By: Blonde Two
So far this year the Two Blondes have taught navigation skills at two different South West walking festivals. Which is interesting because before this year, I hadn’t been to any sort of festival at all!
Our first festival experience was the Dartmoor Walking Festival (to be repeated August 26th to September 3rd 2017) for which we ran our wettest Navigation for Beginners workshop (other, dryer activities were available).
Our second was last weekend, for the East Devon Walking Festival, also known as the Sidmouth Walking Festival (to be repeated mid September 2017). If you have never walked the East Devon coastline, you really should, it is stunning.
Both festivals offered a such a wide variety of walks and events, that I am convinced there would be something on the menu for everybody. From wild food foraging and Jurassic geology to informative town strolls and Nordic walking, the walkers of Devon have been spoilt for choice.
But not just local walkers; on both of our navigation walks we have met people who have come from all over, specifically to attend the walking festivals. Which just goes to show what a great idea they are for promoting an area and boosting visitor numbers. It was interesting talking to people about why they had come; some said that they had walked a lot in the past and weren’t sure why they had stopped, some said that they enjoyed walking but didn’t usually have someone to do it with and others wanted to gain a bit more confidence in their local area.
Our map reading and navigation sessions this year have been a massive success. We ended up with nearly double the expected number of people on the East Devon one and still managed to teach everybody something new. We have had so much positive feedback we can’t stop smiling! Lots of people want to come back to hone their new-found skills and we are in the process of talking to Dartmoor National Park about organising some consolidation days.
There are walking festivals all over the UK; we Blondes particularly like the sound of the Walk Scilly Festivals (October 13th – 17th 2016 and April 1st – 7th 2017). Blonde One has told me so much about the islands that I know I have to go sometime. When better than when walking is top of the things-to-do list? (It would be amusing, I think, to be there on April 1st, when surely there will be some actual silly walking?) You can find out more about these great walking opportunities here.
Is there a possibility that the Blondes have become less fun, more concerned with the moral existence of their readers than in dishing out persiflage. Given to issuing fiats. The photo worries me: there you are in full pedagogic mode, in front of a horseshoe of devotees who may, it is true, have sought enlightenment but equally may be having enlightenment thrust upon them. Is memory failing me? Was there a time when you were much more sly, given to à la derobée references, hints, saws and modern instances (A quote!), implying lives on the very fringe of legality, prophets of subversion.
But then, saying this, I feel the weight of “Physician, heal thyself.” and draw in my horns. I too have become sere and serious, eleven years of debit when it comes to the old three-score-years-and-ten prescription. But Blondes must grow not old. Surely you were both born under the star of Eternal Youth. It can’t be true that neither of you will see twenty-five again, can it?
Perhaps it’s the orange slipovers, evoking Derry, the marching season and the big banging drum. What do I know?
When our pedagogy involves calling things ‘turny bit’s instead of ‘bezels’ and telling people to ‘check your dark places’ for ticks. I don’t think we can be accused of being less fun. We were complimented on our light-hearted approach.
You were fun, and you imparted your knowledge brilliantly.. It was all jolly good stuff! ?
We Blondes do like a bit of ‘Jolly good stuff!” Thank you very much. We’re planning the next round of navigation activities very soon!