... So most UK walking then.

Know your routes - in the wet some footpaths can get extremely muddy (especially sections across farmland where cattle churn it up) & you may need wellies rather than walking boots due to mud depth... also route knowledge useful as some "stiles" can be awkward depending on a persons mobility, as some farmers seem to take delight in making them as user unfriendly as possible.

Breathable waterproof trousers (or leggings) if rainy

Breathable waterproof coat if rainy.

Gaiters for really muddy conditions.

Note, in UK, mist / mizzle / drizzle type weather common this time of year, so relatively high humidity in those scenarios, a lot of "breathable" gear does not work that well under those conditions, so you may find you get far warmer / sweatier than you expect so don't overdo the clothing layers you start off with (you can always walk faster to stay warm - always best to not be "over dressed" as you want to assume you will often go at a fair pace and generate some heat from the exercise)

Related to the above, if it is not windy then an umbrella can be surprisingly useful in wet weather walks (& a sturdy metal tipped golfing umbrella can double as a support stick on many awkward slopes, which means you can bin the walking poles on all except really dodgy routes & use brolly instead)

Treat cattle with caution (females with young calves can be surprisingly aggressive, & keep well clear f you have a dog with you as some cattle really respond badly to dogs)

If an unfamiliar area, always take extra water, compass & map(s): If you insist on using a phone app for location in an unfamiliar area, ensure you have downloaded maps in advance in case of no reception.

.. Most of my walking is on farmland (as I live in the middle of nowhere, no pavements on minor roads near me, so little in the way of "user friendly" paths) which can be a PITA in the wet, but most areas will have a few easier walking routes for the wet e.g. may have some tarmac or similar paths, or paths with gravel / chippings to make them less of a mud bath, so consider those if your footwear* is not suitable for proper mud.

* If Santa did get you walking boots for Xmas, they may need a bit of "breaking in" depending on what they are made of - maybe dont go off on a 15 mile walk in brand new boots (& good thick socks always key with walking boots)

Great advice.

I was going to mention the accompanying pictures all look like they were taken at far more pleasant times of they year, and not the dull grey drizzle which we experience at Christmas every year now.

Those pictures are warm summer days - must nicer than the weather today…

If it's an unfamiliar area it's also worth looking for some local walking or wardens groups. They frequently organise walks of varying difficulty, and know what's likely to be passable in current weather. We recently joined a "no mud" walk, where the guide kept us on lanes and tracks, ideal for the saturated conditions.

I've seen a walking group, with their waterproof map pouches round their necks, heading towards a foot-path which. had they turned the corner would have been clearly visible as well as being marked on the maps, turn round back the way they'd come and take the road up to some cottages, clearly marked as private. If you have a map, learn to read it.

"If Santa did get you walking boots for Xmas, they may need a bit of "breaking in" depending on what they are made of - maybe don't go off on a 15 mile walk in brand new boots (& good thick socks always key with walking boots)"

As for socks in walking boots, get some 'twin skin' running socks, and wear them inside a pair of thick wooly socks. The wool socks will keep your feet warm and absorb sweat, the 'twin skin' running socks are the best way to avoid blisters I have found (I have done four London marathons without blisters thanks to these double-layer socks).

For an amusing tale of the perils of walking in new boots without having worn them in, read Eric Newby's book 'A short walk in the Hindu Kush'.

Oh, and if travelling by bus or train, check the timetable for both ends of your walk. I once walked the Ridgeway on a Sunday starting at Goring / Streetly, and finishing at Prince's Risborough after about 26 miles just in time to watch the last train for TWO HOURS departing the station. Gpoign the other way from Wantage to Swindon, again on a Sunday, I was waiting for ages at the bus stop when a kind soul in a car informed me that, contrary to the pubished bus timetable, there was no Sunday service. Not a happy Bunny.

Happy walking! And HAPPY NEW YEAR too!

Best advice I ever got was 2 pairs of socks - outer pair rubs on inner pair and not on your feet. Never gotten blisters this way.

Don't overly tighten your boots as otherwise you restrict blood flow and your feet will freeze. Lots of thin layers are better a small number of thick layers

Yep I discovered this by trial and error years ago.

The best combination I've found is to get a snug pair of the socks with toes (Injinji, or various cheaper clone brands available on Amazon - you need some trial and error to find a good one) and wear a pair of regular socks over them.

The toe socks keep my toes from rubbing against each other which is one source of blisters (and the reason I started buying those because I'd always had that problem even when I was a kid) and the second layer of sock means as you say the shoe is causing the outer pair of socks to rub on the inner pair rather than on your foot.

Waterproof trousers? Just wear shorts.

My tips for walking in wet weather after just bagging 100th Munro.

Understand the weather and the foibles of whatever weather forecast you trust. E.g. MWIS is pretty good but they tend to be pessimistic so the weather will generally be a bit better than they forecast.

I don't bother with waterproof leggings. They are noisy or heavy and always annoying. I use Ron Hill track suit bottoms in all temperatures and weathers down to about zero and below zero I put a pair of windproof but breathable walking trousers over the top of them. If the weather ever gets too cold, wet and windy for that combination then I go to the pub, not the hill.

Short gaiters are handy to keep the water out of your boots if it's pishing it down - I use Paramo (see below)

Paramo for waterproof jacket every time. Bit warm in summer, but the most durable, breathable kit I've ever owned for walking and cycling. Quito for summer, Alta III for winter, Ciclo for cycling .

Harveys maps. OS waterproof maps are too bulky so if you can't get Harveys then you need a waterproof map case. I always print the route and carry that in my pocket in a waterproof envelope (A4 insert + gaffer tape) and put the map in the bag as backup.

A compass. A spare compass.

Note that don't need to carry a map and compass if you don't know how to use them. If this is the case then don't bother carrying them cos they're just extra weight when the moutain rescue team has to carry you off the hill when you're exhausted and dehydrated from being lost all night.

And remember - it's only rain.

There are several books on navigation, including 'Mountain Navigation' by Peter Cliff. He points out that in the mountains there are two sorts of 'lost':

'Lost' type 1 - Don't know which part of the hill you are on.

'Lost' type 2 - Don't know which hill you are on.

With the new-fangled GPS satnav thingies people are less and less aware of their surroundings and cannot actually navigate using map and compass - it is not that difficult to learn. And do take a map and compass, because even if you don't know how to use them, someone you meet might. The best way to navigate is to check where you are all the time on the map, with compass, don't wait until you are lost before trying to find yourself. And remember to check where the sun is - is it in the right direction for where you think you are going and the time of day. If it is straight ahead and midday then you are not walking East.

Take a whistle in case of accidents, they weight very little and the standard distress signal is six short blasts, repeated until help arrives. Again, you might not be in personal need, but someone you meet might be. (In the dark, a torch with six short flashes, repeated is also recommended). A 'space blanket' and small first aid kit including anti-septic wipes and sticking plasters in case of minor cuts is also important.

Adding to what you've said, in preparation for being lost, always let someone know your planned route and when you expect to be back or reporting in.

Even fairly simple routes can become extremely dangerous in a short time. Snowdon is a good example - and an excellent, highly recommended and really easy walk to the summit. But visibility can be reduced to virtually zero in no time. Don't move!!! Wait it out - blow that whistle if necessary.

Once in Snowdonia I was intentionally solo - away from the group. A beautiful day, looking up at the most pristine sky. I still don't know why, but I just stopped, looked down. And down and down and down. An open shaft was one step in front of me - it turnout to be a disused goldmine shaft. Don't be overconfident, always heads-up (figuratively!). If the weather had been poor, I may not have seen it regardless. Don't wander around in poor visibility.

If starting out have a look for the pathfinder range of guide books not that expensive

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=pathfinder+guides&crid=171VY3NDBKECJ&sprefix=Pathfinder+guide%2Caps%2C112&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_16

They have walked graded by distance and are well written with plenty of information most contains about 30 routes from 1-2 miles up to 15 miles, the 15 miles being a full day. They also point out local refreshments shops / pubs etc which is useful to know. Carry some drink but if there is a pub or similar don’t bother with food or snacks, you won’t burn enough calories to offset a couple of chocy bars (I have just come back from a 5 mile bike ride and the computer reckons I burnt through 230 kcal which is one mars bar….

Regarding equipment get a waterproof map case at the same time. Compass (instructions say to turn north which way is north on a cloudy day….) and a suitable waterproof jacket, I have a selection averaging from £50 to £300 depending on the conditions incidentally if you buy Burghaus they have a free lifetime repair service, it gets damaged post it to their Sunderland address and it comes back repaired a week or so later - the £300 jacket is 15 years old and last year the zip broke repaired for free,

And the most important do NOT wear jeans for walking…

For those of us in suburbia - or even in city centres - walking is still viable. I'll be off out on a boxing day walk shortly.

Route planning is less essential in the suburbs, but still good.

Have a goal. I like to pick a park that's just a little bit further away, and visit that.

Read the roads. You probably know which areas are or aren't safe anyway, but picking quiet well to do roads can add to the distance and make the walk all that more pleasant. More pleasant than following major arteries, anyway...

Have a small bag on you. You never know what shops you might find open, and if you suddenly find something then being able to pop a bag out can be great.

Hills are good. The first instinct is to avoid them, but they can be a great way to add a little challenge.

Have a backup plan. Know which buses you might be able to catch back, or which pubs you could rest in.

Try not to rest in too many pubs. That's a pub crawl, not a walk.

During Lockdown, one of my father's former pupils worked out a 'Metropolitan Munro' in his home town. The idea is that you find a route of public paths in your town that includes at leat 3000' of ascent (although clearly not all in one go) within a conurbation.

"...worked out a 'Metropolitan Munro' in his home town"

Now that is an idea .

See icon.

In the Brum/West Midlands area that is looking like a walk around the outskirts of some distance however. My have to include parts of black country - Lickey's won't cut it.

I've found that on ubran routes, organic maps (other OpenStreetMap apps are available) includes a lot of footpaths missing from Google maps.

The walking route feature is good at avoiding main roads and often taking you down footpaths and through parks, providing nicer surroundings at the cost of not necessarily taking the fastest route.

Back in the 70's, when my brother, sister and I were at school in Keswick, we did a project on Castlerigg Stone Circle and "leylines".

The local education authority provided the school with an [1]HP 9830A calculator/ BASIC computer.

The physics master lent us an ex-Canadian Army gunsight - a compact theodolite. We surveyed all the stones, I did the 3D trig to calculate where on the slope of Blencathra the sun would rise on midsummer morning and stayed up overnight to catch it. Helpful teachers and students with driving licenses drove us to other stone circles. My brother wrote a program for the HP 9830A to calculate the "leylines" between them, then created random points and ran the program again to see whether we got a similar result.

We entered the project into two competitions, one run by Computer Weekly and the BBC's "Young Scientists of the Year".

We came second in the CW competition and were donated an ICT (the forerunner of ICL) 1902 computer, and reached the finals of YSotY.

More details at [2]my brother's website .

[1] https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp9830.htm

[2] https://planet.davewylie.uk/castlerigg/

Just in case, and I may be running an egg sucking tutorial here, have you come across John North's work, especially Stonehenge: neolithic man and the cosmos ?

Not North, the book you refer to wasn't published until 1996, twenty years after my schooldays, by which time I'd moved on to other interests, but your post triggered a memory of [1]Alexander Thom . Another part of the "research" we did at school was investigating the precision with which students could pace out a " [2]Megalithic yard ".

I do have a copy of [3]Euan MacKie 's "The Megalith Builders".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Thom

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalithic_yard

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euan_MacKie

Trekking poles are invaluable for crossing streams in spate, even if they spend the rest of the time strapped to your rucksack.

Also, +1 for Paramo, but even a Paramo "waterproof" jacket and Berghaus overtrousers won't stop you getting soaked to the skin in the worst weather (been there, done that).

Layer up, with a synthetic wicking layer against the skin.

Taking it to the extreme, don't bother with a waterproof top, instead wear a Paramo/Buffalo/Montane smock.

Jackets come in two lengths. The shorter ones may be more fashionable and better when belaying a climber, but they can leave an exposed gap around your midriff above your overtrousers. Paramo do both lengths, I have one of each. I found my short padded Paramo top in a charity shop in Kendal with £5 on the ticket. I gave them a lot more than that for it.

Hmm. I am not a fan of trekking poles, unless you have genuinely learnt how to use them. If you walk in the hills, you will come across many rocks with scratches on them where someone with a pole fell over because they didn't know how to use them. I have seen someone who thought he did know how to use his poles fall over and break one of his crossing a stream on trek in Africa. (He was ok, just a bit shaken, and we managed to extend the remains of his pole to the required length.) But it is much better to walk without them if you can - as a species we have done it for several hundred thousand years*, so it should be possible for most of us.

*Or maybe for up to 7 million: https://www.science.org/content/article/human-ancestors-were-walking-upright-7-million-years-ago-ancient-limb-bone-suggests#:~:text=An%20ancient%20leg%20bone%20found,upright%207%20million%20years%20ago.

I'll second that... we were advised by the tour company that walking poles were 'essential equipment' when walking the Inca Trail a couple of years ago but found that they spent most of their time folded up and on our backpacks; really they just got in the way of actually walking. That was an odd walk - high altitude, naturally, but mostly on made stone paths a few hundred year old; worn and slippery rocks at odd angles, and steps of annoying wrong tread and riser dimensions. The grip of our feet was so much surer than the grip of the end of the poles (which had to be rubber tipped by local regulation).

An excellent walk though, and highly[1] recommended.

[1] between three and four thousand metres, mostly.

No matter how comfortable your furniture, after six or seven hours in the same place some parts can get numb or muscles can feel twitchy, like they are telling you to move around more. Fight that feeling, your brain is in charge, not your body. If you are sharing a sofa then try swapping sides once or twice a day. If you have the sofa to yourself then congrats, just lie across it and stretch your legs every few hours. Remember to place plenty of snacks on a nearby table, or if you are lucky the top of your belly can form a small table for nuts and crisps. If you are worried about deep vein thrombosis then wear compression socks, or just scrunch up your toes for a few minutes every few hours. You can set a reminder to do this on the smart watch your worried family bought you. I have no tips for avoiding toilet breaks that I am prepared to share publicly. If humans were intended to walk places then we wouldn't have immediately invented wheels and chairs and (as soon as possible) screens. Don't fight progress.

"The government-imposed one-hour window that encouraged respite from smashing our saucepans with wooden utensils and venturing outside instead was the first time I ever really embraced walking as a healing tool."

There was no one hour window. This was something the BBC came up with, perhaps through contemplating prison which seems to be an occupational hazard, and has been endlessly repeated as fact. An analysis here: https://archive.reading.ac.uk/news-events/2020/May/pr841058.html

As the region mentioned is Suffolk, rather than the Scottish highlands, I don't think that advice including waterproof maps & compasses, survival gear and warnings about crossing streams in spate are particularly necessary. A warm jumper, jacket, hat and Google Maps will probably be sufficient to ensure that Suffolk Mountain Rescue don't need to be called out.

Ah, Suffolk, land of what my local friends call the "lazy wind". It doesn't go round you, it just goes just straight through!

Nah.... The wind that goes straight through you is the North Easter that hits the North Norfolk Coast. That place is cold even in mid summer. Cue digging out photos of family on holiday in Hunstanton in the 1960's (before Beechiing killed the railway) wearing winter hats, gloves and coats on the beach! I've been colder there than walking on the coast of Eastern Greenland in late summer.

When walking in narrow, winding lanes, remember the highway Code instruction about walking on the side to face oncoming traffic on the straight bits but cross over as necessary to stay on the outside of the bends so as to see and be seen. This last part is especially significant if the lanes are lined by high walls and hedges.

If several of you are walking together don't greet approaching traffic be splitting the group to both sides of the road.

The above are just sensible approaches to self-reservation but please remember some of us live here.

If you walk open gates to walk into fields, please close them behind you. It's not just green stuff like your local park. It's somebody's livelihood. Even those of us who aren't farmers aren't happy with finding a few cows and the bull or last year's crop of lambs in our gardens (both have happened here plus the more frequent occurrence of two or three sheep or a ewe and a couple of lambs).

If you're in fields with livestock keep any dogs on their leads.

And please take your litter home. Gaps in dry stone walls are not litter bins, neither is the other side of the wall or hedge.

"If you're in fields with livestock keep any dogs on their leads."

Actually if you are in a field with cattle, let your dog off the lead and do not keep it close. The cattle often chase dogs and try to kill them, and dog walkers have been killed by cattle while trying to protect their dog. A dog is easily able to out-manoeuvre a cow if not constrained by a lead.

With sheep in a field always keep your dog on a lead - farmers in the UK are permitted to shoot dogs bothering their sheep. Even if your dog is 'safe' with sheep remember to set a good example for others whose dogs may not be so well-behaved as yours.

When walking in industrial areas or along busy roads, wear a mask to reduce the effects of the pollution. Have a whistle or rape alarm on you. A small spray of perfume (or man-perfume) may also offer some protection. Watch out for muggers on silent EVs, drunks, drunken drivers and aggressive beggars. Be careful anywhere with low footfall. Handing over your wallet and phone may be sensible if approached by folks with knives, especially if you are on a path near a waterway. Tell someone where you are going and to check on you at a set time. If you are female, unless you have self defence training, take a friend with you. Make sure there is someone at home or ensure you have good CCTV and have fully secured your property as best you can, hiding valuables. And don't, like the author, live in any block of flats in the UK. If the cladding doesn't get you, the bill to replace it will. Or the fire brigade will chuck you out. Health and safety etc.

The weather in the UK has been wet, cold, windy and generally crap for the last few months. Avoid areas that have flooded - you might be stepping in something deeper than a puddle. Don't intrude on farmland, MoD or private property. Keep some distance from farm animals grazing on public areas. Take all your litter home with you, don't light a fire and don't dig up any plants.

Have fun.

Untethered goats can be aggressive, be careful. Windmills may create sudden down drafts. Always carry at least two weeks supply of dried meat, useful not only to stave off hunger but also in case of the zombie apocalypse. Remember that you need to breathe at least 15% Oxygen to survive, so a pressurised cylinder with a close fitting mask is very useful. Triple glazing can be effective at reducing your energy bills. Even in familiar areas it is a good idea to carry an inflatable raft, two passports and several thousand dollars in multiple currencies, as both national allegiance and weather can change quickly. Consider learning how to build a basic igloo out of breeze blocks. Press ganging is still a very real risk, drinking only from a pewter tankard with a glass bottom would be wise. And never, ever feed a Mogwai after midnight.

"Let's take a food holiday and instead make it miserable!"

No. Go away, and leave me alone while I enjoy my food coma.

...shocked I tell you...at the number of IT pizza eating basement dwellers who seem to know something not only of the outside world, but actual rural goodness :-)

I'm shocked!

Don't be, we're Management Consultants .*

*People who make things up** based on half-remembered conversations overheard in the the pub, a complete lack of any real understanding of the subject, and a regurgitation of things we read online, most importantly telling other people what to do.

** Well, not every consultant is like that, just a few***

**'Few' as in 'a lot but I don't want to be sued for defamation'

But why is a smartwatch necessary? Most smartphones these days have the requisite sensors to be both decently accurate pedometers and half decent GPS devices, using free software. I do like a good OS map though and these days, best of both worlds, you get access to the digital version when you buy a paper map.

M.

Its not "necessary". Neither is a pedometer or even a GPS unless you're going out in the middle of nowhere and you don't know the area.

But it is nice to have your heart rate and other stuff tracked, so you discover changes. That proved invaluable to me recently. I finally caved and got a smartwatch (Apple Watch SE 2) around this time last year for my workouts (though I've taken to wearing it pretty much all the time, even when sleeping since I'm addicted to watching trends)

I didn't pay attention to my reported VO2 Max other than noticing at first it was reading lower than I knew it to be (but I later found out you need to calibrate the watch, which I haven't bothered to do yet but will eventually) but out of the blue a few months ago I got a notification that my "cardio fitness is trending down". I looked and was shocked to see that my VO2 Max was almost 10 units lower than it had been a few months ago! Looking at the graph, it was quite suspiciously around the time I had been prescribed atorvastin (Lipitor) since there was some arterial buildup around my heart (thanks to my poor genes inherited from both parents) and they wanted to lower my LDL below 100 to minimize future buildup.

It turns out that among its potential side effects in 5-10% of people Lipitor causes problems with the muscles, including and especially the heart. Clearly I was one of those people, I contacted my doctor who said I should quit taking it and monitor my VO2 Max. It has (very slowly) increased since about a week after I quit taking it. It clearly will take a lot longer to get it back up than it did to lose it, but since I only took it for a few months it shouldn't have done any permanent damage.

If I didn't have that Apple Watch, it likely would have been a LOT longer before I figured out what was happening, perhaps long enough that permanent damage would have been done!

"My favorite childhood memory is my back not hurting"

Our food holiday is Thanksgiving, which induces such a coma that we get 2 days off for it.

Here at Christmas, heaven is not having to deal with other people. I'll text "Merry Christmas" to friends and that's the sum total of my "celebrations"

I'll probably go out to the marina/park and watch for dolphins, though.

However, I do have to mention that this Christmas marked getting my TRS-80 45 years ago.

The only way to beat Christmas food comas is to eat in moderation and drink no alcohol in other words avoid getting the food coma in the first place.

Been doing that for years and so I can get up early in Christmas day and enjoy the morning.

Bah! You can't have a comedown if you never come down! Sobriety? Pffft! Reality is for people who can't handle drugs!

Some magnificently well intentioned advice here. But I think from your article it appears you are a man in your early thirties living in a flat in Suffolk, not Ranulph Fienes? In which case I would suggest you don’t need a compass, maps, pedometer, trekking poles, nor even a rape alarm and a bottle of perfume - genuinely one of the most peculiar suggestions I’ve seen here in 20+ years on this wretched site.

Try walking home from the pub. Once you’ve mastered that, pick a pub slightly further away. If you want to get really fit, do this five nights a week. I’m only half in a jest here because if you genuinely want to go for a walk and are wondering where to begin, it’s the easiest thing in the world to achieve. Just step outside your front door and keep going. There is beauty to be found everywhere, even in the four miles between W1 and Streatham at 2am.

《bottle of perfume - genuinely one of the most peculiar suggestions》

Not so peculiar if you imagine as "Mr Fiennes" was suggesting sotto voce if you were to have it sprayed in your eyes.

This is well known in the saner ie non american parts of the world where possession of mace is illegal.

When an undergraduate larking about, having been accidentally sprayed in the eyes by a daft UG engineer with an avon perfume spray I can testify it is very effective device for disabling an assailant. Perhaps in that particular case only marginally more effective than the perfume itself. :)

I suspect the universal solvent - aka WD40 - would work just as well, and _may_ be easier to explain why you're carrying it.

Sadly, anything in the UK can be deemed an offensive weapon, without a good reason for carrying. I used to recommend a powerful torch to people for defence, 1000 lumens hurts even in daylight. But even that's a tactical weapon, so... Just learn a good martial art, not even the most zealous copper can really ask "why are you carrying those hands?" with conviction. That said, a bottle of an uber chilli sauce in the face would be a bit of a deterrent, something like Maddog 357 should do the trick (although I'd consider that a waste and probably be charged with assault while trying to lick it off of the face of the wannabe mugger!).

Grab yourself a decent rucksack , decent boots and some decent gear

Load the rucksack with about 50 pounds (24kg) of stuff and take a stroll from the Storey Arms up over the beacons and back down again... then turn around and go back over in less time.

Welcome to the fan dance :)

Ok Ok you wont be able to even get up the mountain... but start with a smaller load, and try a stroll along a beach , or somewhere with some nice deep gravel.

At the end of my rehabiliation I did 6.5 miles including a gravel walk and finished with 400ft climb at the end in about 2 hrs and the rucksack weight was measured at 56lbs.

My doc called me a 'stupid bastard' but on the plus side when I did the hamster wheel test at the cardiac dept, I came in 3rd that year and the only 2 peeps who beat me were docs who did marathons for a hobby...

Its not too late to lose those fat cells.... or you could be just plain late...

My approach is to walk up the mountain, then pop up the paraglider and fly down (ideally via somewhere else on the way). There are those who use miniature lightweight wings and eschew such fripperies as harnesses with any degree of back protection, or safety helmets, and never ever fly with a reserve parachute, but I'd rather have them if I ever need them so my complete equipment (including boots and flying suit runs to fifteen or sixteen kilos. Including the bag I use to carry it up the mountain in the first place.

Seeing all the references to miles, feet and odd pound by clearly UK residents.

I suspect AU/NZ and UK commenced the conversion to SI about the same time but now in AU speaking of feet, inches, miles, pounds, pints, ounces (both) etc to anyone much under 50 will mostly garner blank looks.

A twenty something is more likely to know what a Troy ounce is.

"Any tips for the region and walking in wet weather would be most welcome."

A manual treadmill in the spare room, ideally bought on Black Friday for much less than the price of a smart watch. Works just as well in wet or dry weather, though this being the UK it will be mostly wet outside. If you must have "fresh" air, open the window.

There's a lovely new wildlife area along the banks of Martlesham Creek, recently bought by Suffolk Wildlife Trust for rewilding. The land has been sustainably managed by an organic farmer for decades until he retired and sold the land to SWT, so it is already full of birds, wildflowers, butterflies, stag beetles, and other wildlife.

Park by Martlesham Creek church (Google Maps pin at 52.074492737355925, 1.298411890374119) and take the circular walk along the banks of the creek to the entrance from the River Deben, turn right along the seawall, then at the gate take the path straight uphill back to the car park.