Daily exercise is recommended for a long and healthy life. Similarly, you should always practice your instrument of choice on a daily basis to learn it.

Today, I combined the two, taking a walk up a hill with a ukulele. My target, as you’ll learn from the video above, was Roseberry Topping. This is a hill in North Yorkshire, with a rocky outcrop making it appear as a small mountain. It measures 1,049 feet (320 meters) and has several routes to the top.

Typically, I took the toughest. Having recently had coronavirus, I thought some exercise might be good, and I needed a nice backdrop for my latest tech video for MakeUseOf.com, of a smart ukulele. However, I got off to a bad start, failing to pace myself and requiring my inhaler before the real climb even started.

Roseberry Topping

You can see Roseberry Topping from many locations around Teesside and North Yorkshire. It’s visible from the A19 as you head south to go home, and indeed as you drive north, and is a great sight to behold, a subconscious indication that you’re nearly there after a long journey.

A short Twitter thread provides further commentary:

In all honesty, no matter how hard it was, reaching the peak, and catching the view, was wonderful. The top of Roseberry Topping is busy on a weekend. It was also busy this morning (a Tuesday). I was expecting fit but elderly dog walkers, but encountered a lot of women on a definite health kick, too.

It wasn’t perfect, though; I couldn’t get the ukulele to pair with my phone, and I sat on my M&S mint crumbles, leaving them, well, crumbled. But I did get some excellent footage.

Travelling back down was arguably tougher. I had a brief fancy to get lunch at The King’s Head, situated at the foot of the hill. That is, until I discovered the sandwiches were a straight tenner and I could make one that I would definitely like, for my own dietary requirements, at home for free.

Teasing this idea out of my head took my mind off my ever-weakening legs. By now, 10 hours or so later, I feel recovered, but my legs really felt completely lacking in any form of stamina on the way back down. Further exertion excercise is clearly required!

Still, I made it, and arrived home at the same time as Ceri, fresh from a meeting.

(Aerial image by Mr R Jordan – CC BY-SA 3.0.)