We stand in a circle, six strangers, socially distanced, making tentative introductions. It feels like being parachuted into an alien country. The surrounding moorland is familiar, but meeting up with people away from the limits of our household ‘bubble’, feels illicit. I’m on Dartmoor UK in August 2020, permitted by the new rules after lockdown begins to ease, for my first walk with Ramblers .
I’d caught a plane from Dubai as soon as Emirates airlines started flying again. When the whole world changed as the pandemic hit, KP and I agreed that it made sense for me to take Hazel (our Border Terrier) to the UK for the security of our home country during such uncertain times. Staying in Devon and being a two minute walk from open moorland gave wonderful freedom during lockdown but very limited human contact except via Zoom. I’m comfortable with my own company and often crave solitude but I was missin
So putting on my walking boots and striding out on a new path, in more ways than one, is liberating. There are clouds overhead as we start the walk, but a hazy light makes the water in the leat* gleam like silver. Tufts of bleached grass stick up like piles of blonde clippings on a hairdresser’ floor. Derek and Christine, the walk leaders, take us along the edge of the moor, we clamber over wooden stiles, cross Willsworthy Bridge , march along country lanes via the village of Zoar to stop eventually for a b
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