This month our post is written by Kathleen Davies, one of our Early Childhood students. Thank you Kathleen; although you wrote it in Spring, we are sure that students and tutors alike will be able to relate to your metaphor as we approach the end of the academic year.
I walked up a mountain today. A really big one that had a summit stone at the top. I didn’t plan to; I only knew I wanted to go for a walk. What I had planned to do was a walk around a lake. Since Welsh government have lifted our ‘stay at home’ rule to ‘stay local’ I was able to visit a beauty spot nearby which is used by dog walkers and mountain bikers. It was a lovely spring morning; the ducks were happily swimming on the clear water in pairs. The lake was beautiful but smaller than I remembered. Then I spotted a yellow arrow showing a walking route and thought I’d take myself off in that direction to stretch my walk a bit further, I had the time.
Along the way there was a map board that showed the steep ascent route up the mountain. It just so happens that I’ve always wanted to go up there. At the top there are the remains of a medieval hill fort and you can see the form of it from all around in the local area where I live. It looks like a mound on the top of the mountain. I have looked up at it many times and thought about scaling it myself but just never had, though I knew people who had walked it. I should probably say, I’m not talking mountaineering here, it’s an accessible hike, which is just as well as I didn’t plan it.
I didn’t have my walking shoes on but I was wearing trainers so I thought that what I would do was to just start out and see how I went, I could turn around and come back the same way whenever I wanted. It was a steep climb on rough terrain, a mud track with loose rocks. I started to get a bit wary half way up as it was so quiet all around and I could see a wooded section ahead, but then a cyclist zoomed past on the road above my head and said hello as he went so that helped put me at ease. As I continued, I passed a few more fellow walkers, cyclists and runners who all shared a cordial hello. After the year we’ve had (let’s never mention 2020 again) it really cheered up my day.
I made it to what had looked like the top, (why is there always more top) and another friendly board enticing me to complete the last section, a “very steep” 1.2km more to reach the medieval hill fort. I knew I would have to do it, though I didn’t want to. The views from there were lovely as it was. I could really just go home and complete it another day. Also – road – other people were driving up to this point. Why hadn’t I just done that?! I began the last steep ascent; the board wasn’t over egging it at all. A man appeared over the crest of the hill and picking his way past me he said “it’s even windier at the top!”
Anyway, I made it to the top, the views of the valley all around were glorious. I could see all of the place I grew up in all the way down to the Severn estuary and the Severn bridge. The sun was breaking through the clouds in a really magnificent ‘you’ve just climbed a mountain’ sort of way. I took a load of photos and then walked up the steps right to the tippy top of the hill fort mound. And just as I reached the top, over from the other side came two walkers. We couldn’t even hear each other over the wind so I did a polite wave and descended the other side where I noticed a car park no more than say, 50m away!
I know comparing any sort of personal journey to climbing a mountain is the most over-baked thing ever, but getting home to catch up on some OU work, which so happened to be my reflective learning journal, I couldn’t help but see the parallels. You might not know what it takes to get there, but you’ll never find out unless you try, and you’ll feel awesome when you do it! Now every time I see that mound at the top of the mountain, I can say I’ve been up there and I know what it feels like.