Walking Home My Family and Other Rambles (Audible Audio Edition) Clare Balding Penguin Books Ltd Books
Download As PDF : Walking Home My Family and Other Rambles (Audible Audio Edition) Clare Balding Penguin Books Ltd Books
Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Walking Home, by Clare Balding.
In Clare Balding's family, walking just took too long - she galloped through the countryside and she galloped through life. Then, in 1999, Clare took a call from a BBC producer looking for a presenter for a new radio series. "Do you walk?" she asked. "Well, I walk the dog...."
That series, Ramblings, is still going strong - and Clare's caught the walking bug. Now she wants her family to share some of that pleasure. Her and her brother Andrew are determined to conquer the Wayfarer's Walk, a 71-mile route. What could possibly go wrong?
Walking Home My Family and Other Rambles (Audible Audio Edition) Clare Balding Penguin Books Ltd Books
Rarely have I enjoyed reading this much. Clare writes eloquently, from the heart. Her writing is humorous, thought provoking and unfailingly interesting. I look forward to more from Ms Balding. What a woman!Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: Walking Home: My Family and Other Rambles (Audible Audio Edition): Clare Balding, Penguin Books Ltd: Books, ,Clare Balding, Penguin Books Ltd,Walking Home: My Family and Other Rambles,Penguin Books Ltd,B00MXB4DUM
People also read other books :
- The Green Door eBook Candace Warzecha Paul Warzecha Rebekah J Mathis
- Memories Are Made of These Storied Meditations on Life Experiences Donald A Gall 9781432781613 Books
- The Brink of Oblivion edition by Jason E Maurer Literature Fiction eBooks
- The Sao Paulo Diamond Laurence U Gross 9781492756439 Books
- Death and Biker Gangs Grave New World Book 2 edition by SP Blackmore Steven Novak Literature Fiction eBooks
Walking Home My Family and Other Rambles (Audible Audio Edition) Clare Balding Penguin Books Ltd Books Reviews
Having absolutely loved Clare's first book, My Animals and Other Family, I was looking forward to this so much. It doesn't disappoint. What a wonderful read.Gill Heeley's lovely animal portraits from the first book are replaced by decorative line drawings by her and informative maps.
In her last book Clare told the story of her childhood and teenage years through the stories of the horses and dogs her family owned in that time.
Here the construct is completely different but like her previous book, it's a clever one. Clare weaves the story of her twenty years in broadcasting into tales of taking different walks with a vast range of people in the UK and Ireland. These walks were mostly, but not exclusively, undertaken for 'Ramblings', Clare's national radio programme in the UK. Through the programme's ten - year history, Clare has met such an inspiring and interesting group of people - some of them more than once, like Scotland's 'Monday Walkers' aka 'The Whisky Walkers.'
The benefits of walking for mental and physical health are widely recognised and Clare has some wonderful stories about this. The chapter 'Inner Hope' retells the story of Gordon, Caroline and Sam Luff. Caroline, like Clare a cancer survivor, was able to return to her love of walking following a back operation. Her joy at being able to do this springs off the page - 'Inner Hope' being a Devonshire village on the South -West Coast path that the Luff family and Clare walked along.
There are stories of walking groups inspired to form by 'Ramblings' listeners, particularly a bereavement walking group, that formed following a 'Ramblings' programme featuring a group walking to benefit their mental health. Fascinating snippets of local history and geography pepper the pages from all corners of the UK and from Ireland too. St Oswald's Way in beautiful Northumberland, city walks in London and Liverpool, a lengthy tramp through Ireland's Wicklow Mountains and time spent with the 'Wee Binnians' in Ireland's Kingdom of Mourne, said to be the inspiration for C.S. Lewis' Narnia.
Fans of Clare's first book will be delighted to know that horses and dogs do feature once more. Clare's first book gave us a glimpse of her and partner Alice's Tibetan terrier Archie, and Archie, now 9, is here again in a much expanded role. However, there was a puppy before Archie, little Percy, who died young. I lost a much loved dog in near identical circumstances to Percy, at a similar age and this heartbreaking episode had me in tears. We are also introduced to her mother's latest Boxer, the zestful Boris.
Alice Arnold, Clare's partner and 'Ramblings' producer Lucy Lunt also feature throughout in a host of warm and amusing tales. Highly enjoyable is the story, threaded throughout the book - and helpfully in a different font - of how Clare and her family tackled, stage by stage the 70 mile 'Wayfarers Walk' part of which skirts Kingsclere, Clare's childhood (and spiritual) home. Once again there are many amusing stories featuring Clare's racehorse trainer brother Andrew.
There is also a touching tribute to Clare's beloved Uncle Toby, retired racehorse trainer Toby Balding OBE, who has just passed away. I am sure he knew how much he was loved by his even more famous niece and by those who love racing.
The book ends with a fascinating account of Clare's hugely successful roles at the London Olympics and Paralympics and like earlier chapters, contains so much interesting information on sports broadcasting - and broadcasting in general. Fans of Chad's Dad, Bert Le Clos, one of the unexpected stars of London 2012 will be warmed to read a lovely tribute to a memorable man. The Sochi Trolley from the BBC's coverage of 2014's Winter Olympics also gets a rightful mention, #sochitrolley having trended on Twitter.
A wonderful sequel that will surely delight Clare's growing army of fans.
I found the author's first book to be a most enjoyable read, not surprising as it was primarily about her life as the daughter of a racehorse trainer, which was exactly what I wanted to read about. I was also well aware that she has been very successful in her media career as an adult. I wasn't sure what sort of book the author would write next, but her first book not only told me all I needed to know of hr early life, but also showed that she could write well in a style that should appeal to a lot of people. I therefore looked forward to seeing what the next book would be about and I bought it as soon as I saw that it was about walking.
Not having followed her career in detail, I was unaware of her interest in walking and her successful presentation of a long running radio show on the topic. I am not an avid walker but I do my share of walking just by surviving, because I don't have my own wheeled transport. Everywhere I go, I walk unless I get a bus, train, taxi or (very rarely) a lift from somebody else. So I don't do long distance walks, but I walk a lot. There are a lot of places that I might like to see and I recognize that the best way to see anywhere is on foot (subject to weather conditions) but the long distance travel is a limitation. I therefore do the next best thing and read about other people doing the interesting walks.
The author intersperses the walks with sections discussing other aspects of her life, career and opinions. Occasionally, I was concerned that she might spend too much time drifting, but at each such point, she always came back to the main thrust of the book. There is plenty about the Olympic coverage that changed the public's perception of her (as she puts it) from horsey woman to Olympics woman.
Regarding the walks, the book's title implies that she started somewhere else and walked home. In reality, the walks are all over England and occasionally beyond. On one walk in the north of England, she encounters an all-woman choir of folk singers. Their leader, Sandra Kerr, explained the appeal of singing for fun (see my review title). Of course, you do need at least some singing ability (which I don't have, although one of my cousins has a really bad tape recording that I hope he has long ago thrown out) to sing. Nobody explained the appeal of walking in such interesting terms as Sandra Kerr explained singing, but you don't need any talent to walk - just enough energy to keep going.
This is another magnificent book by a multi-talented author.
Another great read from Clare Balding!
Rarely have I enjoyed reading this much. Clare writes eloquently, from the heart. Her writing is humorous, thought provoking and unfailingly interesting. I look forward to more from Ms Balding. What a woman!
0 Response to "[SUN]⇒ Read Walking Home My Family and Other Rambles (Audible Audio Edition) Clare Balding Penguin Books Ltd Books"
Post a Comment