The volcanic ash did not deter a hang glider from soaring high above Essex in its clear blue cloudless sky yesterday. My fellow walkers from the Cambridge Rambling Group looked up in awe as we meandered through meadows bursting with spring flowers and the first showing of bluebells along the banks and in shady woodland. Volcanic ash or not, I don’t think I have the stomach for those mechanical bird like antics.

Virtually everyone had a tale to tell about how flight cancellations had impacted on their lives. A party from our group is stranded in Sardinia at the end of their one-week walking trip and are trying deseperately to return home by alternative means. One walker was due to fly to Kathmandu yesterday; another woman told how her daughter-in-law was due to fly to Switzerland today to deliver a training programme, and our walk leader was due to fly to Europe for a business trip today too. I later had an email from a friend who was due to fly to Africa this morning on a work trip which has been cancelled; this shows the heavy reliance on air travel. It’s certainly a lot easier to have a cancellation and be stuck at home rather than be stranded abroad and have run out of money, being left with just a bag of dirty washing. While it’s a terrible predicament for these travellers, but they have to hang on to the thought that at least they are safe, albeit greatly inconvenienced.

Was this volcanic eruption not predicted, btw? I would expected its activity to be monitored, but I don’t recall reading anything about this.

*Our 11-mile walk around Elmdon, near Saffron Walden, took us to three splendid churches, including a  barn church, where we sat for e a 10 minute break and to explore. Sitting on the edge of a tombstone we admired the view of undulating fields, and commented, “This is a view from a tomb!”

One of the most interesting discoveries of the day was a tombstone in the graveyard at Strethall Church for Janet Patience Cameron Adams MBE who died in 2006 and was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal and Red Cross Badge of Honour for being an “heroic Red Cross nurse”, and described as “one of the bravest and most determined of people,” who cared for the hungry, sick, wounded and dying “of all creeds and colour and in many trouble spots of the world.” This is her obit from The Times.

She clearly loved animals too as well as being a great humanitarian as the reverse of her tombstone reads:

Be kind to little animals
Whatever sort they be
And give a stranded jellyfish
A shove into the sea.  Anon

This is why walking, there are so many interesting discoveries to be made. Here is a link to some of the walk which I tracked on EveryTrail.