My niece, Sophie, and I have a lot in common – a love for hiking being one of them. She wasn’t even deterred by a 20 mile hike I took her on with my cousin and friends in February 2007 when she was only 12 years old. It was the worst weather I have ever hiked in – light drizzle soon turned into torrential rain – and about a third of the way into the walk, poor Sophie, who didn’t have very good waterproofs, was ready to give up.
‘Aunty Libby, I can’t carry on,’ the little soul cried plaintively.
I (the wicked aunty) told her ‘You’ve got two choices, Sophie. You can either hike on, or stay here and die.’ This retort has since passed into the family annals!
However, Sophie made it to the pub (the halfway mark) and was fortified by a roast dinner and semi-dried clothes. The weather was even worse when we emerged from the pub, but we retaliated against it – splashing in the stream that the footpath had become, shrieking at the sky and daring the rain to come harder. It was one of those days that, although unpleasant at the time, remain in your memory for a long time afterwards. Like anything worth achieving it was a challenge.
On my last trip to the UK, Sophie and I did some weekend hikes and stayed at a youth hostel overnight. One of these trips was to Eyam in Derbyshire. This picturesque little village is infamously known as the Plague Village, because the bubonic plague arrived here in 1665, in a parcel of flea-infested cloth sent from London.
This scene is painted from a photo I took on our walk near Eyam. It was a glorious day and we came across these two trees standing all alone in a sea of heather and grasses.
This painting will be exhibited at Fidels, Essex Street, Fremantle from 26th January to 25th February 2010.
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