Andy Hill

Well, here are a few words about the the fellow inflicting this rubbish on you all - truly justifying the epithet of “The Ramblings of an Idiot”!


I’m Andy Hill and am now up to the very advanced age of 58 but luckily I am still equipped with a pair of legs that work pretty well to be able to wander about this great place we call home. My first love is easily my wonderful and long-suffering wife Sue and I am blessed with two lovely grown-up daughters. We live on The Isle of Purbeck near the Dorset coast in Southern England - truly one of the best bits of Britain to live in and can walk or cycle to the sea in a day - heaven!


Why walking? Well my two brothers and I were dragged around the countryside as young kids and somehow an appreciation of the Great Outdoors and walking itself settled in my small brain and I love it. Our parents took us exploring everywhere, from Castles in Wales to beaches anywhere to the Thames towpath and it just stuck with me. I was taught to walk with my head up so as to see and appreciate what is going on around me and of course a walk is much improved by seeing a group of fox cubs rather than staring downwards at one’s dusty walking boots.


Later as a stroppy teenager wandering was just one of the things I did to get away from things and I would go away for weeks at a time, camping on the Coast Path and walking with ancient gear and knowing that this was something special. Independence was a virtue (can independence be a virtue?) and to this day I love walking alone. Most of my ‘Big’ walks have been this way and I am never happier than when walking ‘on my tod’. However I am not a complete social isolationist so do enjoy walks with other human beings, honest.


After kids being born I was away on another chapter of my walking history and managed each year to get away for sections of some big walks. Firstly it was the stupendous South West Coast Path from Minehead, around Land’s End to Poole, just up the road from our house. Then the really big one when I walked from our house to Portsmouth and then from Le Havre down across France to the Pyrenees, turning left to get to Santiago De Compostela and Finisterre in North-western Spain and then down through the middle of Spain to the southernmost tip of Europe at Tarifa (and across to Tangier for lunch)! Suzy and I also managed to do the Donkey walk in the French Cévennes mountains and to start off the Thames path from its source.


And it doesn’t have to be massive distances as I am just as happy out for a day or a morning’s jaunt or even just walking into Town across the River. Maybe I’m a bit weird but just the act of walking and the great good feeling of exercise mean that even wandering around in the rain is still worth while. A really good friend described plodding as ‘mobile meditation’ and that’s just it - a good way to be out of the house and alone with a friend or just your thoughts and to see tiny bits of this great world unfold in front of you.