Day 25 Part 1 - Parting again

I woke early so that I could do another live interview with BBC Radio Leicester. It went well but I'm always concerned that afterwards that I might have given wrong impressions or failed to say something important. I guess I'm anxious that I don't imply that I'm having a fabulous holiday at other people's expense. Perhaps I worry too much about what other people think. I was to think more during the day about appearances, as you'll see.

We went to church with Jenny, Chas and Emily. It was a family service, with a congregation of about thirty. There were a handful of small children and some older boys and girls in scouts. Five or six scout leaders came. I saw two older ladies and another six or seven people. It felt very thin.

Jen led worship, played the piano, and did the drama with Chas. She'd written a fabulous script, along the lines of Channel Four's 'Grand Designs', to demonstrate the building of the wall of Jerusalem by Nehemiah.

After a lovely roast dinner of roast beef, cooked by Chas, I packed and set off. Leaving Jennifer was hard for us both but I know that our separation is much harder for her to bear, especially as she returns home without me. For me, the days are full of new things. I keep thinking how it would be lovely to share them with her. But I'm not lonely. For Jennifer, the only thing different is my absence, and that's much tougher.

I'm not going to write much one this blog about family and friends. But separating and meeting again confirms how much I love Jennifer, and Jon and Phil. I'm proud of them all. Enough said for now.

I was asked during the radio interview about being on my own and during the day I thought about it further. As I said, I'm not lonely, but I do feel the isolation. I thought about people who are involuntarily isolated by bereavement, divorce or redundancy.

I walked along broad tree-lined avenues and narrower streets of ex-council houses, through the Bournemouth suburbs of Moordown, into Ensbury Park and Northbourne. The map shows how surprisingly big the Poole-Bournemouth-Christchurch conurbation is and I think I've walked fifteen miles or so through residential districts.

When I reached the River Stour things opened up and I picked up the Stour Valley Way footpath. The broad tracks reminded me of France's footpaths. The rain that had made me put on my cumbersome waterproof overtrousers had long stopped, and it was a relief to cool down again without them. It was a gusty day, typical of early April and disappointing for mid-May.

I paused to rest on a bench at the tenth tee of a golf-course and chatted with a couple of ladies who were waiting to play. "Are you walking far?"
"About five hundred miles."

From the golf course the path led me onto the boundary of a beautifully-kept cricket pitch. Sadly, no match was in progress. The short springy grass felt really good to walk on and I gave a moment's thought to the variety of surfaces that a walk like this entails. Pavements and roads, gravel tracks, rocky paths, hard-packed soil and grass of various lengths. I hadn't expected how significant, and how welcome, this variety would be.

I struggled at a kissing-gate, which wasn't designed with rucksacks in mind. It took me three or four attempts to squeeze through. If Jennifer had been with me, I'd have pecked her cheek as I did so.

[continued in part two]