Walking Home

Walking Home - the book

2010-01-25T16:19:00.003Z

I'm thrilled that my book is now in print and available at http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/walking-home/6289119 for £9.90, plus delivery. All proceeds (over £3 per copy) will go to the Christian Aid charity.

If you're in the Oadby area on 27 February, we're holding a little launch party. If you'd like to come along to buy a signed copy and to save on delivery costs, please get in touch at simon@sjharvey.org.uk.

To whet your appetite, here's the blurb from the cover:

Simon Harvey, a Leicestershire vicar who describes himself as not much of a walker, sets out on a five hundred mile pilgrimage in reverse.

Perhaps a pilgrimage doesn't have to involve a package tour to a distant shrine. What happens if it is simplified and taken at walking pace, where the goal is not some unfamiliar holy site but home, the place of belonging?

This book describes an unlikely journey from the very heart of the French capital to a suburban parish on the southern edge of Leicester, in the English Midlands. Fifty-two days of solitary walking, punctuated by reunions with old friends and special places, lead Simon through an adventure in faith.

Keen observation, thoughts that are allowed to wander as far as his feet, a delight in the ordinariness of unspectacular places and a series of surprising encounters, all fill a travel story that is humorous, reflective and accessible.

Simon explores the Bible's metaphor of "walking with God" on unpromising tarmac roads and country paths. He discovers fresh insight into the possibilities of down to earth discipleship in a style that isn't preachy or too keen to persuade.

The route as I walked it

2009-06-16T12:09:00.003+01:00

It was easier than I thought to retrieve the entire route of my walk from my phone, and get it onto Google Maps, via Memory-Map and Google Earth.

I've updated the Routes page of the blog, so follow the link to see where I actually went. You can also view the whole route in Google Earth.

Homecoming

2009-06-14T16:41:00.000+01:00

Thanks to the amazing community of St Paul's Church, I didn't creep back unnoticed. It was a fabulous homecoming and something I'll always remember.

540 miles walked and I'm back where I belong.

Day 52 - Stoney Stanton to Oadby

2009-06-13T14:00:00.001+01:00

View 20090614 - Day 52 - Stoney Stanton to Oadby in a larger map

Thoughts to begin a last day on the road

2009-06-13T10:09:00.001+01:00

I'm so much looking forward to being home later today. The closer I am, the more intense the longing.

I've been asked several times if there have been moments when I wished it was all over. Honestly, there haven't.

It's been an adventure unlike anything I've done before. I've seen so much, met many interesting and inspiring people. There have been thrilling moments, times of elation and of exhaustion, I've walked happy and afraid. And for every mile of it I've been in solitude, but never lonely and never in despair.

Jennifer, Jon and Phil have been in my thoughts and my hearts all the way. Through this blog, Twitter and Facebook I've felt that I'm still stitched into the communities to which I belong.

And in a strange, mysteriously quiet way, I've always known the company of God. The image of the perfect completion of creation in Genesis is of a man and woman walking with God in the garden on a cool evening.

In Jesus, the possibility of a restoration of this relationship was given as a gracious gift. I've known the reality of this for the second half of my life, and the last fifty-two days have confirmed it. There's no pithy bible verse today - the gospel story which feels most fitting is told in Luke 15 but just a sentence from a favourite post-communion prayer says just enough:

"Father God, when we were still far off, you met us in your Son, and brought us home."

Day 51 Part 3 - To Leicestershire

2009-06-13T09:41:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part Three)

I was getting tired by now and the narrow verge of the busy road to the M69 made for frustration. After the motorway roundabout, it was easier to relax into the 'simply walking' zone and to trek mindlessly towards Stoney Stanton.

Keith and Linda let me in to The Dive Inn, a reference to the nearby Stoney Cove diving centre. I'd expected a pub but the Inn turns out to be a guest house, with overflow accomodation in the form of a caravan in the back garden.

I set off for the nearest pub for dinner but the smell from the fish and chip shop was irrestistible. I sat on the bench outside, eating my dinner with a small wooden fork, for a few minutes before three lads came out with their food. They sat with me and we got talking.

After a while we introduced ourselves and Adam, Will and Alex fired questions about my walk. "What you doing it for?", "How much money are you carrying?", "Where's your luggage?", "How many clothes have you got?"

They told me about Stoney Stanton, that there's a lot to do, there aren't any real chavs here and that it's better than Earl Shilton.

They insisted I should stay until Saturday afternoon when the Stanton Carnival takes place. I had to apologise and explain that I want to be home.

They wanted the address of my blog and a picture. I promised them a mention in my book.

My walking verse was from almost the end of the Bible, in which a vision of a new Jerusalem is described. Revelation 21.24, "The nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it."

Day 51 Part 2 - Seems like a nice place

2009-06-13T09:27:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part One)

With a few more miles walked I paused for a breather on a short flight of steps at Bridge 33. A man with a dog turned up the same path and we fell into conversation. Dave is a retired local planning officer and knows this land. I confessed my ignorance and low expectation, which happily had been confounded.

Dave added his opinion to the claim for the Battle of Bosworth which locals have. He told me that while no archeological evidence has been found for any site there is a letter in which the king promised recompense to four parishes around Mancetter "for my recent battle".

We talked railways and roads, watched activity in the fields, and wished each other a good walk.

As I entered Nuneaton, I left the canal at the moment when a radio on a construction site blared "Gangsters' Paradise". It made me smile and this was broadened when one of the first cars to pass me had "A town called Malice" blasting through its open window. Nuneaton had introduced itself.

The sign marked "Abbatoir" led to a dead end, perhaps appropriately. So I dog-legged back to the main road. This featured one of the best pieces of 'roundabout art' of my walk. A tall pole was crowned with pipes which left it at all angles. Each was capped with a flat nozzle and the whole thing was showering water under high pressure. The effect was create a huge dandelion-head, which shimmered and shed in the sunshine. Quite beautiful.

The centre of Nuneaton was anonymous. I wondered why a local bus carried the name 'Larry Grayson' in large letters. Sure enough, Wikipedia confirms that he grew up in the town as William White. Perhaps the buses are each named after a Nuneaton celebrity - how many are there? I wondered what it was like to drive the Larry Grayson bus and how many times each day passengers would shout "Shut that door!"

I'd remembered Grayson's never-seen friend Everard. Was he named after the Leicester brewery, whose signs were everywhere in Nuneaton?

The posher end of Nuneaton, I discovered, is the east. This is contrary to most towns, where the prevailing west winds priveleged the western roads of houses with cleaner air in the coal-burning era. I wonder why Nuneaton bucked the trend.

I finally walked into Leicestershire as I crossed Watling Street for the first time. Hinckley sits across the border and I wondered if there's a rivalry with Nuneaton.

(continues in Part Three)

Day 51 Part 1 - The quiet waters by

2009-06-13T09:20:00.001+01:00

On Day 49 a missed turn caused a rerouting that led me into a tangle. But Day 50's change of plan paid dividends.

I had thought of walking through Atherstone and then Fenny Drayton and Stoke Golding. But as I approached the Coventry Canal on a perfect day for walking, I chose to go off road.

Canal walking has been one of the wonderful surprises of this walk and I had thought that I'd done the last of it in Staffordshire. The map showed the Coventry Canal twisting along the contours and sure enough, the scenery was attractive.

It must be the height of the gnat season. On the previous day, every stride through the undergrowth raised scores of them. On the canal, they flew in loops across the water and back. Perhaps it was the angle of their wings in the bright sunshine that meant those flying from right to left were more visible. The effect was to make them look like a constant one-way stream, matched in speed and course like a shoal of fish.

At a lock among the notices I spotted British Waterways sign about fishing. In English, Polish and Russian, it warned that fish must not be taken away but must be returned to the water. I wondered what confusions had made this clarification necessary.

A single signet swam with its parents. It was still grey and fluffy but chicken sized. Like a schoolboy in shorts I imagined it wanted a grown up outfit soon. As it passed I noticed it was swimming with just one foot. It stretched its right leg behind like a limbering athlete and I thought it would resume two-legged swimming. But it stowed the right leg among its feathers and carried on. Curious.

I enjoyed a splendidly bittersweet pint of Everards Original at The Anchor, Hartshill. The table next to mine was occupied by two couples, whose canalboat holiday was apparently coming to an end. They laughed and teased and shared their in-jokes.

(continues in Part Two)

Chip shop conversations

2009-06-12T19:59:00.000+01:00

The last time I ate fish and chips sitting on a bench I was in Blandford Forum, Dorset. I fell into conversation with a couple of soldiers training in the Royal Signals.

This evening I ate cod and chips on a bench once again, this time in Stoney Stanton. Three young men by the names of Adam, Will and Alex came and joined me.

I promised I'd give them a mention on my blog so thanks guys, for your interest in my walk and for what you told me about Stoney Stanton.

I like the way that chip shop benches can easily become truly civil spaces, where even a couple of generations can be spanned under an aroma of salt and vinegar.

Murder scene?

2009-06-12T15:38:00.001+01:00

In 500 miles of walking I've not quite seen anything like this pavement scene on the outskirts of Hinckley. A dead pigeon lies beneath a broken branch under a tree. I wonder what happened?

Day 51 - Atherstone to Stoney Stanton

2009-06-12T13:59:00.000+01:00

View Larger Map

Day 50 Part 3 - Purified by trials?

2009-06-12T10:48:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part Two)

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.

Day 50 Part 2 - Where's the path?

2009-06-12T10:38:00.001+01:00

(continued from Part One)

An hour after this decision I was neck-deep in undergrowth. The map showed that I had to reach a path which ran for half a mile on the opposite side of the canal to the towpath. The OS showed it clearly - a crisp red dotted line on a clean white background.

To begin with, the path was easy, following a farm track to a copse and a pool, signposted, "WARNING - NO FISHING! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED". The letters of the word 'you' were in blood red for chilling emphasis. Clearly, the signwriter had given thought as to how the fewest words could be as menacing as possible. Earlier I'd seen a sign about parking outside flats in Sutton Coldfield which began almost apologetically, "Polite notice... Please don't park on this drive."

Anyway, back to the path. I trotted past the pond and along the field edge, checking the blinking red circle which appeared on my phone's map display, once it had locked onto half-a-dozen GPS satellites. Sure enough, I was on track.

The crop was waist high and I trod the margins through which my legs were lashed by barley, nettles and brambles. I had to go slowly, as if paddling through opaque seawater along a rocky shore.

Eventually I reached the end of the field a the embankment of the canal. I had to cross a wide ditch using a narrow rolled steel joist of a bridge whose timbered deck had long since disappeared.

Up onto the canal and things got worse. There was the barest hint of a path - evidence that someone before me, perhaps years before me, had also walked this way. I stooped beneath branches, walked through bullrushes taer than me, strimming the nettles with my legs which began to feel aflame.

Eventually, I reached the bridge which carried me to the towpath on the other side. An 'information board' welcomed me to Middleton Quarry, which was being developed as a nature reserve. "There are two footpaths," explained the sign, which also mapped the route I'd battled through, "but these are not waymarked and in places, impassable. You are advised not to use them." I felt a greater ire towards the makers of this sign than to the other two.

(continues in Part Three)

Day 50 - On signs

2009-06-12T10:27:00.000+01:00

Chris and I used to eat frugally as students, now he was cooking us bacon and quails' eggs.

Lest I should assume that this was the way he started each day, he told me that they had been bought for a dinner party. We had three each, peeling their ever so slightly rubbery shells and eating them whole.

I happened to mention this treat on Twitter and received the response, "How typically Sutton Coldfield!"

Technically, I was in Four Oaks. But this is still the part of Birmingham (though some would contest even that) which Brummies poke fun at for its middle-class peculiarities.

I set off past Waitrose (of course), through Mere Green and Roughley, under the M6 Toll road.

I'd been planning to reach Middleton via an appealingly straight east-west lane. The motorway and diverted A38 had chopped the road into pieces, giving me a tricky bit of manouvering to find the right route. But talking with Jennifer on the phone I past the turning.

Not wanting to turn back, I decided to take a more northerly route towards Drayton Bassett, where I spotted the Heart of England Way running along the towpath of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. The sun was shining and I anticipated a lovely easy-paced stroll.

(continues in Part Two)

He who limps

2009-06-12T07:19:00.000+01:00

"He who limps is still walking."

Stanislaw J. Lec

Day 50 - Sutton Coldfield to Atherstone

2009-06-11T13:58:00.000+01:00

View Larger Map

Day 49 Part 3 - Sutton

2009-06-11T12:45:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part Two)

On the A5127 I saw a cyclist, his bike lying on the pavement. I crossed over to see if everything was alright.

"You okay?", I asked.
"Them am soaking me on purpose! They're laughing every time."
"What's up with your bike?"
"I got divorced, see."
It struck me as an odd way to begin an answer but I tried to be sympathetic. "I'm sorry."
"She 'ad me car, so I bought me a bike. But it's stuck in top gear. I'm soaked and them buggers am laughin'."

The poor chap was suffering the breakdown of a marriage and a bicycle and was now the victim of malicious splashing. It never rains, it pours.

"Sorry mate. Anything I can do?"
"Nah y'alright, me mate's gunna bring 'is van."

I wished him all the best, wondering if I could have perhaps fixed his gears with my Leatherman Micra Multitool (which so far has only opened one bottle of French cider and a packet of salami). Never mind, at least I'd stood in saturated solidarity with him.

I stood on Chris and Alison's doorstep looking as bedraggled as I have all journey. But a hot shower and a glass of Campo Vieja Rioja Reserva improved things considerably.

For dinner Alison had cooked a delicious tangy chilli - my second and by far the best of the day.

My walking verse was 3 John 1.34, "I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth."

Day 49 Part 2 - Drenched

2009-06-11T12:32:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part One)

(Part 2)
South of Shenstone the skies darkened and I began to think about rain. Timing the moment at which to pull on the waterproofs is an art I'm mastering.

I saw lightning strike the TV transmitter mast in the distance and more rumbles of thunder approached.

I past a field of cows as the wind began to blow stronger. They jostled each other into the corner of the field and began to moo anxiously.

It still wasn't raining and I reckoned I could make it to the next group of dense trees before getting dressed for the inevitable downpour.

The rain started just at the predicted moment and I pulled my waterproofs out of the rucksack and wrapped it in its waterproof cover. I tried something new - putting on the hood of my rainjacket underneath my hat. It worked brilliantly and I was spared the nuisance of water running down the back of my neck.

The storm intensified in minutes, the water running down the edges of the narrow lane getting wider and deeper all the time. It wasn't long until it became one rushing torrent, sandy brown with the soil washed from fields. I splashed through it, dangling my strip of orange fabric in the hope that any driver would see me.

I counted the delay between the flashes of lightning and booming thunder. Five seconds, then three seconds and then two. That meant the strikes were grounding about half-a-mile away. Above me hung three-phase mains electricity cables. Was it safest to be near them but not under them, so that the earth wire could divert any nearby strike?

Thankfully the storm passed over and I was left to contend with the steady rain.

(continues in Part Three)

Day 49 Part 1 - In Roman footsteps

2009-06-11T12:29:00.000+01:00

Tom left early for school so I chatted with Jon about his A levels before breakfast. We agreed that the breadth of knowledge they demand makes this the toughest part of the education path. I keep thinking about my own son Jon taking his A levels at the same time.

Pete and Cathy were very encouraging about my hope of turning the story of this adventure into a modest book. Their writing is so compellingly good and it was very helpful to hear their thoughts.

Pete returned from a schools event in the cathedral and we said our farewells.

I didn't fancy the direct main road route to Sutton Coldfield so picked up the lane to Wall, once a small Roman town but now a bypassed village. Its main street once bore the feet of legions and later the first generations of motorists. But the A5 was diverted a long time ago and has itself been superseded by the M6 Toll road.

I popped to the Trooper Inn for a pint of Abbott Ale and an incredibly cheap lunch. My large steaming plate of chilli and chips cost £2.

Lee, the Trooper's manager, has what you might call an aggressive pricing policy. All starters are £1, main courses £2 or £3, and desserts £1. He's only had the place for nine weeks and I wished him well.

The remains of a Letocetum's bath house and its hostel are uncovered and open for visitors to wander around. It must have been 40 years since I was last there. The remains aren't tremendously impressive and it needs a good deal of imagination to visualise how the site would have looked.

(continues in Part Two)

Day 49 - Lichfield to Sutton Coldfield

2009-06-10T13:57:00.000+01:00

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Day 48 Part 3 - Lichfield

2009-06-10T12:45:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part Two)

At Muckley Corner the pub was shut. I wasn't looking for another drink but it was disappointing to see another business fail. Through the windows I could see evidence of some last gathering -perhaps a party to consume the last of the stock before locking up and walking away. A last supper, of a sort. It could have been the morning after the night before, or many mornings later.

Lichfield is the cathedral city of one of England's largest dioceses. From the Welsh borders to the industrial towns of east Staffordshire, and from the peaks of the moorlands in the north to the heart of the Black Country, the Diocese is as incredibly diverse.

I was ordained in Lichfield Cathedral and have attended the ordinations and licensings of many friends. I've been here on conferences, courses and for meetings.

My hosts for the night were Pete, Cathy, Jon and Tom, whose house stands in the cathedral Close. Pete, as vicar of St Paul's, supervised my curacy and his generous training enabled me to take my first faltering steps in ordained ministry. I owe them much.

Pete has a new book, "Walking the Walk", which is being launched this week. It's a dramatic re-telling of the story of David, king of Israel.

It was a fabulous evening and I slept peacefully, despite noticing a locking bolt on the outside of my bedroom door. I doubt Pete and Cathy ever lock their guests in at night, and assume they inherited the arrangement. How odd.

My walking verse for the Day was 2 John 1.6: "This is love, that we walk according to his commandments."

Love then, not in the romantic sense but in the world-changing sense of the gospel, is not about words but actions. And if love is walking in obedience to Jesus' commands, then it's active, simple, demanding. It's walking the walk, as well as talking the talk, of being a disciple.

Day 48 Part 2 - The A461

2009-06-10T12:43:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part One)

In The Butts, much has changed. The blocks of flats that overlooked our back garden are gone, the ring road has been widened and the Littleton Arms is no more.

Cars no longer weave around the potholes, which used to appear each month outside the fire station, to be hastily patched up with scabs of tarmac. And the huge roundabout that some locals used to avoid in the same way that the most nervous Parisiens avoid the Etoille is now a complicated light-controlled junction.

On to the Lichfield Road and I began a steady and unspectacular walk through Rushall, Shelfield, and Walsall Wood. I paused to wash down the sandwich that Sue pazcked for me with a pint of Banks's at The Fisherman's Rest. A sign advertised forthcoming nights of entertainment. One of the bands was called "51 stone" and I fancied this must be the combined weight of the band members. Were they a lithe five-piece boy-band, or an overweight husband and wife duo?

I shared the bar with just one othe customer, a chap of at about 75. We sat on adjacent tables with our pints, watching the three huge TV screens playing music videos from the summer of 1981. I was eighteen at the time and during every classic hit I had to resist the temptation to sing along. But what of my companion? He would have been the age that I am now when Spandau Ballet, UB40, Genesis and Bob Marley were singing these songs. It made me wonder if I'd be sharing a pub in thirty years time listening to today's music.

In Shire Oak the space between the swimming pool and the fitness centre had been developed as a KFC fried chicken restaurant. I wondered how many people used all three on the same days.

Downhill and eventually out into the country I realised that I'd given myself the problem of coping with the natural consequences of a pint of beer on a chilly day, on a busy main road. It took quite a while to find an entrance to a field with hedges tall enough to conceal my relief.

(continues in Part Three)

Day 48 Part 1 - Cold rice pudding

2009-06-10T12:31:00.000+01:00

Walsall is probably one of the least regarded towns of the West Midlands conurbation. Perhaps known chiefly as the place where traffic on Europe's most congested stretch of motorway grinds to a crawl, it's a place that many people want to get past as quickly as possible. It also suffers in the mind of outsiders from the vagueness of its location. "Is that in Birmingham?", they ask. For many visitors, the Black Country towns merge uncertainly into one agglomeration of factories, housing estates, roads and canals. But get to know the area and different textures appear, changes in mood and feel.

And I love Walsall. It has the loveliness of a town that's not trying hard to please, and mostly seems to be not trying at all.

At the top of the main shopping street, the newest shop was Woolworths. It was natural that Woolies would build a thriving new store in Walsall. But now Woolworths is a credit-crunch victim and its doors stay closed.

A crowd was drawn however, by the "Muller Rice" promotional double-decker bus. Plenty of people were keen to pick up giveaway chilled rice puddings, some to be gulped al-fresco outside Greggs the bakers.

If I found Wolverhampton more prosperous than I remembered then Walsall balanced things up. There were too many empty shops on the main road, too few bags of shopping being carried. Economically at least, things felt tougher.

Yet Walsall is good, honestly. Its people are chirpy and chatty, more likely to be laughing at troubles than moaning about them.

I turned into Darwall Street and retraced my steps of another familiar walk home. For three years I served as curate at St Paul's Church at The Crossing, so every step brought back memories of a very happy period.

(continues in Part Two)

Day 48 - Walsall to Lichfield

2009-06-09T13:56:00.000+01:00

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Day 47 Part 3 - Faggots and chocolate

2009-06-09T12:33:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part Two)
I had a delicious plate of faggots, chips and peas for £2.99 at 'Cafe Munchies' near the canal basin in Walsall. Then I popped into the art gallery where an exhibition offered a commentary on food. Helen Chadwick's enormous bubbling chocolate fountain was at the same time appealing and repulsive.
I had coffee at The Crossing in the heart of Walsall, where I served as a curate for three years. Paul, Mike, Tracey and Heather chatted with me and updated me on the progress of the church and its mission.
I stayed at Sue and Geoff's home, being very well looked after and enjoying catching up. Mandy and Glyn told me of their hopes and plans as she prepares to be ordained in a couple of weeks.

Day 47 Part 2 - Where to walk?

2009-06-09T11:34:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part One)
In the gospels, Jesus is described as 'being moved' in his belly in response to the needs and the quiet despair he sees. Likewise we talk of gut-feelings to describe subrational and super-rational insights and intuitions. I have come to know these times as significant for revelation and discovery. I am thankful that I have the time to explore them without the pressure to arrive at rapid conclusions.

My walking verse for the day brought focus: 1 John 2.6, "Whoever says, 'I abide in [Jesus Christ], ought to walk just as he walked."

"Walking as Jesus walked" - what would that involve? I decided it must involve questions of place, attitude and behaviour. My canalside route for the day led me through tough estates past back gardens and factories, literally in the backwaters of the West Midlands.

There were no pleasure boats, no scenic spots. Yet here I heard my first cuckoo since the rural forests of Normandy. A piano lay among the lilies in the brown water. A big black leech squirmed through a shallow puddle on the towpath. Anglers fished for carp and a team of offenders cleared debris from a track wearing orange tabards printed with "Community Payback" in large letters.

It was, I thought, the kind of place Jesus walked, more like the paths of Galilee than the refined districts of Jerusalem and the south.

I'd also been thinking about the significance and implications of the increased vote for the BNP in county and european elections. On Twitter there has been a lot of outraged comment from Christians. I agree with these passionate rejections of the BNP's vicious racist ideaology. But I'm concerned that some comments suggest a hatred towards those hundreds of thousands who voted in this apalling way.

It is a sad fact that there is a growing minority of people who feel so excluded, unregarded and powerless that the policies of the extreme right seem plausible and inspiring. My concern is not just to oppose them but to offer them something better, something true, life-giving and just. How do we Christians, particularly we 'professional' servants of the Kingdom of God, proclaim and enact the gospel among the BNP's voters?

Jesus offended against the sensibilities of the religiously-respectable by associating with the marginalised and the powerless. He brought them good news, even as he confronted their prejudice and evil.

Where should I be walking? When this adventure is completed, and I'm 'back to work' in Oadby, which roads should I take, with whom should I travel and to whom should I seek to bring good news?
(continues in Part Three)

Day 47 Part 1 - Vocation

2009-06-09T11:07:00.000+01:00

Before my long walk began, I wondered what I'd be thinking about during five hundred miles of solitude.

In the course of my 'normal life', I spend a fair amount of time planning, preparing and anticipating. So it would be natural, I thought, to get my head around the medium- and long-term. That isn't what has happened. One of the most surprising things about this adventure is how quickly my outlook shrank to the here-and-now of every present moment. Perspective vanished as I became immersed in each day's journey. This surprise was a welcome one, as it revealed how much I tend to live in my head, pre-occupied with what hasn't yet happened, forgetful of where I am.

But this last weekend I've noticed my attention beginning to focus more and more on the future. Revisiting the very familiar people and places of Wolverhampton has reminded me of my origins and confirmed the extent to which I've changed or remained the same.

As I walked the towpath of the Wyrley and Essington Canal, from Wednesfield towards Walsall, I felt a deepening of an ache that has grown in recent days.

Somewhere within me I've experienced a vague, unfocussed feeling that's hard to describe. None of the words that I've come up with are adequate but they point towards it: yearning, compassion, a kind of melancholic longing.

I prayed for some clearer sense of meaning and slowly came to realise that I am in touch once again with vocation - that mysterious, haunting, irresistable pull that has drawn me along the road with God these past twenty years.

I should point out that none of this was depressing or discouraging. Quite the contrary, I had the sense of being energised, filled with holy discontent, counselled by the wild and free Spirit of God. It's a call I've known before, away from convenient spirituality to something more at the edge.
(continues in Part Two)

There is this to be said

2009-06-09T08:18:00.000+01:00

"There is this to be said for walking: It's the one mode of human locomotion by which a man proceeds on his own two feet, upright, erect, as a man should be, not squatting on his rear haunches like a frog. "

Edward Abbey

Day 47 - Wednesfield to Walsall

2009-06-08T13:55:00.000+01:00

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Day 45 Part 2 - Wednesfield

2009-06-08T10:22:00.000+01:00

(continued)
I met up with Doreen, my sister-in-law, at the new private art gallery which she's started with friends. My brother-in-law Richard, and nieces Hannah and Olivia joined us.

I lunched at the public art gallery, then pottered through the Mander Centre, down Broad Street and along the Wednesfield Road. This is where I saw the most striking changes - new offices, 'leisure' facilities and Student accomodation.

The Heath Town Estate, scene of much strife in my formative 1980s, was quiet and looked peaceable.

Our former home in Milton Road is little changed, except that the owners have glued some fake stonework to the rendering.

Then a short walk to Cadman Crescent, where I lived until I was twenty-two. Again, so familiar and little changed.

Finally along the Prestwood Road and to my brother Adam's home in Wednesfield.

We went for a drink with Dave at The Vine, decorated in 1930s style, where the Black Country BFG is well-kept.

We declined the offer of the 'cockles man', the very same visiting salesman who used to call in to the local pubs with his large tray of seafood thirty years before. To his non-amusement we would usually drown out his call of "Cockles! Mussels!" with our chorus of "Alive, alive-o!"

Dave, Adam and I finished the evening with a curry at the Rangamatti.

My walking verse was Romans 8.4, "[God in Jesus] condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

Day 45 Part 1 - the new city

2009-06-08T10:17:00.000+01:00

A day chock-full of rekindled memories and rediscovery in my original home town.

Wolverhampton was my home for the first thirty-five years of my life, its streets are deeply familiar. Yet there have been changes too - the town feels more prosperous, more at ease with itself, more positive. Of course, these are hastily-formed impressions and they may be wrong. Or perhaps I'm remembering things as being worse than they really were.

Yet I still have a hunch that the town I left, which became a city not long after, has gained more confidence in itself.

After leaving Rob and Emma, I walked through steady rain up to the City of Wolverhampton College. When Jennifer and I were seventeen, it was the Wulfrun College. We took an evening class in Computer Studies with some schoolfriends and once a week we walked home together, about three miles. It was on these long evening walks, buying a bag of chips on the way, that our friendship grew and became romance.

It was only a short walk from the college to Avondale Road, to the house in which my grandparents lived. Every Saturday morning as a small child, my mother would take my brother and me to town, then to meet my grandad at the Eye Infirmary where he worked, then to Avondale Road. It was a Victorian house, slightly overfilled with furniture, heated by strong-smelling paraffin heaters and with a long garden for our adventures.

The rain continued steadily as I walked up Newhampton Road to the Molineux, home of Wolverhampton Wanderers. Here again was a place where I'd began many walks home.

(Note, it's "the Molineux", not "Molineux", just as Wulfrunians talk about "going to the Asda.")

Wolves secured their place in top-flight football a few weeks ago by winning promotion as champions. Hopes are high for next season and given the link between the fortunes of football teams and the morale of a town's citizens, I wonder how much of the buoyant mood that I sensed was due to the success of Mick McCarthy's men.

As I walked up Waterloo Road I first heard, then saw, a tiny marching band. Through the teeming rain they marched, with scarcely anyone watching. Behind the band was a procession of steam traction engines, chugging up the incline with brown smoke swirling through the rain. Following up the rear, three or four fire engines completed the brave parade.

They worked their way through the town, where I discovered the procession was part of a steam fair at West Park. After twenty-four hours of rain, I could imagine what state the grass was going to be in after the traction engines got there.

(continues in Part Two)

Day 45 - Wolverhampton to Wednesfield

2009-06-06T13:54:00.000+01:00

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I only went out for a walk

2009-06-06T13:17:00.000+01:00

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out until sundown: for going out, I found, was really going in.""

John Muir

Day 44 - Revisiting colleagues and friends

2009-06-06T10:32:00.000+01:00

Only brief notes for Day 44, as I'm enjoying reunions with frends and family.

I really enjoyed the canal walk from Kinver, the Staffs and Worcester twisting through pretty countryside alongside the Stour.

The "Monarch's Way" long distance footpath joins the towpath at Stourton and stayed with me for most of the day.

Every walker, cyclist exchanged a greeting and those on boats were happy to chat. It's a social place.

Fred and Marion chatted with me about their involvement with the Boaters' Christian Fellowship.

I reached Botterham lock, where I used to sit with colleagues during summer lunch times. It must be over twenty years since Andy just about managed a standing jump across the lock.

I ducked down the narrow path onto Wombourne's industrial estate and spent an hour and a half at the company where I worked for fourteen years. I was visiting on the day after the twenty-fifth anniversary of the start of my employment. It was great to catch up.

Back on the canal to The Bratch and then onto the disused railway, whose path led me to Castlecroft in Wolverhampton.

I reached Rob and Emma's house just before seven and before long, Jennifer joined us.

My walking verse for the day was Romans 6.4, "We have been buried with Jesus by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life."

Another roving bridge

2009-06-05T14:44:00.000+01:00

This one at Swindon (Staffs) caught my eye because of the way that the roped the horses used to pull the boats has almost worn through the iron rail.

Ducklings

2009-06-05T14:31:00.001+01:00

I've seen signets, goslings, ducklings and the offspring of another common canal bird whose name I've forgotten. Sorry that my ornithological observations don't extend beyond "Ooh, that's a pretty one!"

Day 44 - Kinver to Wolverhampton

2009-06-05T13:52:00.000+01:00

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Day 43 Part 3 - Light at the end of the tunnel

2009-06-05T10:31:00.001+01:00

(continued from Part Two)

Canals are expensive to build. The most economical way to construct them is to keep them flat and straight. But neither is possible for long in the West Midlands. At Cookley, the sandstone had been blasted into cuttings for the canal, which twisted in tight turns. I was thrilled to share the Cookley Tunnel with the narrowboat, "Jamie" who chugged her fumes and sound around the bricks inches above us.

Up past Caunsall and Whittington and finally into Kinver, where I left the canal. I finished the day with an uphill walk to the very comfortable Pine Lodge B&B, where Anita welcomed me. It was almost six o'clock when I arrived and the day's fourteen miles brought my total to 444.

My walking verse was John 12.35, "Jesus said, The light is with you for a little longer, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness you do not know where you are going."

I saw fresh significance in Jesus as the Light of the World. It's an image that's always felt static to me. But now I realise that it's light to walk by, that a life illuminated by faith in Jesus is not lived in a cosy glow. It's about having light to move confidently forward, not fumbling in the dark.

I remembered some lines from the hymn, 'O Jesus I have promised':

"O let me see thy footmarks
And in them plant mine own.
My hope to follow duly
Is in thy strength alone."

Day 43 Part 2 - Towpath exuberances

2009-06-05T10:28:00.001+01:00

(continued from Part One)

The canal walk was a real treat. While the Severn Way mostly afforded only glimpses of the river and felt like walking through a hedgerow lengthways, the towpath was broad, even and gave me plenty to look at. The River Stour accompanied the canalzon my right until Kidderminster, where an aquaduct allowed the two to swap sides.

I crossed a rare roving bridge which was completely split by a one inch gap through the deck and sides. This allowed a horse to remain harnessed to the narrowboat even as the towpath crossed to the other side.

Two young men and a young woman were ahead of me, shouting and generally being 'lairy'. I caught them up, feeling slightly unsettled in a quiet spot.

"Ay mate, am yow tired?"
"I'm okay," I smiled back.
"Om shattered."
"Why, how far have you walked?"
"From town!"
I reckoned that this was only about a mile away.

"Where yo goin'?"
I explained what I was up to, how far I'd come and where I was heading.

The other youth, who hadn't done any talking up to this point, stopped in his tracks. "Fair play to you, mate."

He held out his hand and with handshakes they wished me good look.

Their 'lairiness' was, I realised and rembered, part of the exuberance of the West Midlands. It was the same spirit as that of the bikini-wearing cyclist, who passed me on the towpath a few miles farther north and raised both hands high above her head as she rode on a couple of feet from the water.

(continues in Part Three)

Day 43 Part 1 - "Quick, to the cut"

2009-06-05T10:14:00.000+01:00

I reached Stourport and looked for signs of activity at a polling station. It was quiet, despite the fuss about MPs expenses and talk about voters using European and local elections to register a protest.

The centre of Stourport has a resort atmosphere. It's a kind of Black Country seaside town. I remember childhood outings and bringing my own family here to play in the park, go for a paddle in the pool, and to walk on the riverbank.

The funfair stands on one side of the road north of the bridge, while the other is lined with fish and chip shops, pubs and cafes.

I've seen prices steadily fall as I've walked into the Midlands. The 'pizza slice and chips' for £1.25 offered by one pub is the cheapest, if not the most nutritionally balanced, meal I've seen advertised so far.

During my walk I've enjoyed the way that local accents have slowly changed. But in Stourport, there's a marked change. In north Worcestershire, there's been a hint of Brummie, but in Stourport, the Black Country accent and dialect has taken over.

At the very start of the 'Staffs and Worcester' canal, at the top of the first lock leading from the basin, I had a big mug of tea at the "Goodnight Sweetheart" cafe. It's a 1940's themed cafe but would be better described as a museum. Gil invited me to walk through its four rooms, all crammed with 1940s furnishings, artefacts, packets and tins. Gil has wired the loudspeakers of the period radios to play band music. He's even refitted a television set to play recordings of the 1953 coronation.
(continues in Part Two)

Day 43 - Stourport to Kinver

2009-06-04T13:52:00.000+01:00

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Day 42 Part 3 - Doughnut birthday cake

2009-06-04T10:55:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part Two)

I spotted Glasshampton Monastery on the map and regretted that I hadn't seen it in the planning stage. Glasshampton has a very good reputation and I might have been able to join them for a night.

Another surprise lay at the side of the road in the form of a memorial to William Gladstone, three-times Prime Minister of Great Britain. It was a substantial plinth, surrounded by a ballustrade but lichen-covered and shaded under the trees. It would be difficult to spot from a bicycle, impossible from a car. Prime ministers come and go.

Gladstone lived for many years at Astley Hall, not far from Woodhampton House, where Sally and Pete made me very welcome in a comfortable B&B.

Sue, Ed and Matt came over from Alvechurch in the evening and treated me to a lovely birthday meal at the Red Lion at Holt Heath. I even had a doughnut with a birthday candle and a foot-soothing gift. We've known them for years, Jennifer and I were at school with Sue from the late 1970s.

It was great to meet up six weeks after they visited us in Oadby just before I left.

My walking verse for the day was John 8.12 "[Jesus said,] 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.'"

John's gospel is full of contrasts, light and dark being a recurring metaphor for wisdom and blessing contrasting with ignorance and sin. Walking in the light of life simply means not creating shortcuts or diversions of our own devising but in the footsteps of our Lord, the well-trodden paths of the saints.

Day 42 Part 2 - Flatmeat

2009-06-04T10:53:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part One)

There was a good crowd at the Camp House pub on the river south of Grimley. I sat with a deliciously bitter pint of yellow Batham's Best. The voice behind me sounded exactly like that of Joe Grundy from "The Archers", which is set in this part of the world.

I left the river at this point and worked my way through lanes to the A443, a busy and fast road not very suitable for pedestrians. I dangled my hi-vis orange pennant and watched the drivers as the rounded bend towards me. I'm almost certain that I can see their eyes widen in surprise as they see me and twitch their steering wheels away from me.

Less lucky, or less visible creatured, get hit all the time and I've become a bit of an expert on the decomposition of roadkill. Badgers, for example, have fur so thick that they hang around for ages. I guess scavengers find them a little difficult to munch. I've learned that when they turn pitch-black, the smell is as its most revolting. So pungent, it lingers in an invisible putrid pool around the carcass, sometimes for longer than I hold my breath.

Foxes, on the other hand, seem to decay much more quickly, almost as fast as the common assortment of pheasant, pigeon and blackbird that I see every day.

I saw a TV programme a while ago in which a man described how to cook this 'flatmeat'. I have to say that nothing I've seen or smelled in the last 430 miles could tempt me.

The B4194 was less busy than the A road. But it had more sharp bends and almost no verges. It passed through several narrow sandstone cuttings, which rendered me flat against the rock when a vehicle hurtled by.

(continues in Part Three)

Day 42 Part 1- A birthday on the road

2009-06-04T10:48:00.000+01:00

It didn't feel much like my birthday at the start of the day, just another day on the road. But messages and birthday wishes soon appeared on emails, through Facebook and Twitter. I was very thankful.

I chatted with Louise, proprietor of Burgage House for a long time after breakfast. Until this walk I've never used bed and breakfast accomodation. The standard has been impressively high and the variety of owners and houses make it interesting.

It was after eleven again before I got out into Worcester. On the bridge over the Severn I had a call from the Leicester Mercury newspaper, who want to run another story.

I hope I made sense. It's not easy to remember all that's happened. And the deeper themes which I'm exploring in relation to pilgrimage, the idea of journey as metaphor, and the solitude aren't easy to express in pithy phrases. All that will have to wait for my book!

I reverted to the Severn Way again and walked on the west bank of the river, opposite Worcester's racecourse. I listened to the radio, which sat in the top pocket of my backpack, to the continued unravelling of the cabinet. Hazel Blears announced her resignation from government and I followed the commentary and Prime Minister's Questions.

The footpath was better than it had been in Gloucestershire. It looked like it was better used, broader and with a more even surface. But, as attractive as the scenery was, it was also unchanging.

I remembered Bill Bryson's tale of his adventures on the Appalachian Trail. Within a hundred miles he was bored with mountains and trees and took more interest in his short visits to towns. I feel the same about the lovely Severn Way - good for a time but a bit same-y.

No doubt this is heresy to many readers but I've discovered how much I like to be around people, or at least evidence of people.

(continues in Part Two)

If life's a journey, where am I now?

2009-06-03T18:35:00.000+01:00

It's my birthday today - forty six years since I began what some call a 'life journey'.

This set me thinking and while on the road today I did some mental arithmetic. I worked out that I could match each year of my life to a portion of my Walk Home. If I lived to the age of, say 75, one year would equate to seven miles (one seventy-fifth of the 525 mike walk).

So my first year of life would be represented by the walk from Notre Dame Cathedral to Nanterre, just outside Paris.

At the age of 21 I'd have shuffled along the timeline to 147 miles, which is where I approached the bridge at Tancarville, France.

So which milestone would equate with my 46th birthday? Well, I've already walked past it a long time ago, at south Bristol.

Today my walking total reached 430 miles, which would correspond to 61 years of a 75 year lifespan. I could get a bus pass.

These calculations haven't sent me into a crisis in realisation of my mortality but it's good to think about making the most of it all. And while I'm hoping for a bit more than 75 years, I suppose one of these passing trucks could throw out all my sums at any moment!

Day 42 - Worcester to Stourport

2009-06-03T13:51:00.000+01:00

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Day 41 Part 3 - Worcester

2009-06-03T11:14:00.001+01:00

(continued from Part Two)

I don't know Worcester well but a short walk through the city centre suggested that it's a prosperous place. I struggled to find somwhere to eat though - lots of cafes and bars that served lunches were already closed for the evening.

I sat in a cheap chicken and pizza place, with a modest chicken burger and fries, while a customer and the counter staff debated, in Urdu I think, the situation in the Swat Valley in Pakistan.

I met up with my mother and after a long search for somewhere for a quiet drink, we talked for a couple of hours.

Of all the Bible's passages in which a walking journey is significant, the encounter of the risen Jesus and the two disheartened disciples on the Emmaus Road is one of the best known.

The incident is recorded in Luke 24.17, "And he said to them, 'What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?'"

At this point, the identity of the stranger is unknown to the two disciples. They talk of their discouragement at the death of Jesus. After a long conversation they invite him to join them for dinner.

Only as he takes the bread, blesses it and shares it with them to they realise who he is. That Jesus is with them now is miraculous; that he was with them on the road in their unbelief, graciously present and undemanding, is even more amazing.

"Lord, thank you for your walking with me, even when my preoccupations have blinded me to your presence. Amen."

Day 41 Part 2 - balancing act

2009-06-03T11:11:00.001+01:00

(continued from Part One)

The sun was really intense but with a good walking surface and plenty to drink, I was getting through the miles easily.

I passed through Kempsey and reached the southern edge of Worcester in the late afternoon. I decided it was time to switch to the Severn Way and after a brief open path through a caravan park, I was soon plodding through the nettles again. It was striking how much less I could see and enjoy on the river compared with the road.

A stream interrupted the course of the footpath which looped inland. An unofficial shortcut lay invitingly in front of me in the form of a couple of fallen boughs. The drop beneath them would have left me badly hurt if I fell but I decided it was worth the risk. With my heavy backpack I wobbled onto the thick branch. Taking it very carefully, I edged forward. Confidence grew and I clambered across.

The path opened out at Diglis Lock and from here it was easy going into Worcester. It was busier too, with plenty of people out enjoying the sunshine.

I reached Burgage House, next to Worcester Cathedral, at 5pm. Louise welcomed my with a cool glass of iced water - very welcome.

(continues in Part Three)

Day 41 Part 1 - Perverse and foolish oft I've strayed?

2009-06-03T11:07:00.000+01:00

I lingered at Ivydene House in Uckinghall, enjoying its luxury and getting ready for a very hot day. The weather forecasters predicted temperatures as high as 28 Celsius so I filled my two litre Platypus water bladder to the brim. It was after eleven when I got out.

Beyond the hedge I could hear voices, speaking east European languages. Through the branches I saw a couple of dozen workers picking strawberries under the scorching sun.

The walk to Worcester offered a choice between The Severn Way and the A38, or some combination of the two. A riverside walk or a trunk road?

I decided to cover the section to Ryall on the A38. It's the old main road from the Midlands to the South West but through Worcestershire and Gloucestershire it runs parallel with the M5. When the motorway opened in the 1970s it left the A38 with just local traffic. So I found it quiet and easy going. With buildings to look at and hedges low enough to leave the views unobscured it offered better panoramas than the Severn Way. It even had a pavement, so there was no traffic dodging to worry about.

Before long I came up to some roadwork vehicles. The gang of men had erected a fence of temporary barriers to divert the footpath. I stopped for a chat and they laughed while telling me that I was the first pedestrian they'd seen in two weeks. I asked what they were doing and they told me they were removing old copper telephone cables which had long since been replaced by fibre optic cables.

The A38 reminded me of America's Route 66, on which I drove last year. The legacy of its status as a major national route are the breadth of its carriageway, its smooth cambered bends, and a collection of petrol stations turned into second hand car dealerships.

I found a burger van in a layby and stopped for a huge mug of tea for just 60p.

'The Yorkshire Grey' once catered for a busy stream of motorists but I found a notice on the door declaring it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. It can't be long before it closes altogether.

A little farther on I spotted a garden centre and restaurant. I though this would give me an economical lunch but paid £4.50 for a plain tuna sandwich and a can of coke.

(continues in Part Two)

Day 41 - Uckinghall to Worcester

2009-06-02T13:49:00.000+01:00

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Day 40 Part 3 - No food at the Inn

2009-06-02T12:09:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part Two)

It wasn't far to Uckinghall and Ivydene House offered me a sumptious welcome. I had a huge bed and en-suite bathroom, with the use of two downstairs lounges, a conservatory and vast garden.

At five, I was joined by Katri, of Ecclesiastical Insurance, one of my generous sponsors. She interviewed me for a press release and I was glad to tell her about the walk and how impressed I was with Gloucestershire.

I set off to The Railway Inn, the only pub in the village, to be disappointed that there was no chef and therefore no food on Mondays. After a lunch of nuts and raisins, my dinner was nuts and crisps. And beer, of course. The Cannon Royall "Muzzle Loader" was a bit of a 'misfire' but St Austell Brewery's "Proper Job" lived up to its name.

But it was good to sit at the bar and talk with the locals. Dave, who had run a plumbing wholesale business, a barmaid who loved New York but hated San Francisco, and an ex-submariner from Cheltenham. I also met Judi, who had appeared on BBC Midlands Today that evening, after moving some of her possessions back into her Uckinghall home two years after the flood. When I returned to my room, I saw her on the late news bulletin.

My walking verse was Luke 7.22 "Jesus answered them, 'Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.'"

Day 40 Part 2 - Cattle in the way

2009-06-02T12:08:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part One)

I reached the end of the lake and though my map showed the footpath continuing along the river, the arrow markers on posts suggested that I could only switch inland. Two walkers came the other way and while we chatted they couldn't offer any help.

I'm a conformist by nature and always feeling like a stranger in the countryside, I didn't want to offend against the rules. So inland I went, walking around the field of green barley instead of wading through it as the map indicated I should.

I picked up a bridle path, which I figured would be more substantial and easier going. It wasn't.

The path led to a gate, with another arrow marker pointing across a huge ploughed field. Clearly the bridle path had fallen into disuse and the farmer wasn't too bothered. I set out across the field, which was very heavy going. The earth was like concrete and the sun had baked it into crazily uneven shapes. I picked my way slowly under the scorching sun.

As I approached the far end of the field I could see cattle beyond the gate. A few months before I would have nervously gone straight through. But in January someone I know was trampled by bullocks, spent two hours in a field and weeks in hospital with broken ribs and collar bone. That had led me to search on Google for "walker" "attacked by bull" and, to my horror, the screen was full of stories.

A dozen cattle lay in the field beyond the gate. Approaching nervously I saw that they were almost full-grown and were different colours and shapes. One had long horns that curled in different directions to threatening points. Were they cows or bulls? I got closer still and the nearest, a brown and white beast with a very heavy brow (a Hereford?) heaved himself to his feet. I looked hopefully for udders. I was disappointed.

He fixed my in the eye. I walked to the gate. It was a narrow field - perhaps a hundred metres to the next gate. Was that short enough to outrun a dozen young bulls? No way. Looking closer, I saw that in fact there was no gate, just an opening to another field.

I considered my options. I weighed the pros and cons, even thinking that a minor goring would spice up my story and calculating that broken ribs would be almost mended by the time my sabbatical ended.

Two more cattle, one male, one female, roused themselves for possible action. Did they look calmed by the heat? Or were they up for a fight?

I decided to retreat. That meant yet another doubling-back, this time across the wretched ploughed field.

I eventually rejoined the road and worked my way round the lanes. At one point I looked across a hedge through the field of cattle and the ploughed field beyond. I'd added exactly an hour to the walk.

(continues in Part Three)

Day 40 Part 1 - across the floodplain

2009-06-02T11:58:00.000+01:00

Day 40 was always going to be one of those peculiar short walks, owing to the uneveness of the accomodation along my route. Gloucester to Tewkesbury was a convenient distance for Day 39 but trying to reach Worcester in one day would have been tough. So instead I'd set my sights on Uckinghall, just south of Upton-on-Severn.

Breakfast at Malvern View in Tewkesbury was delicious, especially the bacon and sausage, which Ron gets fom the local butcher. With time on my hands I chatted with Ron and Helen, two Scots who have lived in Surrey, USA and South Wales. Ron worked as a technician in the fabric mafacturing industry and had to relocate as companies closed or moved. We talked about the decline of manufacturing and how they found themselves in the bed and breakfast business.

I took a few wrong turns trying to pick up the river path. Tewkesbury is at the confluence of the Severn and the Avon and the smaller Carrant. I doubled back from Telford's bridge, along the lock and found another dead end at some new riverside homes. Eventually, I got onto The Mythe, the land between the Severn and Avon, whose flooded pumping station was the centre of so much attention during the summer of 2007. Five inches of rain had fallen in a single day and on top of the swollen Severn, which was already in flood, the effects were diastrous. Thounds were left without drinking water for two weeks and many were forced out of their homes. For a few days, Tewkesbury was completely cut off, except for a footpath along a disused railway.

Again it was hard to find the right path. I tunnelled through high cow parsley and nettles but the path ran out a small clearing. Tucked behind the overgrown weeds was an inflatable dinghy. Only for a fraction of a second did I think about taking it out onto the water.

Backtracking yet again, I picked up the proper path, which led me to the pumping station. There's still evidence of the floods, principally the flood defence walls built of huge sacks of gravel inside a tough plastic membrane. The footpath took me over these, via steel platforms and steps, into the pumping works, and back out again.

I followed the Severn as it turned north west, alongside large angling lakes. At one point I paused for a breather and as soon as I stopped to look at the lake between the trees a trout leapt from the water. It rose at least a foot, flexing its body into a powerful curve, and snatched an insect from the air. Majestic stuff. I've often turned at the sound of a splash, only to see rings and ripples. But never have I seen the flat water burst by such a fish.

(continues in Part Two)

Meandering

2009-06-02T09:17:00.000+01:00

"Meandering leads to perfection."

Lao Tzu

Day 40 - Tewkesbury to Uckinghall

2009-06-01T13:48:00.000+01:00

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Day 39 - Pentecost

2009-06-01T11:35:00.000+01:00

Sunday - a rest from walking and, even better, Jennifer came down to meet me.

Without miles ahead of me, I settled for cereal and poached egg on toast, then watched Andrew Marr interview Gordon Brown. Sunday morning television is a complete unknown to me.

Jennifer arrived just in time for us to get across to the Abbey for the eleven o'clock service. It was a sung eucharist for Pentecost, and though that's not my normal preference, very uplifting and charged with the presence of God.

It was first time that Jennifer and I have seen each other in two weeks, the last being with our friends in Bournemouth. And now I'm just two weeks from home, a little over a hundred miles to walk.

Though my walk has been a solo adventure, and though I've missed Jennifer, Jon and Phil, I've never felt lonely - the awareness of the presence of God by his Holy Spirit has been varied but unfailing.

We found a cafe serving roast pork for lunch, went for a stroll, had a coffee, an ice cream and a drink. We talked and talked and held hands through Tewkesbury. Fantastic to be together again.

My walking verse was Mark 12.38 "Jesus said, 'Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces...'"

Someone asked me before I set off if I was going to wear a clerical shirt and collar as I walked. "It could be useful," he said, "people will treat you better".

Sadly, he was probably right. But it was not a suggestion that I was going to adopt.

I noticed, after I was ordained, the difference that wearing a collar makes when I'm walking the streets. Some people smiled and acknowledged me, most were careful to avoid making eye contact. A few, I think, even cross the road. Four days after wearing a clerical collar I was on a Walsall pavement when a young man with a wild look in his eye walked up and punched me on the jaw.

I wear a collar most days in my normal ministry, and I think it's good to walk the streets of the parish in a visible way. But I'm enjoying being incognito during the walk, when people are courteous or pleasant it's reassuring that neither robes nor collar have provoked their respect.

Day 38 Part 3 - To Tewkesbury

2009-05-31T19:36:00.000+01:00

(continued from Part Two)

I picked up the river again for another stretch of the Severn Way, past several amazing huge oaks. The river, trees and meadows made for a beautiful walk in the sunshine.

By the time Chelsea had beaten Everton I was approaching Lower Lode. I rested at the boat club, whose wall was painted to show the levels of past floods. 1947 had been a bad year but the level of 2007 was much higher, above my head in fact.

The day's twelve and a half miles left me just a couple of miles short of four hundred for the walk so far.

It didn't take long to reach the Malvern View bed and breakfast at Tewkesbury's riverside. I'm in the smallest bedroom yet, little bigger than my single bed. But it's very comfortable, clean and Ron and Helen have made me very welcome. It's great value too - the cheapest rate of my whole trip.

The chicken dhansak at the local curry house was tasty, especially as I'd requested some finely-chopped green chillies as a topping.

Jennifer and I spoke on the phone again and it was great to plan a reunion on Pentecost Sunday.

My walking verse for the day was Matthew 9.5, "For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and walk.'

Day 38 Part 2 - Praying with Odda

2009-05-31T19:23:00.000+01:00

(continued from part 1)

The pub where I'd planned a swift half turned out to have become a Chinese restaurant. The staff were obviously disappointed that I wasn't a dining customer but served me a nicely chilled half-pint of cider.

I decided I'd had enough of nettles and took the narrow lane to Sandhurst, a long drawn-out kind of village. I wondered how these homes had fared during the awful floods of 2007.

At Brawn Farm I followed the bridle path to the top of Sandhurst Hill, where an inviting bench stood beneath a tree, next to the trig. point. It made a fabulous place for a rest. Under the scorching sun, the hills and vales of Gloucestershire were laid out in all directions. Creation in all its beauty.

The downhill path was trickily uneven as the sun had baked the hoof-stomped mud into ankle-turning terrain.

At the foot of Wainlode Hill I stopped at the Red Lion for a late lunch. Having written the day before about the evolution of the pub lunch, it was ironic that I ate a cheese and onion sandwich on white margarine-spread bread. The plain food helped the taste of Wickwar Cooper's bitter though, a perfectly balanced 'chewy' beer.

I plugged in my earphones and listened to the radio commentary on the FA Cup Final. Chelsea went a goal down as Everton scored after 25 seconds.

Another narrow lane took me into Apperley, a village of two halves. The southernmost part was a country estate village, whose cricketers played on an attractive green surrounded by haymaking. Two machines worked in partnership. The hay had already been mown, so the first gathered and baled it. The second picked up the bales, held and turned them while two spinning arms wrapped them in tough plastic film. It was as good to watch as the cricket beyond.

The brick semi-detached homes of north Apperley contrasted with the south and led me out of the village towards Deerhurst.

I stopped at Odda's Saxon Chapel, sitting in the cool and dark to rest and pray.

(continues in Part Three)

Day 38 Part 1 - I see ships

2009-05-31T19:07:00.000+01:00

Four weeks ago Rouen surprised me when I found it was holding a 24-hour powerboat race on the weekend that I arrived. Gloucester followed suit on Day 38 by surprising me with its annual tall ships festival.

There wasn't a huge number of fully-rigged sailing ships, perhaps just five or six. But even at 10:30 the crowds around the docks were growing. I liked the steam dredger whose chain of buckets scraped and scratched so noisily that it looked like the whole mechanism was about to seize.

The smoke from a steam crane blew through the rigging of the ships tied up at the quay and it was possible to imagine how busy these docks would have been one hundred and fifty years ago.

I slipped away from the dock through a small path, turning into the "Glavum Way" footpath alongside the mud-brown Severn. It was hard to avoid comparisons with the Seine, which frankly makes the Severn look like a trickle. Even the Eure, the biggest tributary of the Seine that I crossed, puts the Severn in the shade.

The path led through those kinds of small land-locked urban spaces which can't be developed for lack of access. The concrete undersides of bridges and flyovers offered graffiti artists canvasses perfect, except for the lack of viewers.

Soon the path changed from grit and dust-covered concrete to a nettle-maze. I found the track along the riverbank, where the Glavum Way and Severn Way are one and the same. Nettles have never been far from me on this walk but those on the Severn Way could win awards at Chelsea.

I had to lift my hands high in the air periodically as the most overgrown parts of the path were armpit-deep in nettles. The freshest leaves pierced my walking trousers to leave my knees sore.

Blue dragonflies rose before me in their hundreds as I disturbed them. It looked like the height of the dragonfly mating season as all but a tenth of them were conjugally coupled, both in flight as well as on the nettle leaves.

I was suprised to meet two walkers coming the other way. Dave and Susan are walking the Glavum Way in stages, parking a car at either end of a day's walk. Susan was in shorts and asked hopefully what nettle forecast I could offer. I broke the bad news. There was a way off the path to the road but if she persevered I reckon it would be agonising.

(continues in Part Two)

We shall not cease

2009-05-31T13:16:00.000+01:00

"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive at where we started and know the place for the first time."

T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

Day 38 - Gloucester to Tewkesbury

2009-05-30T13:48:00.000+01:00

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Steam dredger

2009-05-30T13:45:00.000+01:00

Found this in Gloucester Docks this morning, in steam and buckets moving. Click the link for a sound recording.
http://www.box.net/shared/eteekmy3iq

Day 37 Part 2 - Into Gloucester

2009-05-30T10:46:00.000+01:00

On towards Gloucester, counting down the mileposts.

At about six-thirty I approached the city up past disused wharfs and then newly-built offices, a Sainsbury store (not yet finished) and waterside apartments. Big money is being invested in Gloucester and it was good to see the docks being improved. On the east bank, opposite my path, factories had given way to old dock buildings, huge warehouses in dull red brick.

The dockside development in the city centre is still in full swing, even in the midst of a recession. Trish, landlady at the Spalite Hotel, told me that the new shopping centre is being opened this weekend "by that naked Chinese man."

"Gok Wan?", I offered.

"That's 'im!"

She told me in her wonderfully broad Gloucester accent that when the centre opened for the very first time last Saturday it was chaos. "People were stuck in the queue to get out of the car park for two hours."

It was seven o'clock when I'd completed the day's fifteen miles and reached Spalite Hotel. It's in a perfect location but at £25 a night including breakfast, very much at the budget end of my accomodation, so my expectations were low. The drunks on the street didn't encourage me either. But the hotel was fine - clean, neat and tidy.

I was just too tired to go out to eat, so I washed and changed and ate a flapjack for dinner in bed, listening to the radio. It was great to talk with Jennifer and to plan to meet in Tewkesbury on Sunday.

My walking verse for the day was Zechariah 10.12, "I will make them strong in the Lord and they shall walk in his name, says the Lord."

Strength is certainly something I'm praying for at the moment.

Day 37 Part 1 - The heat is on

2009-05-30T10:33:00.000+01:00

Amanda toasted some of Nick's home-baked bread for me and I lingered with them until 11am before setting off.

My socks hadn't dried properly so I walked through Middleyard, King's Stanley and Frocester with them dangling from the waistband of my rucksack. These Bridgedale socks have been perfect for walking but the thickness of the sole means they take ages to dry.

The sun was getting higher and hotter. It was humid and there were cumulous clouds but it still turned out to be the hottest day of the year.

At the King's Head in Eastington at one o'clock I had a good lunch and a pint of "Bob". Sadly, during the 45 minutes that I was there, I was the only customer. Friday lunchtime on a hot day used to guarantee good trade and it's no wonder that five pubs are closing each day.

The walk has given me a chance to survey the health of the pub trade and it's certainly not thriving. The quality of the food has been high - even better than I expected. A pub lunch used to mean a cheese and pickle cob or, at the top end, a plate of gammon and egg. I've eaten really well in most places.

I reached Frampton-on-Severn, whose village green is reputedly the longest in the country. The walk down to the village appeared on the map to be down a quiet lane. But I had to duck into the hedges to let the numerous gravel trucks and tractors pass.

It was a relief to get onto the Gloucester-Sharpness Canal at Saul Junction. The canal is broad enough to take lots of boat traffic and every road bridge can swing to allow taller vessels to pass.

This was the first time I'd walked along a canal since leaving Tancarville on Day 14 and it was really pleasant to have the water beside me. The biggest drawback was the heat; with the sun directly behind me there was no shade.

The previous day had been very warm but as I'd slogged up and down hills there were cooler moments under the denser trees. The Cotswold Way had occasionally led me through little hollows in the woods and I loved stepping into the refreshing pools of cool air.

I carried on along the canal, swigging mouthfuls from the tube connected to the water bladder in my pack, hoping that it wouldn't run out (it didn't).

A family of swans, mum, dadnd eight fluffy plump signets came up to the bank to pose for photographs.

Eventually I decided I needed a longer break and slumped onto the grass beside another swing bridge. I unbound the laces on my boots, heaved them from my feet and stripped out the insoles so they could air in the sunshine. My tired back, neck and leg muscles relaxed and my bones let themselves into the grass. I covered my head with my hat and dozed. Goodness knows what I looked like.

Swan family

2009-05-29T21:37:00.000+01:00

Mum, dad and eight signets on the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal.

Day 37 - Kings Stanley to Gloucester

2009-05-29T13:46:00.000+01:00

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Day 36 Part 2 - The Cotswold Way

2009-05-29T11:40:00.001+01:00

(continued from part two)

I found it hard to work out what kind of town Dursley is. It's quite substantial and its setting nestling in the Cotswolds is an attractive one. But I have a hunch, uninformed and unspecific, that something of Dursley's potential is as yet unrealised.

I'd decided at the beginning of the day that the 'easy route' along the A38 and through the broad valley to Middleyard would be dull compared with the hills. Now I revised my route again, choosing to follow the Cotswold Way footpath out of Dursley but skipping an unnecessary detour over Cam Long Down.

The Way is an obviously well-used path. Across grassy fields, the path is bare - a pleasantly smooth and slightly yielding surface on which to walk.

I briefly joined the B4066 to pass Hetty Pegler's Tump, also known, perhaps less prosaically, as Uley long barrow.

The sun was low as I reached Coaley Peak, whose steep western escarpement is perfect launching ground for paragliders. Three of them stood on the top of the slope, taking turns waiting for the wind to strengthen. The breeze was just enough to inflate the brightly coloured canopies but apparently without the power for a take-off. They reminded me of natural history films that record the nervous attempts of cliff-top fledglings.

Coaley Peak offers amazing views across the Severn Estuary and a viewfinding board told me that the distant dark mountains were the Brecon Beacons, some 33 miles distant.

The Cotswold Way led my aching feet through the beech woods down and down. I met Bill, a walker coming uphill and he told me he's begun training for a walk to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro is September. He's 72. Bill has walked in all sorts of amazing places, including the Himalayas. We talked about my walk andzwished each other well.

In Stanley Wood, I saw Amanda, her son Patrick and black labrador Nancy, walking up the path. I'd rung Nick from the top of Coaley Peak, to tell him when I'd be likely to arrive.

It was great to see each other again after about eight years. Nick and Isobella were waiting at their home in Middleyard and I enjoyedxa wonderful home-cooked dinner and Nick's amazingly delicious home-brewed beer. In my previous personal experience, I usually hesitate in response to the question, "Would you like to try my home-brewed beer?" But for sore legs, tired mind and body the brew was a perfect conclusion to a tough nineteen mile day.

My total so far: 371 miles.

Day 36 Part 1 - Prison visiting

2009-05-29T11:37:00.002+01:00

Roger and Mary at Wellwater B&B gave me a filling and very tasty breakfast before I left Thornbury. It was good to get on the road slightly earlier than usual as I'd always known this would be one of the was most testing days. I had nineteen miles to walk and the southern hills of the Cotswolds to climb.

The cloud soon lifted and I walked an easy few miles in sunshine, across the A38 and over the M5. This was the first time in the whole route that I was heading east as well as north and it felt odd for the sunshine to fall on my right side.

I turned to pass Leyhill prison, where I spent Holy Week in 2000. Julie, and I lead a mission with a dozen other students and it was one of the most significant parts of my training. It would have been great to go inside, to wander through the wings where we had many conversations with prisoners, the theatre where we put on a passion play with the help of the inmates, the chapel where a spontaneous Good Friday service took place, the cell where I slept. But those visits are hard to arrange.

It occured to me that with a third of Leyhill's prisoners serving life sentences, some of those who I met all those years ago might still be inside.

My walking verse for the day was the great injunction fRom Micah 6.8, "...what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."

I bought a light lunch at the Tortworth Estate shop, chatted with assistants and took to the road again.

The noise of the M5 was a more or less constant companion and I wondered if I might be able to slip through the trees and have a coffee at Michaelwood Services. I'd have enjoyed being a pedestrian visitor but sadly, I couldn't find any access.

I'd had a late night with Neil and by the time I paused at the railway bridge I was ready for a nap. But without anywhere to sit down I pushed on towards the hills and the Tyndale Monument.

Past Nibley Green I stopped for a chat with a lady, across her garden wall half way up Stinchcombe Hill. She suggested that I go left and pick up the Cotswold Way footpath. But I'd already worked out what I thought would be an easier route, taking a steep section on the road and then following a footpath through the woods to Dursley. I should have listened to her advice.

I worked out long ago that the natural way of walking uphill, taking slow strides, isn't very efficient. Better to shorten your stride and keep to a regular pace. So I shuffled up the 1:4 gradient, like a cyclist in his lowest gear. It also pays not to look for the summit, which is inevitably succeeded by another as the undulations of the road cheat your expectations. Instead, I don't think about the painfully slow progress I'm making, I simply trudge.

I found the sign pointing into footpath through the woods but within a hundred yards it petered out in a jumble of muddy tracks and clearings. I realised it was very likely that I'd miss the track that I was aiming for, so retraced my steps to the road again.

I passed an 'unofficial' travellers camp, with a large dog sprawled in the sunshine in the middle of the road. I turned at the next downhill road, which now joined the Cotswold Way, into Dursley.

(continued in part two)

Day 36 - Thornbury to Kings Stanley

2009-05-28T13:46:00.000+01:00

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Day 35 - a thirty year reunion

2009-05-28T08:01:00.001+01:00

I planned my route between friends by trying to even out the daily distances. Day 35, however, was always going to be an odd one. Thornbury was just six miles north of Almondsbury, leaving me an eighteen-miler for Day 36.

There was still time For surprises though. For instance, on the map Old Down looked unremarkable. Even though it was raining steadily, Old Down perked my spirits somehow. Perhaps it began with the two small children cycling on the path, who said "thank you", unprompted by their mum, when I stepped aside.

There were signs of investment in the village - not spectacular sums of money but deliberate efforts to make the place better. Not naturally attractive, the setting was improved well maintained open spaces. The houses weren't anything special but this place felt as desirable a place to live as any I've passed.

Through Alveston and into Thornbury, which I reached before 12:30. I took my time over lunch then whiled away more time in the tiny town museum. It's great that places like this exist, run by volunteers and with no admission charge. I got the impression that visitors are few and the team made me very welcome.

I decided to get my hair cut and queued for ages, watching youngsters playing the shop's games console. Eventually my turn came and I was mauled with the roughest handling I've received from a barber. He was in his twenties, his right arm was tattooed from shoulder to wrist.

He'd only just finished with the electric razor when the power failed. Fortunately I wasn't left with a half-finished job.

In a Thornbury pub in the evening I met up with Neil, a close friend from secondary school, who I haven't seen for thirty years. Neil joined the army at sixteen and did fourteen years in the Signals regiment. Since then he's done all sorts of jobs, moved around the country and worked abroad. A father of two daughters, he also has two grandaughters.

We talked for hours and were joined by Sandra and Claire, his wife and youngest daughter. I think we were the last to leave at eleven thirty, having remembered old schoolmates, teachers and the holidays we took together to my grandad's cottage in North Wales.

I loved the way that Neil remembers so much of the detail and can't believe it's taken us so long to meet again.

Above all do not lose your desire to walk

2009-05-28T07:15:00.000+01:00

"Above all do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday I walk myself into a state of well being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill...if one keeps on walking everything will be alright."

Soren Kierkegaard.

Day 34 Part 2 - To Almondsbury

2009-05-27T15:50:00.001+01:00

(continued from part one)

I walked out of Shirehampton on the old road towards Bristol, where a plaque recorded how in the days before refrigeration, live cattle were brought along the road from Avonmouth Docks by drovers. They used to pause to let the animals drink at a pool (now the golf course) before leading them to the city abbatoir.

I took the footpath past Kings Weston House, through the parkland at Blais Castle, where the rain started. A heavy shower poured as I walked through Henbury, Catbrain Hill and up to The Mall at Cribbs Causeway.

I took a coffee break at John Lewis, where I also picked up a travel sewing kit. My temporary repair of my walking trousers with a bulldog clip was threatening to give way without warning and I wanted a more secure solution.

Crossing under the M5 (the first motorway I've encountered in the English leg of my walk) I found my way carefully along the back road to Over and Almondsbury. The route is a bit of a shortcut between motorway junctions and the narrow verge-less road was as dicey as any I've been on.

Crossover House B&B is a very comfortable place to stay. I dined at The Bowl Inn (pork rissoles and a nice pint of Brain's Rev James). I fell into conversation with two men sent on a motivational training course by their company. The course might have been more motivational had they not been told a week before that their office would be closed.

Day 34 Part 1 - retracing a homeward journey

2009-05-27T15:45:00.000+01:00

I began the day at Trinity College by breakfasting with some of the students. I was delighted to find that John Bimson, my old tutor, was at work. We chatted in his study, where our pastoral group had met each week.

From Trinity I followed the route which I used to cycle, onto the main A4, through Sea Mills and into Shirehampton. For the first time on this adventure I was retracing one of my old homeward journeys.

I paused at our old house at 29 Dursley Road, then met up as arranged with Arran, who had been our next-door neighbour with his mum Tricia, sister Tanya and brother Kyle. Arran and I walked down to The Lamplighters pub, on the banks of the Avon. These really were old haunts and memories came flooding back.

We walked together up to Shirehampton Infants and Junior Schools, remembering how Arran and my sons Jon and Phil would share this journey so often.

There was, I suppose, a tangential connection with my walking verse for Day 34: Amos 3.3, "Do two walk together unless they have made an appointment?"

It's part of a sequence of rhetorical questions about causation, the point being that as God speaks judgement he will also act to bring it about.

I'd shared little bits of my journey the previous day before with Wendy, and now with Arran. Conversation unfolds easily when you're walking with a companion.

(continued in part 2)

Day 35 - Almondsbury to Thornbury

2009-05-27T13:44:00.000+01:00

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Orange tree

2009-05-26T18:31:00.000+01:00

Slow to walking pace and you see amazing sights at the side of the road. Take this Orange tree for example.

Spotted just south of Almondsbury, it's a bit bare and stumpy. It's dark plastic bark is textured just like wood but it's only likely to produce texts and calls, no fruit.

Day 34 - Clifton to Almondsbury

2009-05-26T13:44:00.000+01:00

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200 miles to go

2009-05-26T11:44:00.000+01:00

With 330 miles walked, there's only about 200 left.

Picture is of the Avon, between Sea Mills and Shirehampton.

Day 33 Part 3 - Trinity College

2009-05-26T11:06:00.001+01:00

(Continued from Part Two)

Trinity College was all but deserted, this being both a bank holiday and the start of reading week. The emptiness made it easier for my imagination to populate the familar rooms and corridors with the class of '98.

I saw the college in a strange mixture of familiarity and as I had seen it for the very first time. Very little in the fabric of the place has changed. The stairs creaked in the same way, the oldest doors closed in the same unique fashion, the Oak Chapel still had a distinctive smell.

I found my room in the Carter building, and chatted with the few single students who were still on site.

My walking verse for the day was Hosea 11.3: "It was I who
Taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them." Quite appropriate for a day in which I was thinking so much about my learning and formation for ministry.

"Thank you Lord for what I have learned from you, for setting me among both the gifted and the impoverished, who have all had lessons for me. Amen."

Day 33 Part 2 - Barton Hill

2009-05-26T11:05:00.002+01:00

(continued from Part One)

At St Luke's Church I met up with Wendy and we sat under the porch out of the drizzle. I had spent six months in the community as an Urban Theology Project. We'd also worshipped here for eighteen months ten years ago. "I asked around," Wendy said, "but nobody remembered you."

I laughed. How funny that this place had been so formative and special for me but that I was unremembered. I loved the asymmetry of it. It's good to be humbled periodically.

Wendy and I walked around the estate, she showing me what had changed. "The place is different now." she said.

Ten years ago the very first Somali immigrants were being housed here, now they are a majority of the residents in the tower blocks and low-rise flats. There have been big physical changes too. The estate had pioneered the "New Deal for Communities" programme. £50 million over ten years amounted to £10,000 for every man, woman and child. Apart from the new school, there's a health centre, children's playground, and lots of steel fences and security cameras. But there was a calmness and a greater sense of peace about the place than I remembered. Apparently a lot of the money was spent on employing local people and I'm glad that it wasn't simply non-resident professionals who benefitted.

Wendy and I walked and talked as we went through Lawrence Hill and into the city centre. The new Cabot Circus shopping centre was busy - how different from the French bank holidays I experienced, where even Ikea closed for the day.

I walked through Broadmead, along the Quay and up Park Street, remembering the very first time we came here as a family. That first move away from Wolverhampton was such a big one for us all.

Up Whiteladies Road and Blackboy Hill to the Downs, where we came as a family to watch the solar eclipse. I'd walked here often, many times during the period of silence which followed David Runcorn's Wednesday morning spirituality lectures.

(Continued in Part Three)

Day 33 Part 1 - Knowle

2009-05-26T11:03:00.001+01:00

My thirty-third day took me in a loop around inner Bristol. I headed up the Wells Road and found the Church of the Holy Nativity at Knowle. I spent six weeks here on placement duringf training, having asked the college to place me in as different a context as possible. Holy Trinity is an anglo-catholic church, and I found myself lost in a world of 7.30am daily office and mass, the RC Breviary, incense, services of Benediction and staunch opposition to the ordination of women. But as well as being bewildering it was fun and it was clear that though we had big differences, this was a mission-minded community. It was a good placement.

I hadn't confined myself to the church but spent a lot of time understanding the area by walking its streets. This long-distance walk is, so I had thought, quite unlike anything I've done before. But I've come to remember that walking through urban areas with eyes and ears open is something that's been very significant for a long time.

I past Totterdown and took the 1:4 side road down to the Bath Road, which I crossed into St Philip's Marsh. This is an industrial area, not of vast gleaming factories but of hundreds of small and apparently struggling firms. It was Bank Holiday Monday so all was silent. All except the Bristol Dogs Home, whose inmates howled and barked like the scariest of the French "chiens mechant".

I thought of the busyness of Bristol's leisure spots. While I was completely alone in this vast industrial estate the Downs would be full and Cribbs Causeway heaving with shoppers.

I walked through Temple Meads under the railway bridges and familiar landmarks towards Barton Hill. The Rhubarb Tavern was still standing but the school had been completely rebuilt.

(continued in Part Two)

Crossing boundaries

2009-05-26T11:00:00.001+01:00

The extent to which people live in boundaried spaces has become an key theme of my walk. So it was good to rediscover the boundary marks on the Clifton Downs yesterday.

Day 33 - Knowle West to Clifton

2009-05-25T13:43:00.000+01:00

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The longest journey

2009-05-25T13:15:00.000+01:00

"The longest journey begins with a single step."

Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

Day 32 Knowle West

2009-05-25T11:39:00.000+01:00

I had a great weekend with Alister and Sally, who showed me such hospitality. Way back in 1986 they invited Jennifer and me to lunch and in those days of exploring and discovering, my own journey of faith began.

We talked into the late evening about all sorts - catching up on family news, shared friends and the challenges of being missional churches. Alister is a radical and conversation with him is always inspiring and stretching. He approaches issues from outside the perspective of institutions and_ seeks to stand in solidarity with the poorest and excluded. In Knowle West he's shaped creative relational ministries, enabling the whole church community in its engagement.

We talked a lot about sustainability, both in the context of changing patterns of stipendiary ministry and low-energy futures.

On Sunday I joined them for worship at St Barnabas Church and I really appreciated hearing him preach for the first time in fifteen years.

After lunch we headed off in the car to join hundreds in the sunshine at Blaise Castle. We climbed to the top of the folly and picked out the city's landmarks again.

We drove down into the harbour area and I was struck by the transformation. There are scores of apartment blocks, fashionable a year ago but in a post-credit-crunch era unaffordable and largely empty. I thought that the architecture and planning worked very well, creating a very desirable area to live in. The tragedy though is that unless some affordable property is created there is little chance that it could become a true neighbourhood. On this walk I'm seeing more places in which there is little or no diversity.

A recurring theme in my reflection on my pilgrimage is the extent to which my journey contrasts with the massive displacements of the world's poorest people. Like millions, I am on the move. But money means that I've never had to worry about finding enough to eat or somewhere to stay.

The context of the Book of Lamentations is a quite specific bereavement. Here is a lament of a nation under attack and under judgement. My walking verse was Lamentations 4.18: "They dogged our steps so that we could not walk in our streets; our end drew near; our days were numbered; for our end had come."

The brief jottings in this blog and my other hastily recorded notes aren't the best place to wrestle with such big issues. But I hope when I return I'll get chance to make some deeper connections between all this raw data.

Day 31 Part 2 - Into Bristol

2009-05-25T09:18:00.001+01:00

(Continued from Part One)

After lunch I walked along the west shore of Chew Valley Lake and up into Chew Stoke. One fork in the road offered me a Bunyanesque choice of "Pilgrim Road" and "Pagan's Hill". The former would have taken me well off my route, so I plumped for the latter. I didn't spot any pagans but I guess you can't tell, can you?

Up Chew Hill and then steeper calf-burning climbs to Maiden Head at the top of Dundry Hill. The heat had intensified but there was no haze to hide the spectacular panorama. The Welsh hills lay clearly beyond the two Severn suspension bridges. And Bristol lay directly before me. I know the city well enough to pick out a dozen landmarks.

The road led down to Withywood, where crowds of drinkers stood in the sunshine outside the pubs.

Into Bishopsworth and then east to Hartcliffe. Hartcliffe is a strange 'outer estate', practically in the countryside but very disadvantaged. It was built on the south side of a dual carriageway and at one time many jobs were available on the north side at the Imperial Tobacco factory and others. The factories have long closed or become 'distribution centres' employing handfuls.

I walked up through the Novers Park estate and into Knowle West. Crossing a green a group of young men shouted out to their friend, "Kieran!"

Kieran responded with a song, bellowed at the top of his voice, "Let's get f-----g hammered!" And with that he danced past me into Costcutter, whose shelves were piled high with super-strength brews.

Along the road I found St Barnabas Vicarage, the home of my friends Alister and Sally.

My walking verse for the day was Jeremiah 10.23: "I know, O Lord, that the way of human beings is not their control, that mortals as they walk cannot direct their steps."

Day 31 Part 1 - Lycra and velvet

2009-05-25T08:35:00.001+01:00

Simon and Lisa gave me the kind of hearty breakfast I was hoping for with such a big challenge ahead of me. Day 31 was always going to be a tough one, with two big climbs and over eighteen miles to Bristol.

Cheddar was already busy with tourists on the Saturday of a sunny Bank Holiday. The roads were also full of cyclists, hundreds of them panting up the gorge in a procession of sweaty Lycra.

I followed the road at a less breathless pace past the souvenir shops. I spotted the one that fuelled a merry afternoon's climb with a gallon of rough cider when I came with friends on holiday as a nineteen year old. I decided it would be unwise to repeat the experience this time.

The Gorge is one of England's natural wonders and still impresses after a number of visits. As the road climbs the cliffs get closer and steeper. There were plenty of walkers and climbers about and a convoy of vintage Jaguar cars came down the hill.

I left the road through a gate and headed up 'Velvet Bottom', a path that lead past the Black Rock and the valley where lead ore was mined and refined. The Romans exploited the mineral deposits, which continued to be worked right up to the nineteenth century. Sure enough, the grass was as velvety as the name promised, and was cropped like snooker beize by the huge numbers of rabbits.

By now it was becoming a gloriously sunny day. The high clouds thinned and the sun grew in strength.

I had climbed to 850 feet and the going was steady. Sadly, when I reached the Wellsway Inn it was closed. I checked Google Maps and it confirmed that the next pub on the route was The Blue Bowl. I rang ahead to make sure they were open.

(continued in part 2)

Comments troubles

2009-05-24T14:29:00.001+01:00

Sorry for a bug with the comments on the blog, which I hope I've now fixed.

Day 30 Part 2 - To Cheddar

2009-05-23T23:26:00.000+01:00

(continued from part 1)

The lanes north of Glastonbury are untidy and unattractive. A notice outside what looked like a scrapyard advertised "Cabbage plants 3p each". When did you last see anything for threepence? Seeing no fields of cabbages, I even wondered if it was a euphemismistic advertisement for some other kind of shrub!

Compared with the cosy vales of Dorset and the South Somerset hills, the moors of drained peat marsh are rather plain (sorry). I crossed East Backwear, surprised that a settlement as small as Godney has its own church, and took to the hills again at Bleadney.

I was ready for a good lunch and at The Panborough Inn I got one. Two courses, whitebait and vegetable lasagne, accompanied by Cheddar Ales' "Gorge Best".

The road took me through Theale and Latcham to Wedmore, whose roadsigns proclaim its significance as the place where King Arthur made peace. I shall have to find out why, when and with whom.

Down through Cocklake and Clewer and onto Cheddar Moor. Grass for silage was being collected on the lower slopes of the hills. One vehicle scooped the grass up and blew it from a spout into a trailer towed by a tractor. It was fascinating teamwork.

I reached Simon and Lisa's very comfortable B&B on the outskirts of Cheddar not long after 5pm.

Day 30 Part 1 - Signs

2009-05-23T23:18:00.001+01:00

Sister Annverena, a member of the Companions of Jesus the Good Shepherd in Oxfordshire, joined me for breakfast at Glastonbury's Abbey House. We compared stories of walking alone through France, she having walked from Dieppe to Paris many years ago.

We were soon joined by Janet and Ann, members of the Diocese of Exeter's Mothers' Union, whose annual retreat was concluding.

It was a jolly breakfast, no fry-up but lots of toast, Weetabix and lovely prunes.

I tried typing notes on my bluetooth keyboard but alas, I think it's broken for good. It's made of a brittle plastic and just not tough enough. A great gadget but not up to the job.

Glastonbury has one of my favourite signs. Carved into the wall next to a drinking fountain by the Methodist Church is this gem: "PUBLIC NOTICE - COMMIT NO NUISANCE".

It's so gloriously vague I reckon the chosen wording was the culmination of interminable committee meetings. I wonder if its injunction has had any effect on public order.

Another gem of a sign at the Glastonbury Pilgrim Centre: "We have moved."

It would have been nice to find out what happens in the centre but alas, it had moved off my route.

(continued in part two)

Day 31 - Cheddar to Knowle West

2009-05-23T13:42:00.000+01:00

View Larger Map

Day 30 - Glastonbury to Cheddar

2009-05-22T13:41:00.000+01:00

View Larger Map

Somerset levels

2009-05-22T13:27:00.000+01:00

Low-lying ground four miles west of Wooky.

Glastonbury Abbey

2009-05-22T10:43:00.000+01:00

I took this from the gardens ofsthe Abbey House, where I stayed last night.

Day 29 Part 2 - Glastonbury

2009-05-22T10:30:00.000+01:00

(continued from part one)

I arrived at The Abbey House, the retreat centre for the Diocese of Bath and Wells. It was a place to which I wanted to return as soon as I planned my walk. My only previous visit was for the three-day selection panel which led to me being recommended for ordination training.

It's over a decade since I was here but stepping into the various rooms I can recall the conversations that took place. The large room was where we were first briefed and where we sat a strange multiple-choice intelligence test. In another I remember a casual conversation with exhausted fellow candidates awaiting one-to-one interviews. I'm typing these notes in one of the interview rooms and I'm pretty sure that I was sat right here answering pastoral ministry questions.

I've already been in the large drawing room where we underwent one of the strangest experiences of the selection conference. We sat as a group of about eight, around a table on which there were sheets of typed paper.

These told us about a fictional parish which we were going to discuss, under the scrutiny of the selectors, who sat with writing pads in their laps around the edge of the room. Our pieces of paper were different; each describing a particular issue affecting the parish in question. We had ten minutes each in which to outline the issue and chair a discussion.

It was a gruelling experience. The young man who went first set about explaining his particular topic. The more he talked, the more nervous he got. I could see that in between his increasingly confused sentences he was taking shorter and shorter snatches of breath.

The tension built and we all got nervous for him. It would have been kind to interject with a comment but he scarcely left time between his frantic explanations. Eventually, as we shot each other anxious glances, he burst into the face of the woman who was sitting next to him, "So what do you think?"

She squealed. The selectors all started scribbling. We knew he'd blown it.

Revisiting today has brought all that back to me. It's reminded me how very small I felt in the processes of the Church of England. Now, as Warden of Readers, I'm organising the selection of candidates for ministry in our diocese and, for their sakes, I never want to forget how nerve-wracking the whole experience can be.

I've just popped into Glastonbury itself to buy a sandwich for dinner. The town has as many loopy shops selling spells, crystals, and mystic nonsense as it always has. The characters on the street look much as they did all those years ago and the smells of patchouli and cannabis still drift up the main street.

This must be the fourth or fifth time I've visited and oddly enough the second time on 'pilgrimage'. The previous occasion was a rather bizarre day in which I accompanied parishioners and clergy from my placement church in Bristol to the annual Glastonbury Pilgrimage for catholic parishes in the Church of England.

I had tried to lay aside my evangelical reservations and smiled at the thurifers' competitive incense-swinging in procession along the main street. The service in the grounds of the Abbey was... tolerable.

I sat on a bench eating a sandwich and banana dinner, then joined the congregation at St John the Baptist for an Ascension Day service. Holy Communion at last.

Day 29 Part 1 - Ancient paths

2009-05-22T10:26:00.002+01:00

It's been very close to a perfect walking day.

Slipping out of Sparkford and almost immediately into Somerset, I found my way through lanes heavy with hawthorn blossom and the scent of wild garlic.

Cumulous clouds were building and their dark grey bases looked like they might produce rain. But there were plenty of gaps in between and in a gentle breeze felt positively summery. The shaded parts of the lane were cool and it was never too hot to be comfortable.

The Harriers and helicopters of RNAS Yeovilton were up and about. I found my way through South Barrow to Babcary.

My walking verse for the day was one of my favourites of the whole route. My friend Colin had also spotted it and included it in a card he sent before I set off. It was Jeremiah 6.16: "Thus says the Lord: 'Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.'"

It was providential that this should be my verse on a day when I crossed the Fosse Way, the ancient Roman road which would have taken me directly to Leicester if I'd stayed on it. I managed to walk for only a mile and I reckon it would have led me to an early grave rather than Leicester - it's viciously fast, with little verge and huge lorries.

I got to the crossroads at Lydford-on-Fosse and thought of the verse. This is surely a crossroads at one of Britain's ancient paths.

Workmen were rebuilding the front of a house at the junction and I made some remark about the danger of the road. One of them told me that the house they were working on was hit by a Land Rover which had hurtled through the junction and clipped another car. The driver was found asleep in the footwell and survived.

I looked again at the half-destroyed house and wondered about the family who'd been living behind temporary shuttering for two years while the insurance was sorted. The junction was a frightful place and I couldn't imagine living there.

So I'd stood at this crossroads and looked, and asked. Though this ancient path is still very much used, there was scarcely any sign of rest for souls.

We tend to seek the way of peace assuming it's physical way, a mappable route. But the Way of life is not a track or highway, he's a person, Jesus Christ.

On to Keinton Mandeville, where I lunched at The Quarry Inn. The place looked like a really well-run pub, and there were plenty of patrons as I enjoyed a huge jacket potato and pint of well-kept Exmoor Ale.

After lunch I descended from Barton St David through Butleigh to the levels and the skies cleared. I glimpsed Glastonbury Tor through the trees and wondered how many thousands of pilgrims had fixed their eyes on it during the last part of their journey to the Abbey.
Somerset's cows seemed more curious than Dorset's. Every time I passed a field, they wandered over to check me out.

(continued in Part Two)

We must

2009-05-22T07:14:00.000+01:00

"We must walk before we run."

George Borrow, Lavengro

Caterpillars in silk

2009-05-21T19:09:00.000+01:00

At first I thought these were spiders' webs. Then I noticed that each was filled with wriggling caterpillars.

Hedge

2009-05-21T18:59:00.000+01:00

Cross or plough

2009-05-21T18:57:00.000+01:00

Broad Park Farm has this at its gate. I first thought it was a cross but the horizontal piece looks like a branch that might have formed part of a plough. Glastonbury Tor is in the background.

Curious cows

2009-05-21T18:53:00.000+01:00

Somerset's cows seem more curious than Dorset's. As I pass, they trot over and jostle each other to get a good look. I tried talking but I think they have difficulty with my accent.