Every summer, the willow arbour tries to reclaim the garden like something out of Day of the Triffids. You turn your back for five minutes and it stops being a charming leafy tunnel and starts auditioning as jungle training for the SAS. Fortunately, it has one weakness. It needs pruning. And once you realise that pruning means an effectively inexhaustible supply of long, straight poles, it stops being a problem and starts being a raw material.
So this year, instead of just hacking it back and dragging the branches off to the bonfire like usual, I looked at a couple of the longer, straighter stems and thought, “You know what, you’re not firewood. You’re gear.”
A bit of trimming, peeling and tidying up the knobbly bits, and suddenly I had the beginnings of two rather elegant walking poles. No carbon fibre, no “aerospace grade” nonsense, no brand, no logo, no influencer discount code. Just willow that had been shading part of the garden a few weeks earlier and will obligingly grow back again next year, ready to be turned into the next batch.
Naturally, I could have gone online and ordered some over-engineered trekking poles made of unobtainium, with shock absorbers, built-in selfie mounts and probably a subscription service. But there is something deeply satisfying about walking with a stick that has never seen a factory. It was alive in my garden, it tried to invade the washing line, and now it is being taken on walks as penance. That feels about right.
Finishing them was half the fun. A bit of judicious scorching with the blowtorch to bring out the grain and add a touch of “weathered Highland guide” to what was, in truth, a pair of ex-hedge prunings. A rub down, a touch of oil, and they started to look suspiciously like I had bought them at some artisan craft fair at three times the price.
Then we come to the rubber tips.
Yes, they do look slightly “zimmer frame on tour”. I am fully aware that, at first glance, it appears I have simply stolen the feet off a mobility aid and rammed them onto the end of a couple of sticks. There are probably style guides somewhere declaring this a tragic admission of advancing age.
But here is the unfashionable truth: they work.
On tarmac, wet rock or polished stone, those rubber ferrules grip like a limpet with anxiety issues. They stop the sharp ends from chipping paving slabs, they do not skitter on manhole covers, and they spare the ears from that delightful “clack-clack-clack” of bare poles on hard ground. They also mean I am vastly less likely to plant the tip between kerbstones and perform an unscheduled flying lesson. At my age, anything that reduces the probability of meeting the NHS at ground level is to be cherished.
There is, of course, a whole industry devoted to making us feel that unless our outdoor kit looks like it has been tested on K2 by a man called Bjorn, it is not fit for a stroll up the local hill. Matching poles, matching jacket, matching hydration system, and an app to tell you how heroic you are for walking where actual people live. Consumerism dressed up as “adventure”.
Meanwhile, I have two walking poles that cost nothing, bar a bit of time, a small amount of gas in the blowtorch and the princely outlay on two rubber ferrules. The willow came free with the property and insists on regenerating every year anyway, which means I now have a sustainable, annually renewable walking-stick factory disguised as an arbour. Even the wrist loops are made from rope that was lying around in the shed, left over from some forgotten maritime bodge.
Once you start walking with something you made yourself, you look after it. You notice how the oil is wearing in, where the grain is rising, which knocks and scrapes tell the story of which walk. You cannot say that about a mass-produced telescopic pole whose main achievement is being available in four different shades of neon.
So yes, the tips look a bit zimmer frame. Good. Let them. If the choice is between image and not falling over, I will take “pensioner chic” every time. Besides, there is a certain mischievous pleasure in striding along with what appears to be mobility hardware, only to overtake a much younger, fully branded walker who is busy fiddling with the adjustment collar on his carbon poles.
Out of one over-enthusiastic willow arbour, I now have shade in summer and two very serviceable walking companions for the rest of the year, with the next generation already sprouting. No landfill, no marketing, no faff. Just wood, a bit of fire, some oil, and two rubber feet that refuse to slip.
Call them primitive if you like. I call them progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment