The first pair - ocean socks - named after the yarn but the colour is about right as was where I did much of the knitting - Coastal Paths. I love long distance walking paths. The National Trails are fantastic but then so are other ones such as the Cumbria Way which 3 of us did 5 years ago.
My first experience was beginning the Cornish Coastal Walk in 1990s. Now it has become the South West Coast Path. My idea is to crack on as otherwise it will have become the British Coastal Walk before I have finished. Now I am back and have done much of the Dorset Coast (from Lulworth Cove to Lyme Regis and am well on track with the South Devon leg with a little around Seaton & also from Sidmouth to Torcross. Ocean Socks belong to my stay in Bridport. I fell in love with Bridport - a lovely market town with West Bay a short distance away on the coast. I loved being in Bridport with its varied buildings, wide streets and the ability to stroll down to the beach. I loved it so much that during a stay in Lyme Regis I had to go back.
There is something about coastal walking. There is so much variety as the views change all the time. If you do the same leg, then the views will be different everytime as the light and the tides change as do the seasons. It can be easy as you stroll gently along the seashore or it can be brutal as the path follows the contours without the comfort of bridges. Before I learnt to map read, I asked my then boyfriend if some of the Cornish coast was brown. Once he finished laughing, he said contours! Now when I'm planning a walk these are the first things I check along with the weather. If you can help it then there's not a lot point of getting soaked and it can be dangerous if the wind is high. Personally I sometimes think that contour lines should be in red, the further they are together then the steeper and the harder it is. Why do I check contours? Two reasons: the more contours, the longer it will take. If I have a choice of direction, they can also influence me in choices (along with bus times!).
Ocean socks came with me to one of the highest points - Golden Cap. It was a bit blustery that day but coast walking at its best with views, flowers and no rain. Socks a good choice as they are so easily portable unless you are using wooden knitting needles and then you can run into other problems! Nothing more annoying than finding that one's snapped. The difficulty of course is that you can drop one. Somewhere on a SouthWest Trains train, is a beautiful knitting needle dropped down a grille. I could see it but not touch it. AAAgh!
And so the SouthWest Coast path continues and deserves several posts of its own. In the meantime, in Winter I have enjoyed the warmth and memories of ocean socks.
