Walking one walk or another

 

WALKING THE WALK

Back in June I wrote about my return to doing some lengthy walks, hoping that the Edinburgh Kiltwalk would survive the lockdown restrictions.  Alas, for obvious reasons, that is not to be, and instead we fundraisers are being encouraged to take part in a virtual Kiltwalk, on the same weekend when the real thing would have been taking place.  As part of that encouragement Kiltwalk has pledged to add 50% to whatever donations participants manage to collect, so it's definitely worth the effort.

As I have for the past two years I'll be walking to raise funds for Advocard, the organisation I work for as a volunteer advocacy worker.  If you're not sure what advocacy is and what we do I wrote about it in this post two years ago before my first Kiltwalk.  

Volunteering usually means face to face contact with our service users, so that aspect of the service has been in abeyance since March (our professional staff have still provided advocacy where possible, but it's been a tough gig at times).  But the volunteer side of thing started up again a few weeks ago, although for now we're restricted to sitting in an office making phone calls.  Lockdown has been a bad time for a lot of people, but for those with poor mental health, especially if they live alone, it's often been very difficult.  Not having access to services like ours is one of the many problems they've faced, so there's a pent up demand for what we provide.

I said 'walking' earlier, because that's what I set out to do a few months ago, and it would be daft to waste all the miles I've put in over recent weeks.  The Kiltwalk people said we could do anything we liked to raise funds.  Their suggestions mostly included activities so energetic they make my ageing body quiver at the thought, and in one case, trampolining, inadvisable to the inhabitant of a fifth floor flat.  So I'll stick to what I know, keep it simple, and concentrate on putting one boot in front of another.  

Rather than the usual Kiltwalk route I will be taking a more scenic, and a few places mildly more challenging, option.  The Water of Leith Walkway runs from Balerno in the southwest of the city to the Victoria swing bridge in Leith, almost on the Forth.  Over twelve and a half miles it winds across Edinburgh by way of leafy paths, public parks, the occasional busy road, an inner city village, a wonderfully muraled old railway tunnel, a croquet club and the country's largest stadium.  (With apologies for the made up word!)  You can find out more about it here.

As I explained in an earlier post, when the year began I'd been hoping to cover the Kiltwalk route in under three hours thirty minutes.  Having probably had a mild dose of covid-19 I now find myself getting out of breath more quickly than I used to, and I think that target would have been unrealistic.  But I will still use it, as a challenge to beat over this shorter but more inclined route.  Kilted of course.  

If you'd consider being generous enough to donate then please click here.  And please share the page for others to see.  I've been very late getting this out to the world, so already there's only three weeks before the day.

Final plea - if you have any sway with the weather gods please ask them to be considerate over Edinburgh that weekend.  Ploughing on through glutinous mud is not the challenge I'm hoping for!