November 2009
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Pyrenees Mountain Walking: Summer 2009
What follows is an account of my summer 2009 walking in the High Pyrenees. Its a fabulous mountain range extending from the Atlantic to the Mediterrenean, straddling the border between France and Spain. I flew from Manchester to Toulouse with a full eighteen days to enjoy. While I had been to the Pyrenees before, I had barely sampled what the mountains had to offer because of bad autumnal weather. This time it was different. My route…
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Pyrenees Dreams: Mountain Walking And Memory
I’ve always found the poetry of Wordsworth unappealing, too antique in both its language and outlook. He was though, almost what we might call a mountain poet. Much of his work revolved around the mountain experience, particularly as it’s experienced in the Lake District. There are two passages that summarise his poetic attitude, and illuminate the mountain walking experience and how it integrates into the rest of our lives. The first conveys an idea he…