2024 was a very special year for me in terms of reaching cherished walking goals. In June I ‘compleated’ the Scottish Munros, a difficult enough challenge even without factoring in being based in Oxford. It took me a little more than 20 years to reach the 282 tally and I don’t expect that I shall ever feel more proud of a walking achievement. I started the year with 23 3000+ft Scottish hills still to reach and dealt with all but a pair during a fortnight of good weather in late April/early May. To be able to walk up the final two (Bidean nam Bian and Stob Coire Sgreamhach, in Glencoe) with my son - on a balmy June day - was off-the-scale wonderful.

But that wasn’t it for ‘finishing the job’ in 2024'. When my Dad died suddenly in 2008 - in Grasmere, having become ill on a walk up a Lakeland fell, I made a promise that I would visit the 24 Wainwrights that he and Mum had planned to reach together. I finally got round to doing this during September 2024, not as a piecemeal collection of walks but as a woven route that linked up the 24 summits (plus a few that lay on the route) and gave me 10 days of visiting just bout every corner of the Lakes. I started and finished at the very spot where Dad breathed his last.

Is it really a year since I submitted the Portfolio element for my MA Travel & Nature Writing degree? During most of 2023 the requirements for this determined a hefty proportion of my writing output. I was delighted to receive a Distinction grade for this final piece of the MA jigsaw, cementing the same result for the overall degree. Additionally, I was proud to be the joint recipient of the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Academic Achievement, selected from all Bath Spa students across all undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses. You can tell how honoured I felt even to be considered for this by the fact that I was prepared to leave the hills of Kintail and drive all the way to Bath, just to be present at the awards ceremony.

Even before completing the degree, a major life change arrived (6 weeks early!) in early August 2023, in the shape of our first granddaughter. We even had then tiny Millie living under our roof for the first four months of her life. This was an unmatched joy and privilege, but inevitably led to the curtailing of a few travel plans and an adjusted writing schedule.

As well as continuing to write my monthly nature pieces for Radley News (I clocked up my 50th piece in September 2024), I have enjoyed collaborative writing and study as part of a quartet of my MA cohort. This has seen all of us - extending our writing range and pressing on with the bigger projects that will take some time to come to fruition. I greatly appreciate this space and how we are able to consider our craft and challenge each other through our constructive criticism. This seems a natural extension to the MA course and the pleasure of reading the developing works of talented writers is considerable.

A great pleasure of the early part of 2024 was to initiate some nature writing activities within local primary school, St Swithun’s in Kennington. Having got to know the school set-up through helping to bring a collaborative writing project to publication fruition (I never saw myself working on Cosmic Cats!), I took two groups through a three-week programme that led to some cleverly crafted short-form nature writing. All that each child had for inspiration was a single bird feather. This is something I hope to repeat in 2025.

It’s good to have opportunities to talk to local groups and lead nature walks. I started the year with a talk to Friends of Kennington Library about the wildlife that can be seen and heard in their village. I’m looking forward to leading another wildlife walk for the Radley Environmental Group. This will be in October - and I’m hoping for weather and luck to match last year’s walk, when we had an extended watch of a Peregrine Falcon, good views of a Kingfisher beside the Thames, and spotted a Clouded Yellow butterfly. In early 2025 I’ll be talking to Friends of Kennington Library again, this time about some of my walks and how others who have written about those places have inspired me with their words.

What’s become clear to me in the past year, and will drive future plans, is the realisation is that I found most fulfilment from fusing together personal reminiscence with focus on the places I’ve travelled (which really means walked), and the wildlife I’ve seen there. Achieving that fusion, always with a nod to the literary influences that have arrived at different stages of my life, is where I’d say the focus of my thinking is directed. I’d pay particular thanks to Tanya Shadrick for how her The Cure for Sleep project allowed me to creep nervously, and then a little more confidently towards writing with more than a hint of memoir.