Since lockdown, which Mrs BWW and I entered at least 2wks prior to the official start, in order to protect a 101 yr old, my mother in law, who is dependant on her daughter for care, my walking has been directly from home. We are fortunate to have 60 acres farmland behind the house, though access is from a main road and and 2/3 of a mile of pavement gives access to footpaths, which gives good countryside walking.
As others have noticed more people are going out for walks, and even runs to excercise, as opposed to the ubiquitous gym.
This has caused me scrutinize my immediate local area in more detail. How many of us are tempted to follow a trail that leads off the Righteous Way, sometimes it is a well trod badger route or sometimes it leads to a den local kids have constructed, even occasionally it leads somewhere that discloses a meaning that human need has forged a new route.
Edgelands was a term created by Marion Shoard, Author of This Land, Our Land @ 1990, she explores the historical theft of the countryside from the common people by wealth and privilege very ably, but much of her interpretation led on into opinions on factory farming and conservation, whereas the current need exposes an immediate weakness in the share of the countryside, as focused on Edgelands, where Countryside meets the Urban Fringe.
A term I have used, having a tendency to follow mysterious trails is Peripheral Urban Trespass P.U.T., the bane of the landowner of urban fringe Estates, yet a curious social protest that does not seem to earn the recognition it maybe should?
Can those, who ague the merits of public access, learn from PUT. What do the starting points and destinations of unofficial trails tell us about an inadequate access network?
Does anyone else have any thoughts along these lines?