WHEN WALKING

London to Birmingham: Day 4

Church Stowe to Wigrams, over the top of Daventry: 26km

Two things for today: weather and people, and the two very much combined.

First of all, lovely as it is to have so many people kindly checking if I’m okay in the rain, I have to admit I rather like it, and well, this is England. I listened to the rain in my tent last night, and I didn’t need a podcast to fall asleep. I woke up in the morning and waited for the rain to stop before I packed up my tent and left. The tent was damp, but halfway through the day the sun and gusts of wind allowed me to shake it dry on a quiet bit of towpath, just between the M1 and the high-speed railway line. It was stunning to be in such beautiful countryside with the sounds of mass transport around me, and you wonder: where are they all going so fast?

Another good thing with the rain this morning was lying in the tent a little late as I waited for the rain to stop, and being approached by the campsite owner, who tells me all about the Tartarian conspiracy. Apparently Crystal Palace is part of that, and it is to do with the five borough ley lines. I told her I would look into it later.

Next I was visited by Joe, parked in his basic but beautifully converted little van on the far side of the field, who asked me over for tea. He’d parked away from the toilet block, but he got the view: as it turns out, the view across to his village where he grew up. We talked about his travels, Australia and New Zealand, and how he learned German there because of a Swiss girl, and how no German umderstood a word he said. I gave him my number because he doesn’t do computers, and told him to contact me next time he tries to walk in Spain.

The rest of the day is pleasant. There’s chatting with the men measuring the water levels, and discussing carbon rods with the anglers. The owners of the Wild Teasel boat, which I’ve seen every day on the trip so far, finally come out for a cup of tea so I can hijack them and tell them about my love of teasels. They are very polite.

Most important of all, I stop to talk to Nick, a hanging basket maker, and ask him if he has tools to mend my charger, which has snapped off in my phone. He does. They don’t work. So he rummages through his bucket of things he never throws away and finds me a new one. If ever you need a hanging basket, please buy it from Nick.

And then, the most dramatic meeting of the day. I go to a little shop just after Braunston to buy a postcard, a pork pie, and a Tunnocks tea cake. While I write my postcard, the rain starts, and I’m introduced by the shopkeeper to Bob, a man who has decided to cycle to Birmingham and beyond on towpaths. He does not do smartphones, has planned nothing, has far too much kit, and is coming to understand the difficulty of cycling along canals. However, here he is doing it.

As the storm breaks, and there is one massive storm, we shelter underneath the canal bridge, and I give him the details of the campsite where I am staying tonight before heading off into the rain. My kit really is superb. Later, he catches up on his bike and pushes it along the towpath through uncyclable terrain. And now I have the promise of a coffee in the morning, and the distant sound of snoring from further along the field.

You wake up in the morning and the day makes the plans.

And now some pictures of a bad weather day.