In Chartres we did a major wash of clothes at a local laundrette, which took a little time and was an education in itself.
It was also the source of a poem, as a man stood around the outside the launderette begging. The whole manner of his begging and the familiarity of the person gradually nagged this poem out of me. It is based on the man but is about other people I have known – clearly, I know nothing of the actual man in question....
It is a first draught – clearly a work in progress and may end up nothing like its present form – sorry of it seems to ramble....
By the Launderette, he stood
Across from the old house
with its carved wooden statue
worn and ragged with six hundred years of wear,
I watch as below it he walks the width of the street
his casual jacket and scarf
failing to hide the desperation
raging through him;
his knee trembles
when he stops in one place for long
So he walks, and leans against a wall
he steps casually across the road
and stops a stranger for some change.
His almost debonair looks
are soon stripped away
by that pleading voice
needing that handout of loose cash
It’s only a few Euros, he says
That’s all I need, you know!
And the old lady who passes
remembers him when he sat in a pram
his mother a skinny young thing
not of an age to really know
as her son’s young face
eagerly accepted the attention of strangers.
She does not give him money
but gently pats his shoulder
as she has done
for most of his life.
If he could remember, or even notice
he would call her Aunt Hettie
though she is no one’s aunt
and anyway, she is resigned to his vagueness
and unseeing looks.
It’s Saturday morning
and the market is buzzing;
people are walking up the hill
with empty baskets and full purses
but little of this cash goes to him
as he hides his trembles
and glances into the launderette
where I sit watching him.
His blank stare shows me
he has my measure – I will not give him cash
but he does not see me as a friend,
and when I walk out
he is not looking
he does not hear me
does not recognise me
or remember who I am
that we walked to school together
twenty years or so ago.
It’s just the drumming in the veins
and the pounding in his brow
that keeps him going, now.
Nothing else can get in the way
and, until that thing is sorted
that hunger is reduced,
we are just binary to him
A yes, or a no.
I shake his limp hand
as he looses interest
and crosses to someone
who really is a stranger.
Monday, 26 April 2010
A walk on the wild side
I didn’t get the chance to post my last blog – various things got in the way, then I tried to do it in the morning before setting off and ended up doing other things instead.... that was Sunday morning. We had re-thought our route because of the problems with traffic on certain types of road and because of the lack of facilities in so many of the villages across Northern France (which we expected to be repeated in the rest of the places we walked through to Vezelay).
It was all a bit fraught but we thought we had it cracked and had built in some flexibility, too.
So, we set off from Chartre a little bit later than intended (9.30am) and headed down the D939 knowing from experience that roads of this level are pretty quiet on Sundays – no lorries and only light general traffic. We made good progress and stopped at Sours for coffee in a great Bar/Tabac which we recommend highly – it is one of a series of villages walked through and possibly stopped at by the 1946 pilgrims.
Expecting the other villages to be similar we happily treaded the Sunday road, but each place after Sours was empty of shops, bar/tabacs and any commercial life. A couple of the churches were open and we could see where the 1946 pilgrims may have stopped en route to and including their night stop at Ouarville but we had our food by the road side as there were not even seats/benches in some of the places we went through! The weather was good, the traffic very light and the going was fine but by the time we got to Ouarville we were ready to stop and there was no where to stay, no presbytere, or even a camp site.
We walked on to Gouillons where we had an address for the presbytere but the priest no longer lived there. We tried ‘phoning for a taxi to take us to Angerville where we were confident that there were hotels and none of them responded... they were all on answer machines, so we walked on, checking each new village as we entered it. At Baudreville, a well advertised hotel was now very much out of business, and there was nothing in Arnouville. The blackberry had packed in around Gouillons and we still kept walking....
Remember, our intended day had been from Chartres to Ouarville (28kms) with a fall back plan of an extra 5km to Gouillons if there was nothing in Ouarville – 33kms is really enough. We walked to Angerville, which was another 13 or so kms, so our day ended with over 46kms under our belt by the time we entered the town!
It was after 9 pm by the time we reached Angerville, the light was beginning to disappear from the sky as we approached and our hearts were lifted as we got closer and closer. It was clearly much larger than any of the places we had stopped at on the way and it was right next to a major intersection of the D2020, so that should also help. OK, so it was Sunday night in France but we have succeeded in smaller places than this.
Nothing was open apart from an empty donner kebab cafe and a pizza cafe/take away. The only hotel we could find in the centre of town was dark and locked shut. So we went to the pizza place and asked. The young woman who was standing outside confidently pointed us to the hotel we had already tried. She then shrugged her shoulders and said that was it, there were no more hotels. No, there was not a camp site either, she said then went in to ask her mother who was running the pizza place (we could hear her asking her mother if there was anything they could do and her mother saying no). The men hanging around the place all joined in to give advice. No there were no hotels, the nearest was in Etampes another 20km away, no we should not try to walk there in the dark, it would be too dangerous (we had worked that one out for ourselves....), no there were to taxis working on Sunday night and no, there were no places to put up a tent.
Then one of the men asked if we would camp in a forest and we said yes, of course. He described a complicated route to us and we set off with a couple of cans of fizzy drinks from the shop and the rough idea of where the forest might be.
After walking down several roads and being tempted by a quaint little passage way with trees and hedges dotted along it we eventually found what might pass as a forest in the town of Angerville. It was a course bit of land with trees behind the swimming pool/sports complex.
In the dark, we pitched the tent (for the first time) put all our precious items in the tent and stuffed the remaining ruck sacks in one of the bivvy bags for the night.
The land was close to the very busy road, next to a place where teenagers continued to make a heck of a scary noise (shouting, screaming, chanting and so on) until almost 1.30 in the morning.... oh and the TGV main line to the south west was about 30 feet away, too. It was a long night.
Today, we hoped for better things, got up by 6 and struck camp. We were in a crummy bar/tabac in Angerville centre by around half seven and set off at half past eight. Angerville’s saving grace (as with most places) was its Boulangerie – we bought a good baggette and for breakfast a couple of delicious pain au raisins!
Out on the D6 which turned into the D22 when we changed Departements, we walked until 3.30 when we arrived in Pithiviers where we decided we needed a proper rest so we are in the hotel there (Le Relais de la Poste) in a big room, large enough to hang the tent over the wardrobe to dry it off properly and hang all our washing and other things out, too.
We did another 27 km today. Well over 73 kms in two days is enough for anyone!!!
However, we are well, we were safe dry and OK in the tent, and we coped with it all without major incidents.... we have the stamina and determination to get through even difficult things like this and see the blessings that they can bring.
(Blessings included: we are now further on than we had expected and we had been worried about that; the taxi thing would have been very expensive and fruitless so it was good it didn’t happen – and we now know how to call French numbers using the mobile; we needed to try the tent and now know how easy to use it is, reliable and totally brill it is too; we know we can go on for much longer if we need to; we have been assured that even when it looks very bleak it seldom is anywhere near as bad as you think it is...etc etc)
It was all a bit fraught but we thought we had it cracked and had built in some flexibility, too.
So, we set off from Chartre a little bit later than intended (9.30am) and headed down the D939 knowing from experience that roads of this level are pretty quiet on Sundays – no lorries and only light general traffic. We made good progress and stopped at Sours for coffee in a great Bar/Tabac which we recommend highly – it is one of a series of villages walked through and possibly stopped at by the 1946 pilgrims.
Expecting the other villages to be similar we happily treaded the Sunday road, but each place after Sours was empty of shops, bar/tabacs and any commercial life. A couple of the churches were open and we could see where the 1946 pilgrims may have stopped en route to and including their night stop at Ouarville but we had our food by the road side as there were not even seats/benches in some of the places we went through! The weather was good, the traffic very light and the going was fine but by the time we got to Ouarville we were ready to stop and there was no where to stay, no presbytere, or even a camp site.
We walked on to Gouillons where we had an address for the presbytere but the priest no longer lived there. We tried ‘phoning for a taxi to take us to Angerville where we were confident that there were hotels and none of them responded... they were all on answer machines, so we walked on, checking each new village as we entered it. At Baudreville, a well advertised hotel was now very much out of business, and there was nothing in Arnouville. The blackberry had packed in around Gouillons and we still kept walking....
Remember, our intended day had been from Chartres to Ouarville (28kms) with a fall back plan of an extra 5km to Gouillons if there was nothing in Ouarville – 33kms is really enough. We walked to Angerville, which was another 13 or so kms, so our day ended with over 46kms under our belt by the time we entered the town!
It was after 9 pm by the time we reached Angerville, the light was beginning to disappear from the sky as we approached and our hearts were lifted as we got closer and closer. It was clearly much larger than any of the places we had stopped at on the way and it was right next to a major intersection of the D2020, so that should also help. OK, so it was Sunday night in France but we have succeeded in smaller places than this.
Nothing was open apart from an empty donner kebab cafe and a pizza cafe/take away. The only hotel we could find in the centre of town was dark and locked shut. So we went to the pizza place and asked. The young woman who was standing outside confidently pointed us to the hotel we had already tried. She then shrugged her shoulders and said that was it, there were no more hotels. No, there was not a camp site either, she said then went in to ask her mother who was running the pizza place (we could hear her asking her mother if there was anything they could do and her mother saying no). The men hanging around the place all joined in to give advice. No there were no hotels, the nearest was in Etampes another 20km away, no we should not try to walk there in the dark, it would be too dangerous (we had worked that one out for ourselves....), no there were to taxis working on Sunday night and no, there were no places to put up a tent.
Then one of the men asked if we would camp in a forest and we said yes, of course. He described a complicated route to us and we set off with a couple of cans of fizzy drinks from the shop and the rough idea of where the forest might be.
After walking down several roads and being tempted by a quaint little passage way with trees and hedges dotted along it we eventually found what might pass as a forest in the town of Angerville. It was a course bit of land with trees behind the swimming pool/sports complex.
In the dark, we pitched the tent (for the first time) put all our precious items in the tent and stuffed the remaining ruck sacks in one of the bivvy bags for the night.
The land was close to the very busy road, next to a place where teenagers continued to make a heck of a scary noise (shouting, screaming, chanting and so on) until almost 1.30 in the morning.... oh and the TGV main line to the south west was about 30 feet away, too. It was a long night.
Today, we hoped for better things, got up by 6 and struck camp. We were in a crummy bar/tabac in Angerville centre by around half seven and set off at half past eight. Angerville’s saving grace (as with most places) was its Boulangerie – we bought a good baggette and for breakfast a couple of delicious pain au raisins!
Out on the D6 which turned into the D22 when we changed Departements, we walked until 3.30 when we arrived in Pithiviers where we decided we needed a proper rest so we are in the hotel there (Le Relais de la Poste) in a big room, large enough to hang the tent over the wardrobe to dry it off properly and hang all our washing and other things out, too.
We did another 27 km today. Well over 73 kms in two days is enough for anyone!!!
However, we are well, we were safe dry and OK in the tent, and we coped with it all without major incidents.... we have the stamina and determination to get through even difficult things like this and see the blessings that they can bring.
(Blessings included: we are now further on than we had expected and we had been worried about that; the taxi thing would have been very expensive and fruitless so it was good it didn’t happen – and we now know how to call French numbers using the mobile; we needed to try the tent and now know how easy to use it is, reliable and totally brill it is too; we know we can go on for much longer if we need to; we have been assured that even when it looks very bleak it seldom is anywhere near as bad as you think it is...etc etc)
Monday, 19 April 2010
Tick tock, let’s all walk....
We thought we heard a cuckoo this morning but when we stopped and waited for the traffic to subside we could not hear anything. That’s the way with things as you walk. You pass by things, catch glimpses and so on, but generally speaking, you have to keep on walking.
The limitations of our maps was apparent before we started from Honfleur (well, before we left the UK really, but we could not see what we could do. French maps are even more expensive than UK ones and cover less area per map, so we were going to have to spend quite a lot on them.... so we checked out the routes on Google maps, printed off detailed routes in text and had a cut up road map as our basic guide. We also go a local area map from the Tourist information Office as additional help to navigate out of Honfgleur.
All were pretty useless. We walked on pretty major roads to begin with and benefitted from the Sunday lack of traffic. We also came off the roads when possible and took some respite in small towns. But Monday’s traffic was a major jump in scale so we navigated off the main road and blagged our way across the network of minor roads guestimating where to take the next turning and generally doing a pretty good job of it.
In Bernay, we sought out a shop with maps and bought a couple of maps suitable for cyclists – they cover bigger areas than the walkers’ maps and are just so much better than anything we have seen while not being OS level detail. We will be changing the route for tomorrow as the night stop we were planning looks too quiet and empty to be worth risking given our small but growing knowledge of what is suitable and what is not. So, Conches en Ouche – here we come! Despite being a few miles further along the way and, if we use the minor roads we plan to use, even more miles away again... It might be a 25 mile or so day tomorrow, so it’s an early night and an early start.
Today, as we reflected on the beauty of the places we pass through and remarked on the very attractive timbered housing so prevalent in the area (and, where the buildings don’t have thatch, how elaborate the slate tiling is) we also noted how the buildings seem to be in quite randomly placed positions within quite large plots making up the farm yard. It is as if the original pattern of these places has become obscured over time, leaving them informally dotted across the area close to the main farmhouse. It emphasised the way that the landscapes we pass through tend to obscure their history behind a veneer of modern farming images or quaint dilapidated/restored houses/farms/villages/etc... The quaintness hiding the squalor of the homes families had to live in even in the very recent past, the neatness hiding the chaos of harsh farm working practices, the rolling landscapes obscuring the industrial uses that originally scarred and blighted them.
Sorry if this seems a bit negative in terms of images, but they are there to illustrate a point. I could also say the wide, open fields of corn and rape that stretch for miles across the landscape hide the many centuries of human scale farming which employed and fed many hundreds of local workers and their families who now have to live in crowded cities chasing the Euro and a newer, better life.
But, along with these images and thoughts we also considered the fact that when we first started walking the fields had been only recently ploughed and prepared, some had been sewn and were beginning to show rows of seedlings which gave the fields a thin haze of green when looked at from a shallow angle as you walked along looking at the rising fields from a sunken path. The hedgerows were still dark apart from the black thorn blossoms and the late spring flowers.
By the time we were nearing London, the rape was beginning to show the first signs of yellow flowers rising above the thick green foliage hugging the heavy clay soils. Other plants were no longer seedlings and were colouring the patchwork of fields with different shades of green. Trees were beginning to show early leaves adding another tinge of green to the landscape.
In the byways of Surrey and Sussex we saw whole hillsides covered in the early yellows of rape as the flowers began to form a layer above the blanket of green. Different trees were starting to add to the range of greens and more blossoms were coming into their own with wild splashes of white, cream and yellow set off occasionally by pale pinks and the remnants of blankets of wild spring flowers. The heathlands had the gorse, too, with their cocoanut scent and spikes and the horse chestnuts had their leaves almost out, each one looking like green clenched fists ready and waiting to punch the cold spring out of the way.
But, now that we are in France and continue moving steadily southwards, everything is becoming more advanced in growth, with fewer trees without leaves and more plants beginning to take on their spring and early summer clothes. Each day we get further south and further along the line of natural growth.
And, by the time we begin to reach the final stages of our journey, there will be fields empty of their produce and farmers working hard to harvest crops before the summer storms ruin them. Our path will have taken us from one end of the cycle to the other.
Tick tock, tick tock, nature’s clock is ticking along and we are all just pilgrims plodding along, keeping in time......
The limitations of our maps was apparent before we started from Honfleur (well, before we left the UK really, but we could not see what we could do. French maps are even more expensive than UK ones and cover less area per map, so we were going to have to spend quite a lot on them.... so we checked out the routes on Google maps, printed off detailed routes in text and had a cut up road map as our basic guide. We also go a local area map from the Tourist information Office as additional help to navigate out of Honfgleur.
All were pretty useless. We walked on pretty major roads to begin with and benefitted from the Sunday lack of traffic. We also came off the roads when possible and took some respite in small towns. But Monday’s traffic was a major jump in scale so we navigated off the main road and blagged our way across the network of minor roads guestimating where to take the next turning and generally doing a pretty good job of it.
In Bernay, we sought out a shop with maps and bought a couple of maps suitable for cyclists – they cover bigger areas than the walkers’ maps and are just so much better than anything we have seen while not being OS level detail. We will be changing the route for tomorrow as the night stop we were planning looks too quiet and empty to be worth risking given our small but growing knowledge of what is suitable and what is not. So, Conches en Ouche – here we come! Despite being a few miles further along the way and, if we use the minor roads we plan to use, even more miles away again... It might be a 25 mile or so day tomorrow, so it’s an early night and an early start.
Today, as we reflected on the beauty of the places we pass through and remarked on the very attractive timbered housing so prevalent in the area (and, where the buildings don’t have thatch, how elaborate the slate tiling is) we also noted how the buildings seem to be in quite randomly placed positions within quite large plots making up the farm yard. It is as if the original pattern of these places has become obscured over time, leaving them informally dotted across the area close to the main farmhouse. It emphasised the way that the landscapes we pass through tend to obscure their history behind a veneer of modern farming images or quaint dilapidated/restored houses/farms/villages/etc... The quaintness hiding the squalor of the homes families had to live in even in the very recent past, the neatness hiding the chaos of harsh farm working practices, the rolling landscapes obscuring the industrial uses that originally scarred and blighted them.
Sorry if this seems a bit negative in terms of images, but they are there to illustrate a point. I could also say the wide, open fields of corn and rape that stretch for miles across the landscape hide the many centuries of human scale farming which employed and fed many hundreds of local workers and their families who now have to live in crowded cities chasing the Euro and a newer, better life.
But, along with these images and thoughts we also considered the fact that when we first started walking the fields had been only recently ploughed and prepared, some had been sewn and were beginning to show rows of seedlings which gave the fields a thin haze of green when looked at from a shallow angle as you walked along looking at the rising fields from a sunken path. The hedgerows were still dark apart from the black thorn blossoms and the late spring flowers.
By the time we were nearing London, the rape was beginning to show the first signs of yellow flowers rising above the thick green foliage hugging the heavy clay soils. Other plants were no longer seedlings and were colouring the patchwork of fields with different shades of green. Trees were beginning to show early leaves adding another tinge of green to the landscape.
In the byways of Surrey and Sussex we saw whole hillsides covered in the early yellows of rape as the flowers began to form a layer above the blanket of green. Different trees were starting to add to the range of greens and more blossoms were coming into their own with wild splashes of white, cream and yellow set off occasionally by pale pinks and the remnants of blankets of wild spring flowers. The heathlands had the gorse, too, with their cocoanut scent and spikes and the horse chestnuts had their leaves almost out, each one looking like green clenched fists ready and waiting to punch the cold spring out of the way.
But, now that we are in France and continue moving steadily southwards, everything is becoming more advanced in growth, with fewer trees without leaves and more plants beginning to take on their spring and early summer clothes. Each day we get further south and further along the line of natural growth.
And, by the time we begin to reach the final stages of our journey, there will be fields empty of their produce and farmers working hard to harvest crops before the summer storms ruin them. Our path will have taken us from one end of the cycle to the other.
Tick tock, tick tock, nature’s clock is ticking along and we are all just pilgrims plodding along, keeping in time......
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Travelogue/monologue/sleeplikealog
NB Remember to check out the previous blog, too!!!
This was written last night before I switched off the light and went to bed...
“This is our first night in France. The crossing was good even if we did get up very early and wait quite a long time to get on the boat... none of it was difficult or even taxing. In fact it was very easy. Then we arrived and strolled through quite, sunny streets until we reached the bus station where we asked for the next bus to Honfleur and were given tickets for a bus which left just a few minutes after we boarded it. The next bus was due to leave several hours later.
More good fortune, we had a good lunch and set off for the main Catholic church (which is stunningly beautiful) and could not find a priest. I pushed a reluctant Alison into coming with me to find the presbytery and rang the door bell despite her misgivings. The priest was pleased to stamp our “passports” and we managed to say that we were looking for somewhere to stay and to tell him that we were happy to sleep on a church hall floor – and he showed us great hospitality, chatted to us, offered us refreshments and phoned up parishioners who had walked the Camino before getting a lovely lady to drive us to the parish centre, which was less than 5 minutes walk from where we were, gave us the keys and bottles of water, biscuits etc and said we could come back and have showers, too!
Now, we are in one of the meeting rooms, I am writing while Alison sleeps and we are preparing ourselves for the first day’s walking in France. Goodness knows what we can expect – we have pages cut out from a road atlas and the text of a route printed out from Google maps routes (for walking) which takes you along the main roads, so we will be playing things by ear as we go (and may resort to reading sign pposts and looking things up on google maps using Alison’s blackberry – we don’t know when I will next be able to post a blog as we have no wi-fi and my dongle would cost a fortune in France.....”
Now we are in an overpriced hotel room where the restaurant is closed, the nearest place to eat is five or six miles away and there are no shops, etc open in this village until tomorrow.... but there is wifi, hot water and a soft bed so we cannot complain.
Today we walked along the edge of some major roads (see our previous post for the details) but the traffic was very light and we were not troubled with very bad walking surfaces or bad weather; in fact the weather has been hot and sunny (earlier on it was cold and sunny for a while) with a heat haze on the surface of the road. The morning began with rough edged, wide main roads then we walked on a very pretty route which steadily climbed the length of a valley for the rest of the morning. Our rest stop was on a bench behind a church with some bread and saucison then an apple washed down with water. Not sure what we will do tonight – probably the last bit of bread and sausage and some chocolate, etc.
Tomorrow we head for a larger town and hope that there will be some kind people or some very cheap accommodation (otherwise we will seek out a campsite and try out our little tent (2 berth, under 1 kilo in weight, very simple). The packs are a little heavier now (silly us) and we have had a two day break, so today was a bit heavy going, especially with the long straight hot road in the afternoon. Still, another (almost) 20 miles done and we both continue to be safe and well and are now resting comfortably!!!
No problems.....
This was written last night before I switched off the light and went to bed...
“This is our first night in France. The crossing was good even if we did get up very early and wait quite a long time to get on the boat... none of it was difficult or even taxing. In fact it was very easy. Then we arrived and strolled through quite, sunny streets until we reached the bus station where we asked for the next bus to Honfleur and were given tickets for a bus which left just a few minutes after we boarded it. The next bus was due to leave several hours later.
More good fortune, we had a good lunch and set off for the main Catholic church (which is stunningly beautiful) and could not find a priest. I pushed a reluctant Alison into coming with me to find the presbytery and rang the door bell despite her misgivings. The priest was pleased to stamp our “passports” and we managed to say that we were looking for somewhere to stay and to tell him that we were happy to sleep on a church hall floor – and he showed us great hospitality, chatted to us, offered us refreshments and phoned up parishioners who had walked the Camino before getting a lovely lady to drive us to the parish centre, which was less than 5 minutes walk from where we were, gave us the keys and bottles of water, biscuits etc and said we could come back and have showers, too!
Now, we are in one of the meeting rooms, I am writing while Alison sleeps and we are preparing ourselves for the first day’s walking in France. Goodness knows what we can expect – we have pages cut out from a road atlas and the text of a route printed out from Google maps routes (for walking) which takes you along the main roads, so we will be playing things by ear as we go (and may resort to reading sign pposts and looking things up on google maps using Alison’s blackberry – we don’t know when I will next be able to post a blog as we have no wi-fi and my dongle would cost a fortune in France.....”
Now we are in an overpriced hotel room where the restaurant is closed, the nearest place to eat is five or six miles away and there are no shops, etc open in this village until tomorrow.... but there is wifi, hot water and a soft bed so we cannot complain.
Today we walked along the edge of some major roads (see our previous post for the details) but the traffic was very light and we were not troubled with very bad walking surfaces or bad weather; in fact the weather has been hot and sunny (earlier on it was cold and sunny for a while) with a heat haze on the surface of the road. The morning began with rough edged, wide main roads then we walked on a very pretty route which steadily climbed the length of a valley for the rest of the morning. Our rest stop was on a bench behind a church with some bread and saucison then an apple washed down with water. Not sure what we will do tonight – probably the last bit of bread and sausage and some chocolate, etc.
Tomorrow we head for a larger town and hope that there will be some kind people or some very cheap accommodation (otherwise we will seek out a campsite and try out our little tent (2 berth, under 1 kilo in weight, very simple). The packs are a little heavier now (silly us) and we have had a two day break, so today was a bit heavy going, especially with the long straight hot road in the afternoon. Still, another (almost) 20 miles done and we both continue to be safe and well and are now resting comfortably!!!
No problems.....
cands 14 | Author Crossandshell | free Mobile GPS Tracking Service
cands 14 | Author Crossandshell | free Mobile GPS Tracking Service
This location shows our route on the first day in France. Look on this website and you should be able to find all of our days walked. (Days 12 and 13 were spent looking for and buying a tent and other things then going across to France.)I will try to get this onto the side feed of the blog....
I have also put the link on the facebook page so check there, too.
Blogs to follow soon as we have been out of range or not able to post them for other reasons and may not be in range again for another couple of days - who knows?!!
This location shows our route on the first day in France. Look on this website and you should be able to find all of our days walked. (Days 12 and 13 were spent looking for and buying a tent and other things then going across to France.)I will try to get this onto the side feed of the blog....
I have also put the link on the facebook page so check there, too.
Blogs to follow soon as we have been out of range or not able to post them for other reasons and may not be in range again for another couple of days - who knows?!!
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Toot toot went the little green car one day
Tuesday was definitely an easier day. The wind was a little too chilly even for this time of year but the sun shone all day as we walked from Woking to Hambledon.
The distance was much shorter than we had expected and the last two miles were in a car as the woman who had offered to put us up that night just happened to drive by us as we were on the last short stretch into Hambledon. I saw this car stopping and a woman wound down the window and said, “Are you Ian?” and there we were, heading for this amazingly comfortable house with a massive annex with so much space and the chance for Alison to have a bath while I took a shower!
Back on the subject of hospitality, Louise and Simon (our hosts for Tuesday) had agreed to let us stay on the night of the 14th (which is actually Wednesday, but that was because I had miscalculated the dates for the walk!
I had not realised this until Monday so we emailed Louise asking if it was OK to be with her a day earlier. Despite a very hectic day with lots of things happening within the family, she said yes, no problem and we were made welcome at incredibly short notice!
Then, on Wednesday night our hosts have been Gerry and Ligia who agreed to put us up with not much more than a day’s notice. Gerry had been on Student Cross for the first time this year (his son went on Midland Leg last year). He picked us up from our walk and brought us home to his lovely house, we have been fed and pampered royally and are about to have breakfast before being driven back to start today’s walk.
Hospitality is an experience that is at the heart of what being human is. It demonstrates something about our nature that modern society seems eager to deny – don’t ask me why!
I will write about our walk next but just feel very grateful and seriously amazed and reassured by people’s generosity and need to think about this more and explore it while I can.... what do you think?
The distance was much shorter than we had expected and the last two miles were in a car as the woman who had offered to put us up that night just happened to drive by us as we were on the last short stretch into Hambledon. I saw this car stopping and a woman wound down the window and said, “Are you Ian?” and there we were, heading for this amazingly comfortable house with a massive annex with so much space and the chance for Alison to have a bath while I took a shower!
Back on the subject of hospitality, Louise and Simon (our hosts for Tuesday) had agreed to let us stay on the night of the 14th (which is actually Wednesday, but that was because I had miscalculated the dates for the walk!
I had not realised this until Monday so we emailed Louise asking if it was OK to be with her a day earlier. Despite a very hectic day with lots of things happening within the family, she said yes, no problem and we were made welcome at incredibly short notice!
Then, on Wednesday night our hosts have been Gerry and Ligia who agreed to put us up with not much more than a day’s notice. Gerry had been on Student Cross for the first time this year (his son went on Midland Leg last year). He picked us up from our walk and brought us home to his lovely house, we have been fed and pampered royally and are about to have breakfast before being driven back to start today’s walk.
Hospitality is an experience that is at the heart of what being human is. It demonstrates something about our nature that modern society seems eager to deny – don’t ask me why!
I will write about our walk next but just feel very grateful and seriously amazed and reassured by people’s generosity and need to think about this more and explore it while I can.... what do you think?
Monday, 12 April 2010
Frostbite becomes you; just let those extremities go
Just a few notes as this place is freezing and we will need to settle down for the night and try to get warm.
Take note, the itinerary is newly updated.... and now....
You know I have been talking about hospitality and related things? Today we have been experiencing all sorts of variations on a theme.
For example, we planned a route which took us across St George’s Hill which is famous for being the place where the diggers placed themselves and where they were brutally dealt with. Not only is the irony seated in the fact that this very same hill is now THE most expensive and exclusive place to live in the London suburbs, it is also where it is so exclusive the local authority information panels referring to the Diggers and pointing out places of interest excludes that very location in order to avoid any riff raff from walking around looking at how this site has been so desecrated by the extremely wealthy. Worse than this is the fact that you are not even allowed to walk through this stupid estate!
You heard/read me correctly. This is a location where they police the place/video and scan the place and excise any unwelcome organisms from the very air of the estate – you have to live there or be some sort of work person going about your allowed duties to enter the place. Yes, this is Britain in the tewnty first century and people still think that they can get away with that!!!! I will be joining the ramblers when I come back and we will do some neat stuff regarding this.....
This route deflection alone caused us an extra almost 2 miles!
We walked through what looked like a set of ante-tank emplacements which I had presumed meant that the road was about to be excavated, and entered the estate. Within a few minutes a guard in a van arrived and asked us if we were residents. As we are plainly not residents we had to leave asap. At least the guy who told us to go was polite, didn’t ask us to retrace our steps and gave us advice on how to circumnavigate the place. Despite his role, he was quite hosipitable!
In contrast, last night our two daughters provided us with wine and food which were wonderful, their company, which was even better and as a bonus we spent time with our very bright and beautiful little grand-daughters – we will have to wait until after the walk to enjoy the company of our beloved grandson and my darling son Ewan again.... But hospitality was alive and flourishing hugely last night!
Other hospitality wiggles today include the fact that we waited for quite a while to get into the church hall – which was only difficult because we didn’t know what was happening and it was cold – but we also had a lovely priest who drove us up to the centre of town so we could do our shopping for food,and then the hall was cold (VERY cold)and sadly the priest couldn't do anything about it – we have to sleep here all night but, of course, we are weird walking pilgrim people who can cope with this??!
Despite the frustrations, we are very grateful to be able to sleep here.
Any way, end of rant reached and so let’s say toodle looo!
Oh, by the way, we walked very close to Dominique’s 6th form school and today we skirted past both Kirsty and Rosalind’s 6th form colleges...
Whow, too cold to write any more – even for me!!!
Check out the revised itinerary now!!
Take note, the itinerary is newly updated.... and now....
You know I have been talking about hospitality and related things? Today we have been experiencing all sorts of variations on a theme.
For example, we planned a route which took us across St George’s Hill which is famous for being the place where the diggers placed themselves and where they were brutally dealt with. Not only is the irony seated in the fact that this very same hill is now THE most expensive and exclusive place to live in the London suburbs, it is also where it is so exclusive the local authority information panels referring to the Diggers and pointing out places of interest excludes that very location in order to avoid any riff raff from walking around looking at how this site has been so desecrated by the extremely wealthy. Worse than this is the fact that you are not even allowed to walk through this stupid estate!
You heard/read me correctly. This is a location where they police the place/video and scan the place and excise any unwelcome organisms from the very air of the estate – you have to live there or be some sort of work person going about your allowed duties to enter the place. Yes, this is Britain in the tewnty first century and people still think that they can get away with that!!!! I will be joining the ramblers when I come back and we will do some neat stuff regarding this.....
This route deflection alone caused us an extra almost 2 miles!
We walked through what looked like a set of ante-tank emplacements which I had presumed meant that the road was about to be excavated, and entered the estate. Within a few minutes a guard in a van arrived and asked us if we were residents. As we are plainly not residents we had to leave asap. At least the guy who told us to go was polite, didn’t ask us to retrace our steps and gave us advice on how to circumnavigate the place. Despite his role, he was quite hosipitable!
In contrast, last night our two daughters provided us with wine and food which were wonderful, their company, which was even better and as a bonus we spent time with our very bright and beautiful little grand-daughters – we will have to wait until after the walk to enjoy the company of our beloved grandson and my darling son Ewan again.... But hospitality was alive and flourishing hugely last night!
Other hospitality wiggles today include the fact that we waited for quite a while to get into the church hall – which was only difficult because we didn’t know what was happening and it was cold – but we also had a lovely priest who drove us up to the centre of town so we could do our shopping for food,and then the hall was cold (VERY cold)and sadly the priest couldn't do anything about it – we have to sleep here all night but, of course, we are weird walking pilgrim people who can cope with this??!
Despite the frustrations, we are very grateful to be able to sleep here.
Any way, end of rant reached and so let’s say toodle looo!
Oh, by the way, we walked very close to Dominique’s 6th form school and today we skirted past both Kirsty and Rosalind’s 6th form colleges...
Whow, too cold to write any more – even for me!!!
Check out the revised itinerary now!!
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Simple hospitality is never simple...
Well, here we are in a church hall in Barnet – basic toilets, a small side room to sleep in and keep relatively warm, a kitchen with hot water, kettle, fridge and a cooker. We have access to lots of cutlery and plates – yeh!
Of course, we popped to Waitrose just before it closed and bought a few things to eat and a bottle of wine. We are now tired but better for the food and wine, and are reflecting on the day. The morning was a pleasant jaunt through the countryside for about nine or so miles, then lunch was OK.... but the afternoon was much harder with 16 miles done without a stop (5 hours with lots and lots of hills of the steep variety) so we were more than a little foot sore on our arrival.
So what were we reflecting on? That enduring little nugget of an idea – hospitality – was the consideration of the day.
We were reflecting on the way that being a community, or part of one, inevitably involves making each other welcome and requires that you spend time together sharing food and conversation. We have been treated to a wide range of different types of hospitality so, in a short week, with very heavy physical demands being placed on us, we have had our hospitality radar raised to its highest sensitivity ratings and have found out some amazing things.
Firstly, receiving hospitality is a very nice thing to experience. It almost does not matter what the level is, the effects are still good. So, we have enjoyed professional hospitality from a country pub and a slightly run down hotel in a small town. In both cases the people who have extended their hospitality have made efforts to greet us and treat us as guests. Probably most impressive were the hotel people because, unlike the pub who were the owners/providers of hospitality, the hotel people were all straight employees, but they were very keen to make the best of what they had to offer... So, hospitality is in some measure about what you as a person are personally prepared to extend as part of the offer of hospitality.
Then there is the generosity beyond what is required and without restrictions – the couple who put us up in Downham were asked in the morning and by the evening we were being fed and treated to comfy beds, hot baths/showers and so on ... open house to complete strangers on trust.
So it is also about unconditional service to strangers. That is not an easy thing to be able to do. Not easy at all.
Then there are the family and friend offerings of hospitality that were exceedingly generous and seriously comfortable experiences. Again, unconditional hospitality but this time with love and an honest sense of generosity that stems form that love. Through a mixture of knowledge and empathy this generosity takes us into another aspect of hospitality where the familiar allows for greater degrees of comfort and where there are unspoken understandings/expectations that make everything so much easier.
So it can also be about being able to provide a space for rest and recuperation which goes beyond the simple provision of space and comforts - helping to make it a space that is more individually shaped to your needs.
All of this is just the beginnings of a view of what might be regarded as hospitality and where it might fit into the scheme of things but it does lead on from the rambling load of tittle tattle I posted yesterday..... it is part of that question of what makes you or I people fashioned in the likeness of God. What are our God like aspects or facets? What do our God-like bits look like?
Well, perhaps hospitality has something to do with all of this. Perhaps hospitality is part of the outcome of us beginning to act as people who have been created in God’s image?
Just one early idea in the collection of thoughts we might have or might explore.
Toodle oooo!
Of course, we popped to Waitrose just before it closed and bought a few things to eat and a bottle of wine. We are now tired but better for the food and wine, and are reflecting on the day. The morning was a pleasant jaunt through the countryside for about nine or so miles, then lunch was OK.... but the afternoon was much harder with 16 miles done without a stop (5 hours with lots and lots of hills of the steep variety) so we were more than a little foot sore on our arrival.
So what were we reflecting on? That enduring little nugget of an idea – hospitality – was the consideration of the day.
We were reflecting on the way that being a community, or part of one, inevitably involves making each other welcome and requires that you spend time together sharing food and conversation. We have been treated to a wide range of different types of hospitality so, in a short week, with very heavy physical demands being placed on us, we have had our hospitality radar raised to its highest sensitivity ratings and have found out some amazing things.
Firstly, receiving hospitality is a very nice thing to experience. It almost does not matter what the level is, the effects are still good. So, we have enjoyed professional hospitality from a country pub and a slightly run down hotel in a small town. In both cases the people who have extended their hospitality have made efforts to greet us and treat us as guests. Probably most impressive were the hotel people because, unlike the pub who were the owners/providers of hospitality, the hotel people were all straight employees, but they were very keen to make the best of what they had to offer... So, hospitality is in some measure about what you as a person are personally prepared to extend as part of the offer of hospitality.
Then there is the generosity beyond what is required and without restrictions – the couple who put us up in Downham were asked in the morning and by the evening we were being fed and treated to comfy beds, hot baths/showers and so on ... open house to complete strangers on trust.
So it is also about unconditional service to strangers. That is not an easy thing to be able to do. Not easy at all.
Then there are the family and friend offerings of hospitality that were exceedingly generous and seriously comfortable experiences. Again, unconditional hospitality but this time with love and an honest sense of generosity that stems form that love. Through a mixture of knowledge and empathy this generosity takes us into another aspect of hospitality where the familiar allows for greater degrees of comfort and where there are unspoken understandings/expectations that make everything so much easier.
So it can also be about being able to provide a space for rest and recuperation which goes beyond the simple provision of space and comforts - helping to make it a space that is more individually shaped to your needs.
All of this is just the beginnings of a view of what might be regarded as hospitality and where it might fit into the scheme of things but it does lead on from the rambling load of tittle tattle I posted yesterday..... it is part of that question of what makes you or I people fashioned in the likeness of God. What are our God like aspects or facets? What do our God-like bits look like?
Well, perhaps hospitality has something to do with all of this. Perhaps hospitality is part of the outcome of us beginning to act as people who have been created in God’s image?
Just one early idea in the collection of thoughts we might have or might explore.
Toodle oooo!
Friday, 9 April 2010
Confusion and fatigue from sleepy head himself
You learn a lot on something like this.... how kind people can be, how hard it can be on the road, how difficult it is to talk to your walking companion when the weather is bad and you are trudging down a major A road on seriously uneven ground, that the way to avoid the A road into Barkway entails a long few miles hike up a quiet road and an extra couple or so miles on quaintly undulating (hilly, actually) little road, that my new “walkers trousers” chafe in the most unpleasant places after ten or so miles (and I’ve walked in them for over forty miles, and that 14 year old Oban malt whisky is actually rather nice.
You also learn that you can take liberties with sentences and have them rather elongated....
Yes, it has been a fantastic week and sorry we have not been able to write much during that time. We have stayed in a lovely pub (Dappling Duck, Great Massingham) with parishioners in Downham Market (Pam and Mike put us up with only a few hours notice), with friends (Joe and Juliette and family rescued us from a homeless Ely and pampered us in Huntingdon) and relatives (well one, but he is lovely and so is his partner, Linda) who pampered us beautifully in Newmarket ad ferried us back to our starting place today.
This Friday gave us lovely weather and hard walking but led us to Puckeridge where we had nowhere to stay and where the B&B’s and hotels had all dissolved into the ether. St Edmund’s College could not accommodate us but we did not know that until we were half way there so we sought out a hotel that was, like so many extinct things, still marked on our map and we ended up at a petrol station. A man ran it from a little booth in the midst of the petrol pumps and so we chatted to him about possibilities and he gave us a number for a taxi and a directory with some possible places to stay. Which lead us to a lovely lady taxi driver who drove us here and my first taste of Oban Malt, which is now sadly just a lovely memory. The clothes are drying on a noisy radiator which is making the room rather warm and I am thinking that the blister I have had on the side of my heel since half way through Student Cross is more of a nuisance than I had ever thought it would be but I’m damned if I will let it get the better of me.
Which brings me to where I am now.....
It is remarkably peaceful here. The double glazing is cutting out the sound of any traffic, the TV/radio is off and the noisy radiator has suddenly stopped vibrating and rumbling. Alison is drifting off at her note book as the heat reaches tropical island levels (especially with the evaporation from our damp clothes) and I am wondering if I will write the other things I want to write tonight or just leave them for another time.
Today I have been reflecting on how the landscape we have been walking through all week has been so completely changed by human activity over the years.
It has been stripped of forests, drained of water, turned from diverse environments into mono-cultures, built on, stripped of its natural resources, redeveloped to be more bio diverse, turned into playgrounds and worksites, homes and wastelands, shunned and cherished and so much more besides. And we have repeated these things over and over again until we eventually began to walk through this lovely land and remark on how nice it is.
Perhaps we are so pleased with what we have made sometimes that we don’t realise what we are thinking.
I asked someone during Student Cross the following question – “If God made you in God’s image, what do you think are your God like qualities? What defines you as someone who has been made in God’s image?”
He didn’t want to answer me and was wary of the suggestions that I made for him to agree/disagree with.
Do you think that being able to muck around with our environment makes us God like? Does being able to destroy our environment make use more like God? Perhaps it is only when we start to repair the damage that we have done that we start to show our “God-like-qualities”? Hmmmm is this more about a foray into good and evil? Nope – let’s get focused here!.
Of course, everything is relative. One of my less God-like tendencies today is that I am starting to drift off to sleep, but I do encourage mass contemplation on this big question regarding what makes you like God (in often quite small but deeply significant ways as well as in the more exceptional, big things). How will any discovery help shape the way you are living your life? Yes, such a decision could redirect you... or, at least, make a good talking point for you in odd situations.
Or, perhaps I am just rambling. We have walked well over a hundred miles in the last five days and it does seem to be having some sort of effect on me. Sleep is more seductive – my tendency to stay awake half the night seems to be disappearing!
Tomorrow we walk to Barnet where we think we have a hall to sleep in! Let’s do it!!
You also learn that you can take liberties with sentences and have them rather elongated....
Yes, it has been a fantastic week and sorry we have not been able to write much during that time. We have stayed in a lovely pub (Dappling Duck, Great Massingham) with parishioners in Downham Market (Pam and Mike put us up with only a few hours notice), with friends (Joe and Juliette and family rescued us from a homeless Ely and pampered us in Huntingdon) and relatives (well one, but he is lovely and so is his partner, Linda) who pampered us beautifully in Newmarket ad ferried us back to our starting place today.
This Friday gave us lovely weather and hard walking but led us to Puckeridge where we had nowhere to stay and where the B&B’s and hotels had all dissolved into the ether. St Edmund’s College could not accommodate us but we did not know that until we were half way there so we sought out a hotel that was, like so many extinct things, still marked on our map and we ended up at a petrol station. A man ran it from a little booth in the midst of the petrol pumps and so we chatted to him about possibilities and he gave us a number for a taxi and a directory with some possible places to stay. Which lead us to a lovely lady taxi driver who drove us here and my first taste of Oban Malt, which is now sadly just a lovely memory. The clothes are drying on a noisy radiator which is making the room rather warm and I am thinking that the blister I have had on the side of my heel since half way through Student Cross is more of a nuisance than I had ever thought it would be but I’m damned if I will let it get the better of me.
Which brings me to where I am now.....
It is remarkably peaceful here. The double glazing is cutting out the sound of any traffic, the TV/radio is off and the noisy radiator has suddenly stopped vibrating and rumbling. Alison is drifting off at her note book as the heat reaches tropical island levels (especially with the evaporation from our damp clothes) and I am wondering if I will write the other things I want to write tonight or just leave them for another time.
Today I have been reflecting on how the landscape we have been walking through all week has been so completely changed by human activity over the years.
It has been stripped of forests, drained of water, turned from diverse environments into mono-cultures, built on, stripped of its natural resources, redeveloped to be more bio diverse, turned into playgrounds and worksites, homes and wastelands, shunned and cherished and so much more besides. And we have repeated these things over and over again until we eventually began to walk through this lovely land and remark on how nice it is.
Perhaps we are so pleased with what we have made sometimes that we don’t realise what we are thinking.
I asked someone during Student Cross the following question – “If God made you in God’s image, what do you think are your God like qualities? What defines you as someone who has been made in God’s image?”
He didn’t want to answer me and was wary of the suggestions that I made for him to agree/disagree with.
Do you think that being able to muck around with our environment makes us God like? Does being able to destroy our environment make use more like God? Perhaps it is only when we start to repair the damage that we have done that we start to show our “God-like-qualities”? Hmmmm is this more about a foray into good and evil? Nope – let’s get focused here!.
Of course, everything is relative. One of my less God-like tendencies today is that I am starting to drift off to sleep, but I do encourage mass contemplation on this big question regarding what makes you like God (in often quite small but deeply significant ways as well as in the more exceptional, big things). How will any discovery help shape the way you are living your life? Yes, such a decision could redirect you... or, at least, make a good talking point for you in odd situations.
Or, perhaps I am just rambling. We have walked well over a hundred miles in the last five days and it does seem to be having some sort of effect on me. Sleep is more seductive – my tendency to stay awake half the night seems to be disappearing!
Tomorrow we walk to Barnet where we think we have a hall to sleep in! Let’s do it!!
Monday, 5 April 2010
Winding down for the night
Sitting here after a good day’s walking I feel a little bit drowsy. Admittedly, we did have an interesting walk. We had a lovely send off from our three daughters and two granddaughters as well as a small handful of friends – Dougald and Betty, Mike Lagrue and (Fr) Ray Lyons. I know others would have loved to have been there to send us off, too, but that’s the way it goes. As it was, Ray blessed us and we all hugged before Alison and I set off via the old railway line.
It rained throughout the morning and the wind was very strong and persistent.
We stopped at Sculthorpe Mill for a cup of coffee and a toilet break then headed for Helhaughton where we thought we could have lunch in the pub – the pub is now two houses poised on a road junction.... so we walked to West Raynham where the pub has disappeared without a trace!
So we ended up walking all the way to our night stop without a break or any lunch! It was a long day in terms of distance (19 miles) made shorter by the absence of any stops after the first one (about 5 miles in).
Interesting contrast with the previous week where we had a wonderful and particularly enjoyable pilgrimage with Kettering Leg of Student Cross – and where we didn’t need to worry about where we would be fed or stay the night.
The contrast serves as a pointer to the quality of the leg we walked.....
The quality of the people on the leg was fantastic and the walking/stops/buzz all added to this quality.
I am too tired to really do Kettering Leg justice so I am going to leave the blog for now and tell all about our Student Cross at a later date.
Peace to you all!
It rained throughout the morning and the wind was very strong and persistent.
We stopped at Sculthorpe Mill for a cup of coffee and a toilet break then headed for Helhaughton where we thought we could have lunch in the pub – the pub is now two houses poised on a road junction.... so we walked to West Raynham where the pub has disappeared without a trace!
So we ended up walking all the way to our night stop without a break or any lunch! It was a long day in terms of distance (19 miles) made shorter by the absence of any stops after the first one (about 5 miles in).
Interesting contrast with the previous week where we had a wonderful and particularly enjoyable pilgrimage with Kettering Leg of Student Cross – and where we didn’t need to worry about where we would be fed or stay the night.
The contrast serves as a pointer to the quality of the leg we walked.....
The quality of the people on the leg was fantastic and the walking/stops/buzz all added to this quality.
I am too tired to really do Kettering Leg justice so I am going to leave the blog for now and tell all about our Student Cross at a later date.
Peace to you all!
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