Chanctonbury

When George came out of hospital at the end of September he was keen to try and get his fitness back levels up. Banned from the gym and his beloved weights, we started walking every Sunday morning and on his days off. We started out on the flat at Plumpton and after a few weeks moved on to climbing up to Chanctonbury Ring. I love these walks, I didn’t realise how much I had missed the trees and how important being out in the forest was to me

I grew up in Epping Forest in a time when children were safe to roam about, unattached in a world free from mobile phones and the internet. Indeed we were unceremoniously ejected from the house after breakfast and stayed out until we got hungry again or until it got dark, our mothers unencumbered by the need to know where we were or what we were doing. Packs of children big and small, running, jumping, climbing, shouting hurling ourselves down steep slopes on bikes with no brakes or tin trays in the snow. Astonishingly none of us ever got lost or hurt.

They were the best times and walking in the forest reminds me of who I am in a visceral way. From the smell of the damp leaves underfoot and the weak sunlight filtering through the bare branches to the bright jewel green of the moss on the trees, I delight in it all.