How is your resolve? 5 days into 2018. The Museum of Walking is here to help – whether it’s starting something new, trying to get fit, or just being determined to be more worldly wise – we have something for you in the next few weeks – join in..

Be an experimental drawer and get to grips with London’s famous skyline – with encouragement and top tips from Museum Co-creator Ruth Broadbent.

You can read more and book from this web page or if you fancy, you can use FUNZING to book your place.  We are running Drawn to the Skyline walkshops in January and in February – booking is only available for Saturday 20 January at present, but make a note in your diary Saturday 24 February – a date etched in mine as it’s my mother-in-law’s birthday!

---

We are popping with excitement over the news that Time Out, London are as mad about street trees and Exploring the Urban Forest as we are.  This month, you will be able to pick up a copy of Museum’s Co-creator  (Guardian Nature writer of 2017) Paul Wood‘s handy map of street tree hotspots in London or spot one on-line, and you’ve guessed it we are going to be visiting each of them on future explorations.  The great news is that we already have 3 Explorations lined up in Peckham (Sun 21 January), in Haggerston (Sunday 4 February) and in Pimlico (Sunday 25 February).  We are also looking to develop a street tree cherry blossom series of walkshops from mid March when the pavements are lined with pretty pink petals.

---

Over the Festive period a lot of listening goes on in our household, in part that’s because I am trying to catch up with my editing backlog of Talking Walking interviews, but it also in part as there are some fantastic radio programmes and podcasts to listen to.  And with New Year resolutions in mind, did you hear the one about how exercise is a MUST for a healthy life, but it can’t help with weight loss without a change in your eating habits.  Dr Michael Moseley in Radio 4’s You and Yours spells it out, that Sunday stroll is just enough and even regular brisk walking has to be maintained over considerable distances to be of much benefit.

Here in London, we are known for walking further and often faster than fellow Britons around the country, and now Network Rail is helping us even more, by opening the cavernous London Bridge station.  So vast and so far to walk, you have to leave at least 10 minutes to change from the Underground to National Rail, so far it is to walk. Do that twice, 5x a week, you are well on way to the recommended weekly dose of exercise.

---

At the Museum, we try to support the endeavors of as many walking activists and artists as we can, and with our limited resources, that often means collaborations, support in kind, and generally raising awareness and publicity.  Our plan is to invite guest bloggers help raise the standard of the content that you are reading here and publicise walking initiatives, pieces and events as we come across them.  Please do let us know about walking events etc. by using our Contact form.

So from our Co-creator community, stalwart Tim Ingram-Smith is continuing his Spiral walk around London – you can join him on Sunday 14 January at 1.00pm at Chingford station with a walk through Epping Forest.  The walks are free to join and you may find someone walking soul mates and you are sure to discover something new. Find out more here: http://londonspiral.wordpress.com/

We are also collaboration with the Architecture Foundation and their Tales of Three Cities architecture walks – we are joining them on Saturday 13 January for the Architecture of Money – you can too – and as an incentive if you use this code (afboxingday) you can get a 20% discount. Book here

---

Now our influence is never more broader than through our Talking Walking podcasts.  Even I find it hard to believe that it is ten years ago since I started interviewing people from the world of walking – artists, activists, professionals  and those who just have a passion for taking a walk…. – how many times have I said that? – well, at least 85 times as this week marks the 85th podcast episode.  Unlike many of them, my conversation with Professor Maggie O’Neill, a criminologist and

sociologist who using walking as a key element of her ethnographic research into the more vulnerable in our society, this one takes place in a hotel lobby and not out on a walk.  Our efforts to go for a walk were disrupted by a terrific downpour, and with Maggie, strapped for time between speaking engagements, we sort shelter in a hotel.

Shelter wasn’t necessary this week, but careful foot placement to avoid slippery leaves and deep mud, as I recorded and interview with sculptor Grace Adam, whose intriguing “Out of the woods – words to navigate by” installation (or should we call it intervention) adorns Queen’s Wood in Highgate.

 

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you on a walk in not too distant future.

---

All about walking blog posting is unpredictable – if it’s raining biblical downpours then a blog post is more likely to appear, in most other weather conditions we are out walking and not blogging on a keyboard…..