United Kingdom is a country where you can travel by bike, motorcycle, car, van, bus, train and, yes, my dear readers, by boat. The network of canals on the British Isle is breathtaking. And strolling along the canal, wonderfully unmissable. And describable, as you will see below.

We can go back to the first place I walk beside it, back in the summer of 2012, in a city called Lancaster, located in the North West of England. It was my first city of residence in this rainy country. And as a sign that it was raining, water was also filling its canals.

Years went by, and I moved to Yorkshire, where I could enjoy its beautiful landscapes in the Yorkshire-Dales National Park. There, too, there were canals, and their famous boats travelled through its landscapes.

We went through Leicester, Stafford, back to Spain, back to England to live in Shrewsbury, but it was with my arrival in Warwickshire when my hobby of walking by the canal was born. And here it stayed, for life.

At first I did not take it very much into account, but it was with the COVID-19 Pandemia when, as the hours of going out in the street were limited, and even more to travel to different parts of the British geography, when I discovered how nice it is to walk along the canal.

And that the first time I crossed its sideways was running, back in July 2020. And I even thought about doing it by bike. But in the end I got into the habit of walking up and down. Especially since I moved to a new place, even closer to the canal.

I remember, with the worst of the Pandemia over, finishing work early to go for a walk towards Hatton, a small town near Warwick, stopping at a pub to get my strength back after an hour’s walk, and returning home by the same place (obviously, by road, apart from being more tedious, it would have taken longer).

My holidays at the month of March 2021 were dedicated solely and exclusively to walking along the canal. There were several days of endless walks, a couple of them, up to more than 30km (37km, if I remember correctly, after about 32km two days before).

On another occasion, I started streaming on Twitch. There were 5-6 short videos of a few minutes each. On the last one, someone watched me live. But I never found out who it was 😂. The most viewed video was 14 views, something that, for someone totally alien to the trade, was a success. That it didn’t do any good? Well, I’m talking about it right now. So this is what it’s working for. And after the Personal Branding Course I am doing, who knows if in the end I will be able to give it more play than a simple anecdote in this blog…🫠

Fundamentally, I walked the paths on my own, but occasionally I was accompanied by friends and family. Overall it was a successful walk along the canal, but there would also be the occasional complaint, either because of the terrain or the duration. Let’s say that it was not a full-fledged complaint, but disapproval that, if I had known, neither I would have offered them such a walk nor they would have accepted the challenge. Since then I always ask before assuming that this pleasure can fill everyone with equal joy.

I am now newly settled in Stratford-upon-Avon, where William Shakespeare was born and lived in. I haven’t read all of his work to be sure if he talks about this magnificent delicacy, but I’m sure he was inspired for more than one of his plays while walking by it, just as one afternoon I would come up with what to write about in my next post in this blog…