Day 29 Part 1 - Ancient paths

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)