Summary
Clare Balding joins Graham Hoyland and his partner, Gina Waggott, as they retrace the steps they took in 2015 along the Cotswold Way as part of their three month epic walk of 500 miles, following the progress of the spring as it spread up England from the south coast to Gretna Green.
They planted an acorn every mile and are thrilled to discover some of them have grown. They talk to Clare about the joy they felt in sharing this journey, their favourite rucksack snacks and their future walking plans.
Producer: Lucy Lunt
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2016.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a BBC Radio 4 download. You're listening to me. Claire Balding with another edition of ramblings. |
| 0:07.9 | Did you know that spring travels through England at about the speed of a walk? It starts in the south coast and heads up towards Scotland at about 1.2 miles an hour and it's getting faster. |
| 0:20.7 | And when you say spring travels, do you mean the first day of spring? |
| 0:24.8 | And if so, what are we looking for? |
| 0:26.7 | What is the signal? |
| 0:28.0 | What I mean is the signs of spring. |
| 0:30.0 | There's things like the rooks are building nests up here. |
| 0:34.0 | There's snow drops. |
| 0:35.5 | There's dandelions and there's daffodils, things like that. |
| 0:40.0 | And this man knows what he's talking about, because Graham Hoyland is the author of a book called Walking Through Spring and English Journey. |
| 0:46.4 | And he undertook this walk. It's about 500 miles, isn't it? |
| 0:49.7 | And you did it with your partner, Gina Waggott. |
| 0:51.6 | Both of you are with me here today. We're meeting in Gloucestershire at the base of Cooper's Hill. Now, you might have heard of Cooper's Hill because |
| 0:57.6 | this is where the annual cheese rolling competition takes place. It's a really steep hill. I mean, |
| 1:03.6 | not particularly long. What would you say, 150 metres up there? Yes, but it's got to be one in |
| 1:09.5 | one. It's extremely steep. And there's about |
| 1:12.1 | 4,000 people will gather here and they'll watch these crazy people running down a hill after |
| 1:17.6 | cheese. So we are going to walk for six or seven miles today. Where are we going? We're heading for |
| 1:23.3 | Leckhampton. So we're walking along the Cotswold Escarpment, heading north, and we'll go past Birdlip, |
| 1:30.1 | and we'll be looking down on the lovely Cotswold villages made out of |
| 1:33.7 | golden limestone, and we'll be seeing lots of the signs of spring, I hope. |
| 1:38.7 | We've got a gorgeous day for it as well, very warm. I've actually come in shorts. |
... |
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