WHITESTONE BOOK CLUB
BOOK CLUB REVIEWS - April 2026
Thinking on my Feet by Kate Humble
The Small Joy of putting one foot in front of the other
Kate Humble is a writer, smallholder, campaigner, and has been a well known TV presenter of programmes featuring the natural world and countryside. The book is a journal written over a year divided into the four seasons - spring, summer, autumn and winter with detailed descriptions of the walks undertaken, sometimes alone, other times with her dog, Teg, “alone but not lonely”. Her aim is to promote the pleasures and benefits of appreciating the world at a slower pace.
Her walks are not just local in the Welsh border area but, when making documentaries, she writes summaries of walks in Kenya, India, Rwanda, Arctic Scandinavia, New York, France, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and running on the streets of London. Back home she even finds time to help a local farmer with lambing!
She has some misgivings about attempting the Wye Valley Walk, a summer expedition of 136 miles camping on the way, with dog Teg. After many miles walking, she is thinking she may have to give up because her feet are badly blistered but a friend helps and her husband arrives with some alternative boots . After forty miles of walking at Newbridge, she is offered a cabin for the night by the camp site owners. Luxury! She finally completes the walk with feelings of guilt after the help she had along the way.
This is when she introduces the therapeutic nature of walking and meets people where walking has helped them cope with difficulties experienced in their lives. A woman, who was diagnosed and cured of cancer, walked every footpath in Wales a distance of 3,700 miles to raise money for ovarian cancer charities. She walks and talks with a therapist in New York, and she adds the story of a man who is walking to overcome his problems with PTSD after army tours of duty in Afghanistan. A Christmas tradition is set after meeting a man in a wheelchair on the Gower Peninsular - his motto “keep moving” is a celebration of life.
The opinions of the Book Club were mixed . The walkers enjoyed it but most lost interest finding it repetitive and disjointed, needing more editing. There were too many descriptions of her feelings, which were considered haphazard and, at times, irritating. The group found the stories of the people she met were the most interesting part of the book, so, if the purpose of writing the book was to inspire us all to walk more, it may have failed.
Next book is Red Sky Over Dartmoor by Tony Rea.
Edith Nield
