The Long Walk

Neil Munro

I should really confirm this before I start - yes, I am called Neil Munro and no, I've no connection to the author of the same name. Whilst I'd love it to be otherwise, I admit my writing does lack 'The Vital Spark' which you may find out if you read on. The reality is that I'm nothing special, in fact I'm a bit of a bore. I live a quiet life in which nine-to-five is my way to make a living but it provides enough spare time to let me enjoy spending time with my family, travelling, cycling, walking, golfing, helping out at my son's football team and keeping active in general.

In terms of my life so far, there are a number of memorable days that I can recall from the past thirty-odd years. There have been special days such as my wedding day or the day my son was born. There have been dark days from the time my dad passed away, from when I've been in hospital or from when I've let depression cloud over me. There have been enjoyable days from holidays and from concerts and sports events I've been at or taken part in. I could easily have written about any or all of these days.

Instead, I've chosen to live for the present and to focus on a day spent close to home in Scotland from the past year that I've really enjoyed. I'm happy to say, there has been more than one day that I could have written about. There was the Scotland, Italy game at Hampden last November which I was lucky enough to go to with my son. A great occasion and an awesome atmosphere even if the end result gave us another glorious failure. I'm not going to focus on that, though, as it's maybe best to wait until we've qualified for a major final again, I just hope we don't have to wait too much longer!

I could have written about a good day spent cycling over the past year. It's been a hard year in the saddle following an unfortunate fall during the winter but I have still managed to enjoy taking part in the Pedal for Scotland event and going out on a few summer runs around Glasgow and Edinburgh when the weather has been kind.

However, I've not chosen any of these days either. The one day I've plumped for was a simple day I spent not far from home at the end of August. I'd taken the day off to celebrate my birthday and my wife and I had decided to spend it by going into Edinburgh for lunch. Nothing remarkable so far but to get there we'd decided to walk. Again, not particularly remarkable but for the fact we live around eight miles from the centre of Edinburgh in East Lothian. It was a bit of a step up in class from our usual walking routes.

After seeing our son off to school, we set off around 9.30am at a steady pace. It wasn't a good morning weather-wise and we had to endure a couple of showers not far into the journey. Undeterred, the milestones soon started to fly by and within an hour and a half we'd reached Holyrood Park. It only seemed like a short jaunt from there to Princes Street where our pace dropped as we wandered in and out of some shops.

By midday, we were in the Grassmarket where we made a welcome stop for lunch at a cracking Indian restaurant and for just over £20 we were admirably fed and watered. We'd taken our time over lunch and when we stuck our heads out into the fresh air again the sun had made a rare appearance over Edinburgh. In a rash moment, we veered away from the direction of the train station as our mode of transport home and headed off instead on foot. The route took us down the Royal Mile to the Scottish Parliament where we doubled back on ourselves to head up past Arthur's Seat onto the Innocent Railway Path. We followed the path along to Duddingston before leaving it to join the main road through Craigmillar to Fort Kinnaird. By this time. I was beginning to feel like I was lifting lead weights with each step so we made a sensible decision to stop in at our favourite coffee shop. I have to say that I don't think I've ever enjoyed a cup of coffee or a read of a newspaper as much as I did that day. It was just bliss.

Unfortunately, the rest had to end and we trudged the last mile or so back home in the sunshine with heavy legs. Needless to say, by the time we took our last steps and reached our front door we were pretty exhausted. We hadn't quite walked 500 miles but it sure felt like it. My feet, knees and hips creaked, squeaked and groaned any time I tried to move for the rest of the night. Still, we both felt a real sense of achievement at walking all that way in favour of taking the car or public transport. As a reward, we treated ourselves to a relaxing night on the sofa watching a DVD. Unfortunately, this provided the only downside of the day. I won't name names but the film turned out to be pretty poor fare which neither of us particularly enjoyed - other than it allowed us to sit down and recuperate for a couple of hours. It didn't spoil our day, though, and whilst it wasn't particularly exhilarating or riotous it was memorable nonetheless as we did something unusual (for us), kept fit, had a good meal and didn't spend too much money in the process. I'd certainly like to have more 'Days like this' in the rest of my life.