Out in nature: A resolution

Is it a failed walk or a successful day out? You decide.

This is a story about failure and eventual success. (Kind of) so I’ll start with an explanation and a resolution.
About eight years ago, I discovered I had a back problem. Not unusual as we get older, but to cut a long story short, I very quickly began to lose mobility, and normal tasks started to become difficult if not impossible.
The problem was that my whole life at the time revolved around my being physically fit. We have four acres of land and a very old rambling farmhouse, doth of which need constant maintenance. At the time, we also had animals who needed looking after. Steve worked as an English teacher; I looked after the animals and the veg garden.
As my condition worsened, my world shrank, and the house and the garden both started to look shabby. We still have a dog and a cat, but other than that, the animals have gone, and our veg patch is down to a couple of beds. Two years ago Steve retired, and since then we have brought a bit of order back into our lives, thank goodness. Things are better, but my frustration has grown. I want to be out there, but I also realise that I have become complacent, accepting I can’t do things rather than searching for new ways to reach my goals.
For me, two good things came out of this sudden disability, though hate to describe it as a disability, as there are so many people with less mobility than I have.

I started writing and found my passion in life, and the medical treatment I have received has been excellent so the inevitable chronic pain is under control. But my mobility is still limited, and I still miss hiking, days out in the mountains, and my garden.
This year I have promised myself that I am going to push that mobility to the limit and see what I can still do and whether I can find a new way of doing things I used to do without a thought.
Last year I had an operation on my eye and afterwards realised that some of the fear of falling (because of my condition, I can not stand up straight, affecting balance) came from a loss of depth perspective because of my eye condition. This has given me more confidence to try new things.
Sorry for the long list of my health problems and the brackets. I was trying to keep the explanation short, but I felt you needed to know the background before I tell you my failed walk story, and to explain why there might be more of these stories as the year goes on, I will fail often, before I find a way forward, the hard part will be to keep going.

Here in Spain, the sixth of January is a bank holiday, King’s Day, the day when children receive their presents. Christmas doesn’t end until after Epiphany. We decided to go for a walk, so I looked on Google Maps to find somewhere new to visit and found an eleven kilometre walk, of which a section of four kilometres is wheelchair friendly.
Meaning I should be able to take my rollator (walking frame with outdoor wheels).
I should have looked at the photos then. If I had not, we might never have set off, and that would have been a shame because we ended up having a lovely day.
We woke up that morning to the coldest morning of the winter and wet, sleety snow. I was determined that we weren’t changing our plans, so we packed our picnic and our little camping stove and set off.
As we drove up into the mountains, the sleet changed into proper snow, and we drove into the cloud, so we couldn’t see much.
The Mammoth statues loomed out of the mist in front of us. on the right hand side of the road. They are magnificent even covered in snow.
The route we had planned is called the Route of the Mammoth. It should have started further along the road and taken you to two ancient castors or settlements, both part excavated, and then past these statues. The weather was closing in, so we parked by the statues to get a closer look.
According to the information. In 1961, workmen in the nearby limestone quarry found bones and teeth of Mammoths proving for the first time that giant mammoths roamed Galicia. The sculptures are based on that find.
It was snowing hard, so after taking some photos; We found the path next to the sculptures, abandoning the idea of doing the complete route because the weather was so bad. We started our walk there. That was my next mistake I didn’t check that it was part of the wheelchair – friendly section.

It was hard going; the snow wasn’t cold enough, and kept getting stuck in my wheels, and where the sun hit the path, the snow had melted and refrozen a few times and there was a thin layer of snow and deep mud underneath. In the shade, ice had formed under the snow. I was determined to keep going, so I ploughed on for about five hundred metres, at which point the gradient, which had been a gradual downhill slope suddenly got steeper, I was exhausted by that time by pushing my wheels through the snow, I should have brought two sticks instead. I looked down the slope of the path and realised that if I did get down, there was no way I would make it back up. Reluctantly, I turned back, feeling bad for Steve because it meant he couldn’t go either.

The climb back to the mammoths was tough, but the views through the mist were great. There was that strange dead silence you get in snow, and the mist was rolling in and out, making the place look mysterious and magical, and the intermittent snow and sunshine covered everything with glittery Christmas fairy lights. Even though the weather stopped us, I felt as though it offered a consolation prize of the sheer beauty of the scene once we were away from the road.
I promised myself to return in better weather.
We could have had our lunch by the sculpture, but we both had wet feet. (Third mistake: I should have put walking boots on. I have a pair even though it’s been a while since I used them.)
We drove downhill to the reservoir, out of the snow, and sat in the winter sunshine at a picnic table and ate sandwiches and soup looking out over the water. It was silent and calm and way too tame.
I had another minor victory; the soup was homemade packet soup made of our own veg. I experimented a bit in the summer with dehydrated meals, and this was the first we’d tried on a picnic. It was a successful venture, and I will make more ready meals if we continue with these adventures.

So what is the moral of this brief story?
Better preparation for sure, twice as much as I have needed to do in the past.
Better gear. Limited mobility means I have to be waterproof and warm even on short, easy walks. I am slower, need more rest stops, and can’t run back to the car.
Keep trying. We had a magical day and enjoyed every minute. The only exception was the moment I had to admit defeat on the walk.
Build fitness, the stronger I am, the better it is, because everything takes more effort than it used to.
I have plans for the future, nearer to home, to car camp further away and try some more walking routes, so watch this space.
On a more serious note; Being out in the wild gives me inspiration for writing. In the summer, I often sit in one of the fields near my village to clear my head and let it fill with stories.
I don’t always write about it because it seems tame compared with watching the sunset on the top of a mountain. A challenge for me is a bit on the naff side for others, but we all need to get out, and we all need to overcome challenges, so at least we have that in common.