I was tired, filthy from the waist down, and I still had ten miles to walk. The canal led me past Kingsbury Water Park, through the broad and shallow valley of the River Tame. This area is unfamiliar to me, though I've lived almost all of my life within an hour's drive of it. Tamworth has never appealed to me for some reason, though it's probably a lovely place. I have equally irrational prejudice towards this bit of England where the edgelands of Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire connect.
Things improved, from an aesthetic perspective, as I climbed the gentle hills eastwards. But I grew more tired until I finally entered that zone where hypnotised by the rythmn of my walking, the miles passed beneath my feet.
My feet, I should point out, are in very good nick. They've accustomed themselves to the demands of the tarmac-ed miles with turning into the calloused hooves that I feared. Soft and strong, by the time I'd reached Warwickshire they've borne me 500 miles.
The soles of my wonderful Merrell walking boots, however, are showing their wounds. In several places, their Vibram layers are worn through. I bet they've still got at least a hundred miles left in them but with all my preparatory walks I've probably done a thousand miles in them. Wow, a thousand miles of walking in a year.
I'd picked up a cornish pasty in Hurley's tiny general store, so when I reached Abbey Farm I told Malcolm and Jenny that it was unlikely that I'd emerge from the room.
The bed was huge and gloriously comfy, the bath deep and the room generous in every way. I could stay here a week.
I'd slipped into an hour's apres-pasty sleep before rousing myself for a couple of phone calls. Then, long before nine-thirty, I was sleeping for the night, thankful and thrilled that I've completed 510 miles and less than thirty remain.
My walking verse for my fiftieth day was Revelation 3.4, "Yet you still have a few persons in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes, they will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy."
Taken out of context, it spoke to my bedraggled state. Pilgrims, I guess, always hope for some kind of purification by their trials.
Hi Simon
ReplyDeletetrust that the stings aren't throbbing too much and that your Merrells keep going for just a few more miles (we can take them out and shoot them in the car park once you arrive at St. Paul's..........Liked your comment re ire at signs which do not inform - how about finding out who produced it and punishing them with stinging nettles? There is a Biblical precedent: see Judges 8 re tearing flesh with desert thorns and briers (didn't teach us that on CCD............).
Interesting comment re prejudice against the area in which you were walking - I don't care for it either: have never liked the A5 going up through Atherstone, Tamworth towards Brownhills. As you state: irrational.
Your trial of purification is almost at an end - keep yomping, Pilgrim!
All the best.
C & A