In reply to Michelle1981:
Michelle
Having joined a club, the rest should be as easy as putting one foot in front of another....
Don't worry too much about gear and certainly don't start to think that hillwalking - at the beginning, at least - is anything other than walking, something you've been doing most of your life. It's easy to look at it as a completely new thing, separate to your experiences and immensely daunting. There's the kit to worry about, and then all the emergency stuff, the technical doohickeys (I'm still not sure where magnetic north is in relation to my map), stresses about fitness and stoicism, horror stories about the wrong shoes, jacket, bivy bag. It's just walking, but in nicer places with fewer bus stop shelters.
It's all good. Make sure you've got decent waterproofs (a sub-100 quid jacket is perfectly fine - I don't think I've ever even spent fifty, to be fair) and for Malham, just wear something on your feet which is comfortable. They may leak like a sieve, but for your first 'hill' walk, the last thing you want to experience is pain because somebody panicked you into buying some rigid foot-clamping monstrosities, usually on the basis that if it's good enough for K2.......
Ena's point is sound: wait for some bad weather and then go for a walk, preferably with a rucksack on, so that you can understand how little difference breathable fabrics make when your back is covered over.
And definitely put a full flask in there, upside down. If it doesn't leak, hang on to it.
Learn as you go, understand that free advice is often worth even less and only buy ridiculously expensive kit because you want to, not because somebody convinced you that you needed it.
I'm not sure you need any advice, really. Just go and try it out.
