I recently spent a weekend on the Norfolk Coast enjoying the beach, the sunshine and copious amounts of ice cream. As usual I spent much of my days (when I was not eating ice cream) on long walks. Norfolk has some great long distance walking paths, with the Norfolk Coast Path a firm favourite of mine, and I find myself returning to the prettiest sections again and again. This time I also explored some terrain more inland and racked up over fifty kilometres over the weekend.

To accompany me I brought a very appropriate book that had caught my eye in the library. Windswept: Why Women Walk by Annabel Abbs is part memoir (about Abbs own mixed feelings about walking) and part biography of several famous women who walked. The rota includes Simone de Beauviour, Gwen John, and Georgia O’Keeffe, and I was curious to find out more about their lives and the role walking played in it.