JJ describes a typical day out with himself and the Reluctant Ramblers [not entirely seriously – Ed]. “I have often  jokingly characterised long distance walks as two hours of optimistic chatter, followed by two hours of relaxed momentum and a sense of growing invulnerability, followed by two hours of creeping anxiety and painful niggles, followed by two hours of  “who the hell had the idea for doing this walk” and getting ready to kill someone..!! Keeping your body and mind together beyond 16/18 miles is a mental feat as well as a physical one. Niggles and pains come but you can walk through them and they go. Blisters are something else but even their raw pain becomes numb after a while…but the mind games go on and the erosion of confidence with each stumble, as each stile gets bigger and harder to get over, is much harder to deal with. Writing as someone who could dramatically flare up on tour if the white wine wasn’t cold enough (!), dealing with the mind games has been the hardest part and the most self-revelatory. Bursts of savage short temper, loss of energy, loss of confidence, out in the hills and mountains as the rain falls and dusk approaches, with 2 miles of knee-sapping descent still to go, all become redundant, pointless, even laughable…but most of all, self-defeating. Concentrate on foot-placement, avoid jarring steps, forget everything except getting down to the road, the car, the pub and the best pint of your life. Later, as you sit there, warmed through, talking endlessly, your knees are gone, you may never walk again…but you did it.. and that’s when we get up to sing.” JJ

NEW tour details here for May’s walking tour of Devon with John Jones and the Reluctant Ramblers: and initial draft walk details here.