It's a Day For Hats

 
                                                                                                                                    
 11th September


It's a Day For Hats

Two little dogs appeared first, busy in their work of  following scents, nearly tripping us up on the bend. Their owners weren't far behind, a jolly pair, laughing, calling the dogs. "Ah, it's a day for hats", he stopped in front of us, giving us no choice but to join him in conversation. His observation was spot on. 

The four of us were all wearing hats of different sorts . And , what's more, thinking about it, weren't most people we saw also wearing hats. 

Not a lover of hats for myself I had put one on this particular morning because it was another  hot, sunny day and my lips had burnt too many times in the previous weeks . So my hat was wide rimmed and pulled down to protect as much of my face as possible. My husbands hat, only used to cover the ever growing bald patch on his head, was smaller. The couple, who were now settling in for a full blown get together, wore matching baseball caps.

But wearing hats was as far as the similarity went with regard to us and these two. Out for a stroll while the dogs had a run they  wore crocs, loose clothing - her , a dress, him, light shorts and matching shirt. They looked as if they might go home and open a bottle of prosecco with friends whilst enjoying a barbecue.
We , on the other hand looked as if we were on a long walking trek - walking boots, with proper thick socks hanging folded over the top, my husband carrying a rucksack and wearing long shorts reminiscent of the 1940's. And we both had good sunglasses, important if you're going to be out all day.

We were half way through a seven mile walk when they delayed us with idle chatter about the weather and the fact that we didn't have a dog, but we did like to walk. They found that the most strange thing,as if there would be no need to go for a walk if you didn't have a four legged friend to take.
Laughing to ourselves we left them and pressed on.

The whole point of our walk was to see how long the seven miles that we'd mapped out would take us, so any distractions were avoided if possible. 
This short trek was the start of our preparations to do the Camino Way Pilgrimage, which will be about 500 miles walking over 42 days -that was easy to write, lets see how easy the actual doing of it will be. 
Today's 7 miles took two hours, a reasonable pace, I think, at 3.5 mph.
We learnt:
 that we can easily keep the pace up and plan to gradually lengthen the distance over the next few months.
that we need some better, thicker socks.
that it's vital that you look after your feet.
that it's important to have enough water with you.
that it's not easy to walk on the beach and keep up a good pace.
that if you don't look people in the eye they won't disturb you.
that it's great to be outside.

We'll probably learn more as time goes on.

There was one chap who we had to spend some time with though. He was on the beach , not walking a dog, but walking a ferret. A young, furry creature, we found him fascinating, while we had our lunch of salmon sandwiches and coffee. 

 More to come...


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