"Fat to Fittie"

As mentioned on my home page, I have osteoarthritis in both hips, this makes walking extremely hard, which can be quite stressful, especially as I did a lot of it for my job and also for pleasure. I sometimes get very anxious when I’m struggling to put one foot in front of the other, while people are just easily strolling around me, not fully aware of the gift they have, like most things in life, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. I used to like nothing more than going with my sons on a walking adventure, something quite prehistoric about sodding off for the day, everything you might need in a backpack, hoping you’ve allowed for all eventualities. My bucket list shows how much I want to return to mobility with the number of walks I’ve included, Ben Nevis, Mount Snowden, Hadrian’s wall (again), The Cleveland way, Yorkshire three peaks and the Medieval walls in my home city of York, at only two and a half miles, this may not seem to warrant being on such an elite list, but trust me, this small treat is number one.

On my worst days, the most I can often manage is about 20 steps without stopping, yeah, not much I know, a dose of morphine can sometimes help, but obviously this is something I don’t like to rely on very much. I quite often find that when I overdo it, (Walking that is, not the drugs), the next day I’m knackered, eight hours of furniture surfing around the house and lots of stretches. Swimming helps a lot and I can never get over how much easier it is to walk in the water, I do about 30 lengths, reasonably easy, then as soon as I get out, it’s a slow shuffle to the changing rooms. As part of my new health kick, I’ve decided to try and push myself, one idea is that I combine my knowledge of history with a bit of walking, I started yesterday with the Battle of Fulford, which was fought in 1066 on the 20th September.

To celebrate the 958th anniversary, I grabbed my newly purchased camera harness and headed to the battlefield. I know the area well as I spent a lot of time there while I was researching my book on it, at the time I had no idea a housing estate was planned to be built and local residents opposed to it, were promoting the area as the site of the battle. Until then I’d not really looked at it and only decided to write, as I felt it wasn’t mentioned enough, little did I know how controversial the placement of the site was, or how hooked on the research I was going to get. As I was unaware, it was completely unbiased and my book angered the locals, because it was pretty obvious where it was fought, especially as it was described in the Anglo Saxon chronicles, which was nothing like the area pencilled in for the houses. As I gave evidence at an enquiry on behalf of the builders, it’s fair to say I’m not like much by some of the residents it affected, as the housing project eventually went ahead, don’t worry, I got over it.

As I headed albeit very slowly down the narrow path, I could see some orange plastic fences and a temporary bridge over the beck that forms a crucial part of the battle site. I soon discovered that work was ongoing to sort out the drainage problem, an issue they had in 1066 and was why the site was chosen by the English army. It was felt the boggy terrain might favour them, sadly, that wasn’t true and the English suffered a huge defeat at the hands of the Viking invaders. Whilst it’s great that the work is being done, the modern bright orange, wasn’t great for my video and neither was my slow, wobbly walk down the track, the harness was defiantly going to be useful for something, but this wasn’t it, even speeded up in editing, it looked horrendous. I’d like to think my first effort was ok, you can have a look at the videos on tik tok, certainly something I’m going to do again and it’s a great reason to get out and keep fit, combining my love of history and walking, even if it did take me 2 hrs.