More Than Words

📘 More Than Words – Epilogue: The Bit After The End 📘 A retired man, a spreadsheet, an Apple Watch with separation anxiety, and 2,876km of Britain. One year later, the project is complete — Skaw to St Agnes, Shetland to Scilly, B‑roads to fjords, drainage ditches to dynasties. And because I’ve never once resisted unnecessary ceremony, the finale comes with numbers, awards, and a spreadsheet that...

🏁 More Than Words – Stage 52: The End of the Affair 🏁 A whole year. Fifty‑two stages. 2,876km. From Shetland’s sideways wind to Cornwall’s granite theatre — and somehow the final kilometres were completed on a Norwegian mountaintop while my virtual self was bouncing across the Atlantic on a Royal Mail ferry. Geography, at this point, simply gave up and let the vibes drive. Featuring: 🧊 Lysefjor...

🌊 More Than Words – Stage 51: Rock, Paper, Scillies 🌊 Penultimate episode: chaotic weather, 900‑ft moor climbs, Victorian gun‑mishaps, golf swing existentialism, and a 12‑pub farewell tour that dissolved my coherence somewhere around pub ten. Then Cornwall goes full granite‑theatre: witches, smugglers, cliff‑edge legends, and the Atlantic throwing mood swings at the map. Featuring: 🌦️ Randomised...

⛳ More Than Words – Episode 50: Fifty Shades of Clay ⛳ A milestone stage, celebrated in the only appropriate way: four rounds of golf, a shoulder that sounds like bubble‑wrap, hailstones in June, and a Strava art attempt that produced “Britain, but slightly melted.” Episode 50 didn’t so much arrive as throw weather, admin chaos, and cartography at me. Featuring: ⛳ Seniors League — Ryder Cup ene...

⛰️ More Than Words – Episode 49: Moor Than Meets The Eye ⛰️ From supplement‑induced self‑respect to Cornwall emptying its entire historical junk drawer onto the route, this episode escalates like a county that’s lost the run of itself. Smugglers, Templars, panthers, hermits, lepers, ghost birds, diva stone — Cornwall is in full performance mode. Featuring: 💊 Supplement shame — three bottles, a pi...

🎸More Than Words – Stage 48: Devon Knows 🎸 From solo Pixies gigs (middle‑aged edition) to golf rounds improved by sambuca, then straight into Devon — where castles brood, ghosts commute, and folklore behaves like it’s on a zero‑hours contract. Featuring: 🎧 Pixies at 40 — audience: mortgages, back pain; Debaser still unhinged 🍾 Sambuca golf — marginal gains via Italian firewater  ⛪ Cheriton Bi...

🏖️ More Than Words – Episode 47: Devon Sent 🏖️ From Spanish siestas so deep they require a full reboot of the operating system to Devon, a county so pleased with itself it named a geological period after its own vibe. This episode is sunshine, pork, ancient geology, Tudor chaos, Canadian chapels in fields, and a dog digging up Victorian murder evidence like it’s auditioning for Time Team: Pets Edi...

🛤️ More Than Words – Stage 46: Life in the Fosse Lane 🛤️ From the world’s first powered aircraft to an alpaca facilitating a marriage proposal, via a church that forgot where the village was — because Somerset’s tourism strategy is apparently “Roman roads, Victorian overachievement, and a very confused Church of England.” Featuring:  🫘 Habas fritas: fried broad beans, one cold beer, and the neare...

🏌️ More Than Words – Episode 45: Grave New World 🏌️ From oxygen labs to Roman villas to golf balls committing crimes against architecture — episode 45 is basically British history, Spanish weather, and Enlightenment science all asking to speak to the manager. Featuring: ⛳ Boys’ Trip Chaos: one golf shot, two villas, and physics filing a complaint 🏛️ Roman Ruins (Par‑5 Edition): Seve meets Time Te...

More Than Words – 🍬Stage 44: Good Wilt Hunting 🍬 From Yorkshire caves discovered by miners who were trying to find lead, to Wiltshire villages collecting eccentricity like Nectar points, episode 44 delivers subterranean drama, prehistoric glow‑ups, dyed pigeons, medieval barns the size of cathedrals, and a man that once invited a horse to tea. Featuring: • 🕳️ Stump Cross Caverns: Victorian “heal...

🏃‍♂️ More Than Words – Stage 43: At Longworth Last 🏃‍♂️ Fifty‑five and a half kilometres in five days — a pace that suggests either admirable discipline or a man who has finally run out of excuses to avoid exercise. The spreadsheet is thrilled. The spreadsheet is, frankly, the only one who is. Featuring: • 🚐 Flue Vaccinations — Britain’s chimneys finally get the healthcare they deserve • 🏰 Sha...

🥾 More Than Words – Episode 42: Quick Silver 🥾 Episode 42 is what happens when you mix Spanish sun‑wandering with Northamptonshire’s ability to look normal while quietly hoarding enough history to flatten a GCSE syllabus. One minute you’re dodging tractors on citrus caminos; the next you’re knee‑deep in boot‑maker riots, Saxon skyscrapers, and a county that behaves like Britain’s polite fever dr...

🗺️ More Than Words – Stage 41: Post Script 🗺️ From Storm Dave to Spain’s early‑season sun, and from Chatteris’ prehistoric coastline to Holme Fen’s subterranean geography lesson, Stage 41 delivered weather, wetlands, and one man’s ongoing feud with Ryanair’s seat pitch. Featuring: • 🌪️ Storm Dave: a storm named after the bloke who cleans your gutters • 🏖️ Spain in April: promenades, pine dunes, an...

🌾 More Than Words – Stage 40: There Will Be Mud 🌾 From a Norfolk car park with a colourful reputation to a Cambridgeshire field that once housed nuclear missiles pointed at Moscow — via a man who survived a three-mile freefall and got away with a sprained leg. The Fens contain multitudes. Featuring:  🔍 Two Mile Bottom: brutally literal name, surprisingly lively car park 🌲 Thetford Forest: what...

🗺️ More Than Words – Episode 39: The Route of the Matter 🗺️ From a papal letter addressed to a hamlet to a planning dispute about horse cremation — because south Norfolk does not do things by halves. Featuring: 🚫 Ellingham: the only village on the route that didn’t even get a breakup text 📜 Hedenham: a papal bull (no cows involved) 👿 Woodton: a church window featuring the devil, because why not...

🧭 More Than Words – Episode 38: The Sandbank Redemption 🧭 From dodging airport staff in Sharm who looked personally offended by the existence of tourists, to standing at the literal edge of Britain where the view is mostly industrial piping and a very tall turbine. Majestic. Featuring: 🏌️ A 2,000km milestone passed quietly while attention was elsewhere 🕌 Al-Mustafa Mosque: genuinely breathtakin...

🏞️ More Than Words – Stage 37: A Broad Church 🏞️ From Norfolk’s flatlands to its theological, agricultural, and occasionally explosive history, this stage is basically a guided tour of a county that wakes up every morning and chooses eccentricity. Featuring: 🧀 The Full Fondue — the only triathlon you’ll ever need  🌴 Sharm el‑Sheikh backroads — walking laps like a tourist trapped in a screensaver...

🐳 More Than Words – Stage 36: Coast of Living Crisis 🐳 From whale-powered bone mills to a medieval pedlar who dreamed his way to a pot of gold, because Norfolk’s tourism strategy is apparently “flat horizons, Viking place names, and a surprising amount of whale fat.” Featuring: 🌊 Sutton Bridge: three attempts at crossing the same river 🦅 A man who shot wildfowl for sport, then had a change of...

🌾 More Than Words – Episode 35: Only Fens 🌾 From Pennine reservoir punishment to Fenland flatness so extreme it questions the Earth’s curvature, Episode 35 is what happens when geography gives up halfway through. Featuring: 🐕 Dexter: convinced all dogs are beatable (situationally incorrect) 💈 Barber trips: now classified as endurance sport 🥧 Tebay Services: farm shop or organised financial am...

🌗 More Than Words – Episode 34: Angels and Demons 🌗 From haunted halls to cold medieval service stations, episode 34 is what happens when English history quietly loses the plot. Featuring: 🏚️ Clifton Hall: ghosts, stains, and a man who repossessed himself ⚰️ Wilford gazebo: scenic views, optional corpses 🍖 Captain Deane: butcher → cannibal → Russian navy → retiree 📬 Gamston: cc’d into a 12th-c...

🦇 More Than Words – Stage 33: The Goat and The Bat 🐐 From antique museums that open less often than Halley’s Comet to a village that inspired Batman by pretending to be mad — welcome to the Midlands, where the history is deep, the yew trees are older than most religions, and Derby casually invented the factory and the jet engine like it was nothing. Featuring: 🕰️ Beamhurst Museum: open less days...

🛶 More Than Words – Episode 32: Staff and Nonsense 🛶 From Cheshire hamlets with population‑of‑a‑pub‑quiz energy to canals that hold 200‑year grudges, Episode 32 is where the walk leaves leafy respectability behind and dives head‑first into industrial heritage, cosmic eavesdropping, escaped Tudor bears, and Stoke‑on‑Trent’s six‑town identity crisis. It’s England at its most gloriously peculiar. F...

🌿 More Than Words – Episode 31: The Long And Winding Road 🌿 From Alpine sporting delusions to quiet Cheshire villages casually hiding Vikings, ghosts, and one extremely questionable medieval wedding — Stage 31 confirms that England’s countryside has been weird for a very long time. Featuring: 🎿 Skiing: the traditional British activity of falling over abroad 🥌 Curling: sweeping ice while preten...

🌊 More Than Words – Episode 30: Keepin’ It Rhyl 🌊 From Victorian seaside optimism to modern coastal existentialism, Episode 30 drifts down the North Wales coast before sidling into England like the ferry timetable absolutely meant to do that. Featuring: 🐐 Llandudno goats: lockdown hedge-eating anarchists with global fame 🚋 Great Orme Tramway: Victorian engineering that refuses to die 🐅 Welsh...

🌊 More Than Words – Episode 29: In Deep Water 🌊 From Proclaimers promises to full maritime delusion, Episode 29 hits 1,000 miles — then spends an entire week floating about pretending squinting at coastlines counts as visiting them. Featuring: 🎶 1,000 mile Proclaimer Promise: completed it mate 🚢 Irish Sea: geography as optimism 🚂 Sodor: fictional island, talking trains, Beatle narrator ⛏️ Mil...