WHEN WALKING

London to Birmingham Day 5

Wigrams to Warwick: 24km

Walking when you’re sick and tired. Actually sick and tired, not sick and tired of walking.

Poor semi-cycling Bob. I check in on him in his tent this morning, and he will stay another night. His shoes are still wet and he is considering taking his chances on the road. I pack up my tent quickly before the rain starts.

The biggest problem today, the only problem today really, is I don’t have a coffee first thing. And even though I know I haven’t had a coffee, and I know the effect it has, it’s always the same. After an hour. I am questioning all of my life choices, especially getting up.

But after an hour, I also bump into a friendly old boater, on holiday with his son who, while manning the lock, chats and shows me how many different languages he can say hello in. He then tells me the exact weather patterns for the day, which allow me one hour exactly to get to Long Itchington and the Long Itch Cafe.

One hour and a premature downpour later, I pop up onto a main road and find the place I’ve been dreaming of since googling hungry last night. The Long Itch Café is everything I hoped for. A proper biker’s café. Old bikers at the next table manage to talk nothing but motorbikes for a full half hour. My ears prick up when they get onto waterproofs. Another group that doesn’t shun the weather.

There is full English breakfast with coffee for under £10, and I add on a loaf-sized piece of bread pudding. “I don’t like it” the girl serving says “Not that I’ve tried it, but it looks disgusting.” It is not. I ask for it to be wrapped up so I can take it away. It lasts halfway back down the road to the canal.

And the sun starts to come out again, and the waterproofs come off. But maybe the two hours of walking without coffee has been too much for me. My legs go, my head goes, I feel a bit dizzy, and decide it’s time to rest up in Leamington Spa. A cold I’ve been nurturing since London, and the long days, have caught up on me.

So I book into the dodgy-looking hotel near the station, with a surprisingly lovely little room. Stained carpets, but cleaned as well as it can be. After downing two bottles of vitamin juice, I fall asleep to Judge Judy on my little hotel TV, lulled by the beautiful sound of a middle-aged woman telling people to get a grip of themselves.

When I wake up a couple of hours later, I have a brainwave and backpack off I walk through Leamington Spa and Warwick, along the canal and the river, to Warwick Parkway station, on the far side of the two towns, where I get the train back. So tomorrow, I shall start the day with a train back to Warwick Parkway and cut an hour and a half off the journey.

There’s clever. I have also managed to finish composing “Apparently, Daventry”. Like all great poets, I compose best when being ill and heroic.