Rambling is one of those words which have a number of meanings. When we were young it mostly meant a weekend activity with a group of friends going for a walk in the countryside. A group of us from the local branch of the Labour Party League of Youth in Lewisham used to go out to Farnborough, Kent to the end of the number 47 bus route and follow one of the walks listed in a small book sold by the Evening news.
Most of the walks started off by going through the churchyard but then diverged to different walks, some circular returning to Farnborough, others finished elsewhere like Down or Halstead, mostly at a pub. These were never particularly active outings like keen ramblers seem to do these days with there alpine walking sticks and backpacks. Ours were more a country stroll with frequent stops just to loll about in the grass and talk. We used to do a lot of talking in those days, rather more than groups of similarly aged young people in the twenty-first century.
At the end of the day it was usually wend our way home by the next available bus, and if we had been in the pub there was usually some singing including the Red Flag and the the Internationale, much to the consternation of homegoing church goers. Getting a bus could be hit and miss on a Sunday evening so the alternative was a walk to the nearest country railway station and the train to one of stations near home depending on which line we were on. The train journey was frequently free as country stations in those days were rarely manned on a Sunday so there was no one to buy a ticket from and at the other end there was no ticket collector either. It didn't seem illegal when there was no one to collect the fares.
That kind of rambling is for the relatively young and fit. As you get older there is a greater inclination to do the other kind were your mind rambles around in a haphazard way, trying to remember a name that escapes or a memory which is no longer as clear as it used to be. C'est la vie.
