This Autumn’s National Trust Magazine features short articles from various contributors about their love of walking. In one, novelist and pet Ben Okro describes how he often combines walking with reading as he wanders the canals of Little Venice, pitying the joggers who, unlike him, return ‘reddened and crumpled with all that strain’. Since walking and reading are two of my favourite things, thought I would share this extract with you: ‘Reading and walking is such a dangerous thing. But sometimes a Chekhov story will not leave me alone. I will read a line and check my steps. But when I walk sometimes my mind will empty in the pleasant way and I will stop and let thoughts or reminiscences or impressions without words nestle in my mind. Sometimes, in between steps, I will catch myself in a perfect mood for reading. In such a mood whatever I read goes right in and I cease to be a reader but one living what is read.’
Want to be featured?
