My spirits were definitely lifted by the recent beautiful weather. I am finding my daily walk to be a bit of a chore but I enjoyed sitting on a bench in the park at the end, reading my book and soaking up some much needed warmth and sunshine. Although it has now turned cold again, it has left the promise that spring is on its way. Crocuses and daffodils are in full bloom and buckthorn blossom is transforming the bare branches of trees. Unfortunately, I do tend to go quickly downhill and I still despair that I am ever going to get better. In a bid to try and inject a bit of positivity into my life, my daughter has encouraged me to try and look forward rather than back, and focus on some things that I would really like to do when my health improves. There are lots of walks and days out that we have in our regular repertoire that I can’t wait to be able to do again, but as that would make for an exceedingly long list, I have instead tried to (mostly) come up with some new ideas. So, looking ahead I would really like to …..

Do something Jane Austen related: In my early 20’s I was obsessed with all things Austen. I even took myself off on a solo trip to Bath, where I wandered the streets, misty eyed, waiting for my own Mr Darcy (or should that have been Henry Tilney?) to appear and whisk me off for a happy ever after. (Sadly this never happened. I settled for someone who treated me badly, and now, introverted and suffering from social anxiety – not to mention old and haggard – I have long since resigned myself to the fact that I am destined to be alone.) This year is the 250th anniversary of Jane’s birth and all sorts of celebrations are being held in places associated with her. Despite my Austen obsession, and having been to Bath several times since, I have never actually been to Jane Austen’s house at Chawton. When I had a car, I was too nervous a driver to venture out of my local area, and I had always assumed that it would be too difficult to get to by public transport. I have recently discovered that it is in fact a 30-40 minute walk from Alton station, which in theory isn’t very far at all, but is depressingly too far for me to think about at the moment – especially as it would be part of a big day out. Maybe by the summer though? More locally, there is a lovely circular walk which starts in the village of Chilham and passes through the grounds of Godmersham Park, which was the home of Edward Knight, Jane’s brother, and where Jane often stayed. (Godmersham Park by Gill Hornby – who also wrote Miss Austen – is a great read) This walk is just over 6 miles long however, so it might be a while before I can tackle that one, although it is more achievable than some of the others that I have on my list. Failing that, I will just have to dust off the novels from my bookshelf and settle for a re-read!

Take my daughter on a birthday trip away: After our mini break to Devon in October, my daughter and I agreed that we needed to do more short trips in the UK, and as her birthday generally coincides with the May half term, and mine with the October one, this seemed a good place to start. In return for my surprise trip, I wanted to organise a surprise for her too, but unfortunately the destination I had initially chosen would need me to be able to walk about 8 miles or the main reason for the trip would be lost. That definitely isn’t going to be happening by the end of May! Lots of research later, I have come up with somewhere new that will potentially be much more suitable for my current state of health – but I can’t reveal where in case she reads this! There will be the opportunity for some short walks if I can manage it, but we can also do a lot of pottering about and sitting in cafes. Unfortunately there was such a lack of accommodation in the area, and what there was, mostly very expensive, that I impulsively booked two nights in the only reasonably priced Airbnb I could find. It might be a bit rash, but I really needed something to aim for and to look forward to – and I have to say that I am very excited! When I went back to check on some details, I noticed that this Airbnb is now fully booked for the whole of that half term week, so I don’t regret going for it – and if the worst comes to the worst, there is free cancellation until 24 hours beforehand, although I really hope that I can manage to get there somehow!

Stay in a Wetherspoons hotel: Love them or hate them, there is no denying that Wetherspoons offer great value basic food, often in beautifully converted historic buildings. (One of my favourites is The Opera House in Tunbridge Wells – which reminds me that going to watch the once a year opera performance there is also something that needs to be added to my list – though for next year as it takes place in February!) On the whole, I like to support independent businesses rather than chains, but as a single mum on a low income, Spoons has given us the opportunity for many a cheap meal out over the years when we otherwise would not have been able to have afforded it, and I am a big fan of their breakfasts in particular – we recently paid £8.66 for two vegetarian breakfasts and two drinks in Margate which is an absolute bargain. I wouldn’t call myself a huge fan but I must confess that I have a secret admiration for their loyal customers who are on a mission to travel to every Wetherspoons in the country, and I was so taken by an article I read about a group of men who had walked to every Spoons in Kent that I want to do it myself. Maybe that does make me a huge fan! I don’t know why I want to stay in one of their hotels so much but I do. Maybe it’s the idea of just getting up and dressed and coming straight down for one of those breakfasts! Maybe it’s the fact that we mostly stay in Youth Hostels or cheap Airbnbs, so to me a Wetherspoons Hotel actually seems like an affordable luxury. Every year I say that I want to do it, and I have several on my shortlist, mostly in the south so that we could just do an overnighter, although I do rather like the look of the Whitby one which is situated right on the quayside. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that I could arrange the birthday trip around it, which would have killed two birds with one stone, because It’s something that I really want to do and my daughter is slightly bemused by but is prepared to go along with if she has to (or if I’m paying!), but maybe I might be able to find the money and energy to squeeze in another night or two away at some point this year!

Tackle the next part of my Kent Coast Walk: Recording the details of my Kent Coast Walk was one of the major motivations behind me setting up this blog, and the thought of not being able to continue my walk for the time being has been one of my biggest disappointments (along with not being able to tackle the North Downs Way, which we had been planning to start over the Easter holidays, and having my summer holiday plans ruined – see more of that later!). I’m not sure whether this is going to be achievable this year, especially as the next stage – Deal to Sandwich – comes in at about 11 miles. It’s a great walk that we have done many times, but unfortunately there is no option of cutting it any shorter as there is no public transport until you reach the centre of Sandwich, which itself is up a river, several miles from the coast, so it’s 11 miles or nothing. At the moment I can just about manage 5000 steps and that completely wipes me out for the rest of the day, but if I keep plodding on and slowly, slowly adding a few more steps, who knows?

Visit a part of London that I have never been to before: Top of the list is Highgate Cemetery. I have recently finished reading The Book of Beginnings by Sally Page in which Highgate Cemetery played a prominent part (and have also just caught up on the latest television series of Strike where, coincidentally, the whole plot revolved around it). I’ve never been and it looks and sounds absolutely fascinating. Obviously I could just go and spend some time exploring the cemetery and that would be really nice, but I always try and squeeze too much out of a day in London (I like to get my moneys worth on the train fare!) and so in my head what would be even nicer would be to do this in conjunction with a walk to Hampstead. I have a number of books of London walks and the Highgate to Hampstead one has been on my radar for a while. It’s 6 miles long (without a detour into the cemetery) and then I could also see Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath, the houses of Keats, Coleridge and Constable, as well as, according to the book, fine views over London’s Northern Heights! I’m sold!

Walk to or from St Augustines’s Cross: This cross at Cliffs End, Pegwell Bay (near Ramsgate), is said to mark the site where St Augustine, newly arrived from Rome, met with King Aethelberht of Kent in 597AD. (Augustine had been sent by Pope Gregory to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and Aethelberht was the very first king to be converted.) You can see the cross from the London to Thanet railway line, and I have always wanted to have a closer look but was never sure how accessible it was. With the opening of the new Thanet Parkway station however, it is a mere hop and a skip and I have no excuse. We have a guide to the Augustine Camino, a new long distance pilgrimage footpath linking Rochester and Canterbury Cathedrals, which passes the St Augustine’s Cross before finishing at St Augustine’s Church in Ramsgate, and although we occasionally come across the signage on some of our more local walks, the full path is another one of the many on the to do list. It is split into seven sections, mostly between about 8 and 10 miles, and each is accessible by public transport, but although it will be a while before I can think about tackling any of these sections in full, by the summer I might be able to make it from the cross to Ramsgate or I could combine it with a trip to ….

Visit Pegwell Bay Country Park/Nature Reserve – (and maybe see some seals!): I think we may have been to the nature reserve once, a very long time ago, but I don’t remember it. I’m not very knowledgeable about birds, beyond identifying common garden ones, but I like the idea of going to a nature reserve with my binoculars and seeing what I can find. (I would like to know more but I find that as fast as I learn, especially with coastal/wading birds, most of whom seem to be black and white with long legs, my cotton wool brain forgets just as quickly.) I also like the idea of maybe being able to spot some seals out on the sand banks – although apparently autumn and winter is the time for this, and the binoculars are a must – which at least gives me longer to work towards achieving it! There is also a lovely cafe nearby (Njord) where we once had the most delicious French onion soup after a walk from Ramsgate, and it would give us a very good excuse to pay a return visit! (Pegwell Bay will, incidentally, also feature on the one after next section of my Kent Coast Walk (Sandwich to Ramsgate) so in theory I could wait until then, but having just mentioned the length of the Deal to Sandwich route, then the likelihood of completing that one, let alone this next one, is not very high.

Go on a day trip to France: I grew up on day trips to Calais and Boulogne. Oh the halycon days when Folkestone still had an operating ferry terminal that allowed a choice of destination! In fact, back then, there was also the option of a day trip to Ostend and Dunkirk as well, although they involved a considerably longer journey with less time at the destination. I sometimes went with my parents, but more often with my grandparents who loved it as a day out so much that they used to travel across the channel at least once a month, sometimes just on a non lander with a meal on board and a trip to the duty free. I then went every summer with my own children, where they tentatively practised their newly acquired language skills, buying provisions for lunch on the beach – a wide expanse of white sand, although often so windy, forcing us to seek refuge amongst the shelter of the beach huts. We would then wander into the town and head to the supermarket to stock up mostly on cheese, chocolate and dijon mustard that came in decorated jars you could use as a drinking glass when empty (I still have a cupboard full of these at home that I can’t bring myself to get rid of), and in more later years, pickle flavoured crisps! The day trip as a foot passenger is falling out of fashion and, presumably because of this, nowadays you can only travel on specific outward and return ferries, and even taking the earliest out and the latest back doesn’t give you an incredible amount of time over there. I still love going and always want to make it an annual trip, but it usually gets squeezed out by other things. Mmm, pickle crisps. I need to get myself to Carrefour!

Have a summer holiday: Before this relapse struck we were planning a summer trip to Italy. I hate flying and so we were going by train (a much more civilised way to travel) and talking about stop overs in either Switzerland or Germany en route. There are so many Italian towns that we want to visit – and the list keeps on growing – so the plan was to have a couple of nights in several, although we hadn’t settled on which. Now it seems impossible. If booking a two night stay in England is risky, then a European adventure is off the scale. We probably shouldn’t take the chance of booking anything, but then again, if we cut it right down and just stayed in one place, I’m sure that some Italian sunshine, art, history, pasta, gelato and lots of Aperol Spritz could be just what the doctor ordered!

And here’s a random one to finish off with –

Make Chelsea buns or cinnamon buns: I love to bake cakes and biscuits and I always make my own bread, but I have never baked anything dough related that isn’t bread. I’ve always fancied making some kind of bun but then I look at a recipe and it seems a bit of a faff. So much time needed for multiple proves when I’d rather be out of the house and on a walk!. I was set on the notion of either Chelsea buns or cinnamon buns, but then my daughter sent me this photo of some hot cross buns that she had made and they look so delicious that I’m now thinking that maybe I need to go seasonal and have a go at those instead – especially as I have given up ultra processed food for Lent which means that supermarket ones are completely off limit. If there’s one thing I have at the moment it’s plenty of time on my hands for the multiple proves., so this one might be random, but is in fact the easiest to achieve of everything. I have no excuse.