The Walk

So, it’s time to talk about the main thing that brought me to start my own blog instead of just reading other peoples.  Though of course reading other peoples is  what got me started, a big part.  And part of what inspired the subject of this post.

The Walk.

Last year when I was contemplating leaving the job I had done for 10 years, and the organisation I had worked in for just over 20 years, I felt  the need to mark to occasion by doing something I had never done before.

When I was coming up to my 50th birthday I did a sponsored cycle ride from Bath to Dublin in 4 days.  What an experience!  Not one I want to repeat, but neither would I have missed it for anything.

This time it’s all about walking.  I love walking, and I’m lucky enough to live in a beautiful city with stunning countryside around it.  Malcolm and I walk together a lot, and since finishing that job at the end of May, I often walk on my own as well, pretty much every day.

The idea developed and grew gradually, and now it has evolved into A Plan and A Route.

I am going to walk from Bath to Greenwich, along waterways – the Kennet and Avon Canal, and the Thames.  More specifically, I will walk from a small and very lovely church near where I live (St Alphege) to a large and very lovely church in Greenwich opposite where my son and his partner live (St Alfege).   Same saint, different spellings.  No coincidence – Bath is understood to be where he was born, Greenwich where he died.

St Alphege’s Church, Bath

 

St Alphege’s Church, Bath

There’s no religious significance to this for me.  I’m not a Christian, nor even from that religious cultural tradition.  But there are some serious ideas beneath the coincidence that appeal to me, and I hope to explore them a little along the way.

I will write about The Walk as it develops.  I will walk most of it alone, though different people will I hope join me for sections of it.  I won’t do it all in one go.  At the moment it feels too complicated to carve out a stretch of time to do that, but I’m fine with that.  Instead I will chunk it into 2 or 3 day sections, and find places to stay overnight.

Start of the Kennet and Avon Canal, Widcombe, Bath

 

The first section is already planned, and I am hoping that, weather permitting, I will do it before the end of January.  I’m very excited.  I’ve never done a point-to-point walk before, and never done something like this on my own before.  Those things are both important to me right now, in this my 60th year.

 

*  I know my photography is pretty ropey – I’m a real beginner!  For the real deal I get Malcolm to take the pictures  🙂  Here’s a taste of what his photos look like.  More of them to come.