Following Footsteps

It’s early. The clouds are hanging low in the sky. Children are excitedly helping to pack rucksacks ready to climb their favourite mountain Catbells. It’s become an annual pilgrimage, each year it gets a little easier, fewer stops and this year is the first time since becoming a mum that a baby or toddler carrier hasn’t been involved. Everyone is old enough to hopefully walk up it on their own. Water bottles filled, lunch and plenty of snacks. It’s high summer but with the clouds layers are also being bundled into the bags, we hope they won’t be coming out but I’ve known these mountains all my life, the summits can catch people out all too easily in the summer.

The children have been sitting in the car waiting to go. One final check and we set off. Driving through the lakes to find the start of our adventure. The road winds round lakes, through forests, memories of all the journeys I’ve made come flooding to me. We spent most weekends growing up in these hills. My dad was a management consultant during the week, travelling all over the UK but at the weekends his creativity and love for photography shone through and he would become his true self. We would trek up the hills carrying tripods and cameras waiting for the perfect light for each photograph. We would grump and moan, his equipment heavy and cumbersome, but we also knew how important it was to be out in the hills with him. As his talent grew he started writing walking routes for magazines. If Substack existed twenty years ago he would have been a best seller, with his dry Yorkshire humour, fantastic walks and beautiful photographs making for a brilliant newsletter. I would write up his dictaphone notes he would make whilst creating new routes. Book deals came and I still take his books with me whenever we go to the Lake District. He will always be an outdoor writer and photographer in my eyes even though he has now retired.

We set off. It is cool and overcast, perfect for walking. The air is filled with the heady scent of bracken which covers the hillside and smells of my childhood, a mix of green, damp and wood all tangled together. Stomping up the steep ascent, pockets filled with sweets to keep chivying little legs along. Everyone is so friendly and encouraging of the children which makes them so proud and start to walk faster to get to the top as quickly as they can. Hoping to overtake as many people as they can.

Making it to the top, thick with cloud, not being able to see a thing. There is something wonderfully humbling about standing amongst the clouds, the wind trying to push us along. Layers are quickly thrown on as it is cold then we start the descent rather than having lunch on the top.

The descent is always quick, a stone staircase snakes its way down the side which my youngest hops down happily. A few years ago we did this walk with children in baby carriers on a really hot day, everyone was tired but we still had about a mile to go. We kept everyone going by discussing what flavour ice cream we might get when we get to Keswick, when suddenly round the corner an ice cream van appeared. We’ve since discovered it is there everyday in the summer but that year it felt magical that it was sitting in that lay by, waiting to provide a sugary treat to keep everyone going until we get to the end of the walk. To this day the children still talk about that miraculous ice cream van, as though it had appeared purely because we’d wished hard enough.

Everyone chooses their flavour and we skip the rest of the way back to the car. Happy to have conquered our mountain once again.

It has taken me a while to write this post, a combination of summer holidays but also wanting to make sure it felt like it celebrated my dad in the right way. Writing this has made me realise that perhaps I’ve been following in his footsteps all along. In my day job I am also a consultant but it is my writing, recipe development and gardening when I feel most me. A couple of weeks ago a Scottish horticultural company came and filmed my garden for part of a series they create annually showcasing gardens across Scotland. It was an incredible experience and the presenter introduced me as a writer, recipe developer and gardener and afterwards said the one thing he would love to see was that I continued and believed in my gift.

Perhaps that’s why this season has felt different. Watching my own children climb the hills I grew up on has also made me think about what I’m passing on, not just to them, but to myself.

This summer has been quite the turning point in where I want my writing and life to go. I am creating recipes for a local company and hopefully I will be able to continue to grow this beautiful community so that one day this will be my full time job.

Thank you, as always, for reading and for encouraging this dream to grow. Every comment, every subscription and every message helps me believe that perhaps one day writing, recipes and gardening won’t simply be the things I love most, they’ll be the life I’ve built.

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