Just like Scafell, I invited myself along.  My friend, well I think she is a friend, but she calls me a colleague!!! -  mentioned that she was going to Walk 'The Way of St James' not as in copy the way he walked - because there are no pictures of him walking and why would she want to do that anyway?  but the route that he took on his pilgrimage from France to Spain  - El Camino De Santiago De Compestela.  I will tell you more later.  she is doing the whole a distance of 791 km (490 miles) over the Pyrenees in France to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia – go colleague go! Due to other holiday commitments I am joining her for the last stretch, just over 100kms.  Hence, my trip to the Lake District is my pre Camino holiday. 

Again I have hit the nail on the head with the dating - not.  I am going with a group of girlfriends;  whoops, correction, in case any possible plus ones are reading this - I mean friends whom are girls.

I have packed my backpack with exactly what I will be taking with me when I walk my Camino - I have already started my dry run Camino, I will tell you how tomorrow.

The point to my blogging

Anyway, driven by the desire to find my waist line and meet my plus 1, I decided the next best thing was to take up walking.  so inspired by a friend of a friend at a jovial birthday bash - where I had one too many pineapple juices - and commandeered the dance floor - to the simultaneous disgust and amusement of my daughter - I invited myself along to walk the highest point in England; Scafell Pike - with my friend and his friend, his wife and possible other people.  I walked, I suffered in the gym, I walked some more, I did aerobic workouts n my front room wearing my backpack - months of training;  Ok ok - months of thinking about it - weeks of training.  Get your sad faces ready everyone - or the one person who is reading this  - every single one of them dropped out. 

Undeterred, and encouraged by a work colleague, I booked onto a walk with a guide and headed for the Lake District.  The weather had been great April 2011.  I had visualised myself walking, talking to my future plus one, pausing every now and again to take photos, record moments and pen a poem or two, walking along in shorts, t shirt, with :  What the hell!(Wthell) Rain, rain, rain, mist, wind - crash, bang. wallop.

The day arrived, our guide - a possible plus one, if he was 20 years older,  shattered my dream - we would not make the pike as the rain and mist meant that our vision and pace would be hindered - sad face. We set off anyway.  I must admit, it was hard going straight away: My gear was soaked through immediately- I had over taken my asthma pump and was feeling dizzy; the rain, wind and mist meant that I had to concentrate hard to see where I was going, so could not film much ( I will show you what I did film at some stage)  I was jolly awful and as well as being soaked to the bone, I sulked as my energy reserves had not trained me to walk in this weather - how foolish had I been? I should have done my training under a running power shower, fully clothed with a fan going at full blast! 

We did peak at Allen's Craig ( I think) - again, a short video will appear soonish.

I learned a lot that day, about walking and single life.  Over take your asthma pump, feel dizzy, insist that you want to go on no matter what and the gorgeous, illusive, never to be plus one becomes your personal mountaineering  guide.

Anyway, in between, then and now I have taken up internet dating big time, hence more walking so that I can keep up when a prospective decides that an ideal date is walking up the stairs from Waterloo station to the Southbank.  I thank whoever put the bust of Nelson Mandela to the right of those stairs as I cannot count the times in my early days of walking for fitness and dating when I gladly pretended that I had never seen it before so that I could take a breather.

I have come a long way since then and go for regular walks with a group of friends every six weeks, socialised my way around the 5km for Race for Life- although my friend, Hels and I, did run the last 100m - sorry, I meant the last straight leading to the finish line as I got really excited and was convinced that the crowd were just cheering us on and that chariots of fire was playing.

Now we come to the Camino...

How the wild side came to pass.

As I was saying, It all started with the desire to find my plus 1 and decrease from the plus sizes to being able to walk ponder the fashionable shopping aisles   of whatever shop was in fashion; memories of Grace Nichols, Fat Black Women poems - which I detested during the slim phase of my life, but grew to love as the pounds or should I say kilos  piled on;  the love of jogging - which, due to becoming a Fbw, wound down  into a slow, rumblelous (made up word) sweaty, huffing and puffing, wheezing and coughing amble, when I could  not always get a parking spot outside my front door.

Anna Raeburn - my guru - unbeknown to her - always said that if you wanted to meet someone then go and join a club, where you will meet like minded people.  I joined a slimming club - they did not like my take on dieting.  OK, OK, I know that a packet of white chocolate biscuits is almost 1200 calories, but if that is all I ate that day, and did not go over my allowance - did it really matter?   They still think that they asked me to leave:  Shhhhh -   I left because there were too many women!

There is a point to my blogging, I promise you.

2nd FBW takes a walk on the "Wilde" side

It all started with desire.....