Walking poles are awkward and embarrassing. Not in the same way that small children are awkward and embarrassing, there’s more of a similarity to how you feel about your parents when you’re 14. They’re designed to be useful for rough times and they’re fantastic for support and balance. I’m still talking about the poles but it makes you think, doesn't it? So, what do you do with them if your walk is a mixture of rough ground and pavement? If you use them on pavement, they make that embarrassing, jaw-clenching, scratchy noise that I usually associate with unglazed plates. If you decide to shrink them using their clever telescopic design, they are awkward to carry and smack you sharply in the face as a reminder not to drink from your water bottle when holding sharp sticks. Yes, yes, I know that most people don’t need a reminder about things like that but I think we’ve established by now that I am not like most other people, I have a terrible memory and a real knack for injuring myself whilst doing nothing at all. When I’m back on rough terrain, I use the telescoping design and open them up again, but then I can never seem to get the right height again and both poles are at different heights (or do I mean lengths?). Were they designed to keep bored people occupied on long walks with their need for constant adjustment? It’s a very good thing that they have lines marked on them in both metric and imperial lengths (or heights), if only I could remember what number I had them set to.
This morning I went out early, before anyone else was about. I told myself it was because I wanted the bright sunshine to myself, but really it was because I didn’t want anyone around to see me fighting and arguing with my walking poles in public. People often think poorly of someone who talks to inanimate objects, but in my defence, I have to point out that they don’t ask complicated questions, don’t interrupt and – here’s the real truth – I don’t even realise I’m doing it. It was cold in the areas shaded from the sun, the overnight frost hadn’t yet melted and there was crisp, white frozen grass at the side of the mud track leading up Norman’s Law, the highest hill in the north of Fife. Spring lambs were either skipping and hopping to keep up as their bleating mothers wandered away or they were tucked underneath their mums, fluffy tails wagging furiously as they drank milk. The green fields were bathed in sunshine and beyond them lay the calm, blue waters of the Tay and golden Tayside beaches. A reminder that this was still part of The Coastal Path.
I carried on up Norman's Law, eager to find out if there was anything left of the ancient settlement. As the 11th tallest hill in Fife, it would have been easy to defend in case of trouble, which is why in late Roman times, the summit was a fortified enclosure, with heavy stone walls and an earth ditch surrounding little domestic huts. It would have had a reassuring and commanding presence here, but I would hate to be one of the people that had to nip down to the valley to fetch the stones to build it.
I know that Norman’s Law is high, I know that I’m unfit, but I was three-quarters up the hill, wondering why it had felt like such a hike, when it suddenly occurred to me that I had left the walking poles in the car. I do have a terrible memory but even for me this was a bit too forgetful. I muttered away, irritated at myself, all the way to the cairns at the top of the hill; then stopped and smiled because the view was spectacular. The river was a wide ribbon of bright blue, the tips of sandbanks looking like boats and barges from this distance. Fife stretched out below in every direction, the green and brown Ochil hills going up and down like the waves of the sea suspended in time. The sheep and lambs I had passed earlier were tiny white dots and pine trees and gorse bushes were clumped together like dark patches of fur. I looked around the summit for the settlement, but to my untrained eyes, the low, broken-down stone walls and clumps of earth didn't show any clue to the lives and history of the ancient people who'd lived out their lives here. Before the wind drove me back down The Path, I enjoyed the fleeting satisfaction of being the highest person in north Fife.
I came down through the Aytonhill forestry reserve, where a man and his faithful Jack Russell terrier were slowly carrying out the ancient process of turning fallen trees into firewood. There were no power tools here, just long two-handed branch clippers, an axe and a hand-saw, they were all old but well cared for, the saw-horse was made of wood too and had probably been built by the same man. I stopped to chat with him (better than talking to myself) and it was nice to know that even though he’d worked up here for years, he still admired the view. As I said goodbye to him and made my way down the steep path through the Red Fox Wood, the only noises I could hear were woodpeckers drumming in the wood, the high shrill call of Bluetits and the ugly kazoo call of the ravens and I mentally thanked the man again for not using a chainsaw.
As I rounded the bend at Ayton farmhouse at the bottom of the hill, heading towards Glenduckie, it was roughly demonstrated to me how grateful I would been if I had remembered the walking poles. My foot hit a large stone at an awkward angle and I found myself lying on the floor admiring the dry mud track quite closely. After a quick shifty glance round to make sure nobody had seen me, I jumped back up again, then realised that it was still quite early in the day, I was miles away from anywhere and I could have lain there all day and nobody would have seen me. As I started to walk again, a dull ache started up in my ankle and by the time I reached Glenduckie, I was gritting my teeth and realising that there was a (now impossible) 90-minute walk to reach my car. After muttering some more, I contacted a sympathetic friend and she drove out to fetch me and was kind enough not to call me an idiot.
It was a beautiful walk and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I’m going to remember my walking poles next time, because it turns out that being rescued is even more awkward and embarrassing than walking poles are.
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