I set off at 6.30am, largely because I had awoken early and needed activity to warm me in the cold of morning. The horizon was a band of orange that slowly washed out as the sky lightened. It was the same landscape as I had been walking yesterday but a night's sleep proves a fine tonic and there was more of a spring in my step this morning and I had an energy that I had lacked last night. High up a kestrel was hovering, like me hungry for breakfast, while to the left the sun rose slowly above distant hills and I began to feel its warmth. My long morning shadow extended across the heather to my right where, far below, deep in the valley that the morning had yet to penetrate, lay a crisscross of hedges and fields which even from here I could see were thinly veiled in a silvery tissue of dew. The slanting morning light brightened the ridge top while casting a thin veneer of shadow across my immediate surroundings that accentuated every detail: every clump of heather, every rock and stone stood out. I walked alone in this vivid, sharp and exaggerated landscape and it made me feel alive.
It was over two hours before I left the ridge and joined the world below. It was a similar scene to many of the previous days: stretches of wet-grass fields, alive with crane flies as most pasture seems to have been, linked by high-hedged lanes and marked by the occasional hamlet - the word village seems too generous a description for the handful of silent houses that I passed through. And always the hills. Not overly steep or high but regular and tiring: by now my early morning energy had diminished somewhat.
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| Leaving the ridge |
Today the dyke did not seem to make an appearance but I climbed to the remains of an old castle, grey skeletal remains standing out against the blue, and in the late afternoon walked a flat grassy stretch on the plain of a small river, always behind trees and never seen. But the stand out memory for today was the kindness of strangers. By mid afternoon I was watching my water consumption, not having had a chance to top up since my night on the ridge. It was playing on my mind and reflected in my mood and my pace. A couple pulled up into a beautiful and isolated house as I passed and David and Kath not only filled my bottles but invited me in for tea and biscuits, a particularly kind gesture I thought given they had just returned from a funeral. I left in a much more positive frame of mind and better informed on the world's aluminium recycling industry. Two miles on, the wellspring of generosity rose again when I passed an isolated church, open to walkers and with tea and coffee making facilities available to use. I have seen a couple of other churches earlier in the walk that have advertised the same service but I have always passed them early in the morning and had no immediate need to make use of them. This time though I stopped, despite my earlier visit to David and Kath, topped up my water once again and enjoyed another cup of tea sitting outside in the sunny churchyard.
I am now in Monmouth after a long eleven hours on the go. The last two miles were slow and sole punishing over a forested hill that lay between me and the day's end. Its stony track seemed to go on forever, a track that was sore on the feet both on the way up and on the way down, but the thought of a comfortable bed and my first shower in three days kept me focused. I had booked a hotel for this, my last night, as tomorrow should be my final day of walking and I want to make sure I am properly fed and rested before what may prove to be a long 18 miles.
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| Monmouth |
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