A stroll through Glasgow with Lands’ End
This post is sponsored by Lands’ End, who provided my Lands End puffer coat for the purpose of this review. Thanks for supporting the brands that keep this site running!
Back in the summer, Terry and I got into the habit of going for long walks on evenings when Max was with his grandparents.
When I say “long walks”, I mean “four-hour walks, what were we thinking?” One time, we did 30,000 steps in the space of a few hours. (I tell a lie: we did about 29,200 steps on the walk itself, then trudged round our street a couple of times, before coming back home, where I did circuits of the kitchen, livingroom and hall until I finally hit that glorious round number. Please tell me I’m not the only one who does stuff like this?)
Anyway, these walks, tough though they sometimes were, quickly became the highlight of my week. Where we live isn’t very picturesque, unfortunately, but we are right next to a moor that you can walk for miles on while pretending to be Cathy in Wuthering Heights, so we thoroughly explored that, then ventured out into some of the nearby towns and villages, to add a few extra miles to our routes. (Then, of course, we’d come home and drink wine, because we may have been on a health kick, but you better believe we’d earned that wine…)
It was great.
Which meant that, of course, it couldn’t last. Sure enough, as the nights started drawing in, we realised we were having to leave the house earlier and earlier or we’d be out on the moors in the dark, which is when every single horror movie we’d ever seen would suddenly come back to haunt us. One day, we ended up walking in horizontal rain that felt like it was trying to knock us over. It took a full hour for me to regain the feeling in my ears, even though I’d been wearing a hat AND a jacket with a hood. My entire face hurt. Then came the mud.
Oh GOD, THE MUD.
“We can still go walking,” said Terry optimistically. “We just need the right clothes for it.”
He ordered me a pair of hideous walking boots, and suggested I start looking into “walking jackets.”
“How about trainers and a Lands End puffer?” I suggested. “And walking in a city, rather than on a freaking MOOR?”
So we went to Glasgow.
We don’t go to Glasgow EVERY time we want to go for a walk, obviously. (I mean, we 100% WOULD do that if it was close enough, but alas not…) But there’s no denying that now that Autumn’s well and truly here, walking on concrete’s a whole lot nicer than trudging through mud: and the fact that you can stop for a coffee en route doesn’t hurt either:
As you can see, it may be the city, but gone are the days when I’d wear heels and a pencil skirt for pretty much anything, so I’ve dressed here for both the walk and the weather in my trusty trainers, and this gorgeous Lands’ End puffer, in my favourite shade of green. (I’ve just this second realised they also have tons of other clothes in this shade, which makes me want to buy them all, like a little, green-clad fashion elf…) If green isn’t your thing, though, worry not — there are no less than EIGHT different shades to choose from AND it also comes in Regular, Petite and Plus sizes. I’m wearing the “Petite” version here, and I can’t even tell you how good it feels to finally own a coat whose sleeves aren’t twice as long as my arms. I mean, seriously. (You can see all of their coats here…)
As for Terry, he went for the “Squall” hooded jacket, the name of which makes me think he probably IS still intending to go out onto the moors at some point after all. Here he is making his fashion blogger debut, and only looking very slightly self-conscious about it:
This walk wasn’t quite as long as the ones we’ve been doing at home, but it’s been getting harder and harder to motivate ourselves to get out of the house now the weather’s well and truly turned (Especially for me: in an ideal world, I’d just fully hibernate from September to about May…), so I guess we need to find our motivation where we can. And if that means coffee, cake, and, OK, maybe just a VERY quick look at the shops we pass on the way, then so be it…
Here’s a little Reel I made in Glasgow:
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