Turning the corner

I am probably tempting the gods to say it, but I think my bad knee may have turned the corner, its long drawn-out healing process now having entered a new phase. Yesterday, for the first time for months, I got through the day without the right leg aching if I walked any distance. 

It felt rather better when first waking up. I've become accustomed to supporting myself when first standing, but it took my weight as well as my good leg did. Yes, I could tell it still wasn't normal; but I didn't have to limp. 

I wasn't looking forward to the hours ahead. It promised to be a very hot day, and hitherto that has made my right leg ache all the more. So much so, I was ready to assert that very hot weather is bad for injuries, and will certainly stop any recovery in its tracks. But I had no trouble. I was of course staying indoors, fairly inactive, keeping the house as cool as possible with the judicious use of curtains, plus plenty of personal hydration. Even so, I expected my right leg to end up aching by the afternoon. But it didn't happen. 

Encouraged, I decided in the late afternoon to get some cool air up on Ashdown Forest. After eating I drove Fiona to the Roman Road car park there, just off the B2026 north of Camp Hill. It was that golden hour before sunset. The views ran to the South Downs on the south horizon, miles away. Everything was bathed in a yellow light. Naturally I had LXV with me, ready to capture all this mid-evening beauty. 

Ashdown Forest is the nearest thing that Sussex has to the New Forest in Hampshire. It's an ancient tract of post-Conquest hunting land, with wide areas of rough walking amid heather, bracken, gorse, some small trees and bushes, and small woods, deciduous in places but mostly of pine. Dotted about, generally on high points where they can be seen a long way off, are round plantations dating from the early nineteenth century known as Clumps. These are not fenced in. They look as if they were created as shelter for grazing animals; but in fact they generally lack undergrowth, and would provide scant shelter against a winter wind. You can see one on the horizon in the shot above. 

It really was a lovely evening for a heathland walk. The sky was however clear and cloudless, and the setting sun was quite blinding. No wonder my eyes are somewhat narrowed in this shot below.

The Forest is one of the highest places in Sussex. It catches the breeze; and by the time I arrived the worst heat of the day had already gone. It was just pleasantly mild. Still too warm for a jacket or cardigan, so I didn't carry one. All I needed was my Pittards bag, LXV, and my stick. 

Yes, I wasn't taking any risks. Even if the right leg felt good now, it might start protesting after half a mile, and I wanted some support just in case. 

I wasn't using the pale-coloured stick seen in earlier posts. A chance meeting and discussion with a physiotherapist in Chichester the other day had shown me that the trusty stick I'd been using since February was very slightly too short. I really need to use another. But I didn't want to buy a new one on the the Internet - sticks are very individual in their 'feel' and best purchased from a specialist shop. 

However, I had several sticks at home, in a tall pot in my porch. I selected my sweet chestnut stick, thinner and more elegant than the stick I'd been using. I'd originally bought it on 13th September 1992, at Exceat Country Park, paying £6.65 - a small fraction of what one might pay for a nice stick nowadays. It was now very nearly thirty years old. Back then, its prime purpose was to look stylish when rambling. But now, thirty years later, it had more serious work to do. 

It was however slightly too long. The advice of that physiotherapist, combined with a careful study of what the Internet said the right length of a walking stick should be, now led me to saw 4 cm off the end of it, to make it precisely the right height for walking with. Here it is, after shortening and the rubber end-piece pushed back on:

As you can see, the extremely well-seasoned wood was hard, and took a clean cut. Sweet chestnut is a very suitable wood for walking sticks, as it is so durable. The stick was originally dark chestnut brown for all its length, but long residence in that tall china pot in my porch had let the sunshine bleach the bark somewhat at the crook-handle end. Personally I felt this added something to its appearance.

Well, it was now the correct length and ready to go. Despite its stiffness and strength, it was lightweight and very easy to carry. I prefer sticks with crooks - they can be hooked onto my arm in a jiffy whenever I want to take a photograph, which often happens. That was certainly the case yesterday evening. I saw good shots everywhere. LXV was pretty adept at getting me nice pictures of shadowy paths, pine trees and silhouetted grass.

I skirted the perimeter of the fenced-in police training centre - the old wireless station - then struck northwards to King's Standing Clump, which had a small stand of colourful rowan trees nearby. 

By the time I'd got there, I'd walked a mile. Still no complaint from the right leg. I'd had plenty of use for the chestnut walking stick, mainly to keep me steady and upright when the ground sloped or was particularly uneven. 

There were plenty of couples about, some walking their dogs. We said hello in passing. No doubt they dismissed me as a crazy infirm old biddy with a stick, intent on getting desperately boring shots of waving grass. 

Time to turn back. I was enjoying my walk, but it was unwise to push my luck. My right leg could start to ache badly at any moment. And yet I seemed to have discovered a technique for controlling the worst of any discomfort. I'd noticed that whenever I was concentrating on taking a photo, I felt nothing from my leg. I'd relaxed it while my attention was on something else. Aha! Could it be that tensing the muscles of my right leg was behind much of the aching? And if so, could I relax them to alleviate the ache? I found I could indeed get relief by relaxing the leg muscles, and could do it quite easily if I set my mind to it. This was just as well, because the return path was stonier and rougher than the grassy paths I'd first encountered. I kept on having to will my right leg to relax. 

The chestnut stick was still essential, for I mustn't fall. How would I get up? 

The views were now all off to my right, to the south and south-west, with the sun rapidly getting closer to the horizon to the north-west. Great for contre-jour shots of cobwebby gorse bushes!

In the far distance, the smooth line of the South Downs, a purple backdrop to Friends' Clump. 

Almost no sign of human activity. Very easy to imagine that this is what one might have seen a thousand years ago, or even two thousand years ago, as dusk came on. And how it might be a thousand years from now.