> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk“Once you slow down you see it all”Interview recorded 24/01/24On the latest episode of Mountain Air, Dan catches up with Patrick Davies, a writer, long-distance walker and charity fundraiser whose latest book “Where Skylarks Sing” recounts a 2250km walk across the UK mainland in the summer of 2021. “Skylarks”, which touches on Patrick’s experiences caring for his father as he succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease, issues of identity and belonging, and the healing power of walking, explores the “hope of finding escape and answers”.As you might expect, Patrick’s epic walks aren’t limited to 73 days spent walking across Britain, and over the last three years he’s not only traversed 1280km across the Pyrenees (carrying on afterwards to reach Barcelona on foot), but also made a 1120km trek from Strasbourg to the Mediterranean coastline too. What’s perhaps less expected, and makes these achievements all the more unusual, is that Patrick hadn’t done any serious walking until 2021.Prior to the pandemic, you see, the focus of Patrick’s life was as a civil servant in the foreign office - through which he served from 2013-2018 as the UK’s Deputy Ambassador to the United States of America. His experiences working with the Obama and later Trump administrations led him to write his first book, “The Great American Delusion”. A speaker and commentator on American politics, there can be few people who have had more of a front-row seat over a uniquely turbulent decade for the world’s largest democracy.Hear about all of this and why, when it comes to long-distance walks of your own, you should “do it, without question” in Mountain Air Series 3, Episode 6. > patrickjdavies.com> linktr.ee/patrickjdavies> alzheimersresearchuk.org