Christmas 2022 - Walking Home

 

My walk this year was not preceded by a car journey in the dark of the morning and, on reflection, I realise the theme underlying the 24,000 plus steps of my four hour adventure is home. This Christmas Eve, for the first time, I invited people into my geographical home, to share food together around my new table; this table emblematic of the rationale for, and journey through, designing, building and inhabiting the extension to this Old Coach House. Whilst the dining room is not yet complete, the purchasing of a new table was the starting point to creating the space in the way I envisaged. Furthermore, in choosing to situate the table central to the space, it reminds me that I whilst I choose to live alone I do not want, always,to eat alone. As such my energy was primarily focused on cooking, baking, and the joy of sharing. Equally the measuring, mixing, whisking and blending, was accompanied by a process of reflective rumination (as well as a light  touch of radio 4), which determined my Christmas day walk. This year I would wander a section  of the Stevenage Outer Orbital Path (STOOP) heading towards Minsden Chapel "an isolated ruined chapel in the fields above the hamlet of Chapelfoot, near Preston, Hertfordshire. Today it is a roofless shell, partly surrounded by a small wood, and accessible only by footpath. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and is Grade II Listed." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsden_Chapel)