missing last night’s freak aurora as I look down onto Crantock Beach. In my experience of walking the coast path in Cornwall it seems to be typical to have protracted periods of time alone with the path, the sea, the sky and then rare occasions when I’m suddenly thrown into…
Keep readingSWCP – Holywell to Crantock May 11th 2024
It’s 8.30am when I arrive at the Holywell Beach Cafe. A tall couple from Holland are seated on the bench outside smiling, chattering and looking about – the telltale signs of those excited to explore a new place. A young woman with dark hair dressed in white is calmly getting things ready behind the counter…
Keep readingSWCP – Ligger Point to Holywell May 11th 2024
I wake to the feeling of cool air on my face, feeling the dawn before I see it. It always takes me back to camping trips as a boy – that initial strangeness of waking up OUTDOORS, as exciting as the feeling of waking up in a new country. I sit up in my sleeping…
Keep readingSWCP – St Agnes Head to Perranporth May 10th 2024
Within minutes of arriving at St Agnes Head I almost step on a chough. I had just got out of my car to look at the sea and there he was strutting around right in front of me looking like he owned the place. As Cornwall’s national bird he probably has good reason to behave…
Keep readingBlackdowns Walk East Deane Way May 7th 2024
Trees that lovely light bright green. The weather finally sunny and warm. It’s been such a long and wet winter. The bumps and dips of Castile Neroche are awash with bluebells bowing their heads in the shade. Bees hum drunkenly. A yellow brimstone flaps jerkily up and up. The sight freezes me with its exoticism.…
Keep readingThe Monarch’s Way – Hardington Mandeville to East Coker April 20th 2024
The seasons are embroiled in an ongoing battle with no end in sight. Weeks have now gone by where spring has slowly tried to free itself from the cold grip of winter so that it can start its annual journey. Yet it can’t quite make it. Primroses and dandelions get buffeted by icy blasts of…
Keep readingSWCP – Porthtowan to Chapel Porth March 1st 2024
About fifty metres from the cliff edge the wind hits me. It is so cold it makes my face ache. It is coming from the north. Where has it travelled from? Greenland? It sure feels like it. Its force is such that it makes me suddenly stop and then slowly carry on with my walk…
Keep readingSWCP – Wheal Charlotte to St Agnes Head March 2nd 2024
I had another dream about Ukraine last night. I was going to meet a couple in West Ukraine to deliver aid – comically being carried in a caravan on the back of a van – and was getting their details and all the relevant information to cross the border. This was all just at it…
Keep readingSWCP – Portreath to Porthtowan January 13th 2024
I wake up slowly, softly in my bed at The Ship that looks over Mousehole Harbour. The first thing I’m aware of – apart from the quiet of the room and the cries of seagulls outside the window – is the great sense of relief, that I’ve made it through the night again without resorting…
Keep readingSomething went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
The Slow Walker 