BLESSED IS THE EYE BETWEEN SEVERN AND WYE

Birmingham to Hereford Stage 3

Worcester to Linton Mill: 27km

Today I decide I am a walker more than a hiker.

I walk with David to the Sabrina bridge and set off on the Three Choirs Trail. It started OK, and it had very elegant signage: little music notes appearing on discs. But although the discs are always there when you find the path, the path itself is barely signed at all.

Doing the walk today takes all of my thinking energy, which I would like to spend elsewhere. Rather than walking and thinking and looking at the views, I find myself negotiating the path. Prince Charming battling through the thorns to get to the castle, or the girl running away from the chicken-footed house, pursued by Farmer Yaga flinging down a neverending series of obstacles.

Brambles and nettles are the most common problem. One field is full of bullocks, which start running towards me as I cross their field and get to my escape gate just seconds after me. Broken styles are the norm. Planks wobble over streams. Field paths are planted with legumes that you have to push through chest-deep, always just after rain. Paths across boulder fields of churned up, dried out mud try to twist your ankle with every step.

So what should have been a six-hour walk takes nine hours. I spend quite a lot of the day glaring at the ground.

But then there is the woman who runs out of her house and calls after me to ask if I want water. I tell her I don’t, but then she wants to tell me more. She has just come back from the Camino that very day and had seen me walking earlier. I could see that she thought this was something sent to her, a way for her Camino to continue. I was also grateful that, even at a distance, the Camino provides.

Another highlight is the beautiful huge and ramshackle Talbot Inn, just a few hours before the end. The place is staffed exclusively by twenty-somethings, desperate to please. I have the great pleasure of sitting at the back of the pub, eating my burger and listening to one young man put his quiz questions together.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Animal bums or bingo-calling numbers?”

Much to my disappointment, they went for the latter.

And now I am in my tent again, with a stream, a picnic table, two compost loos and a ping pong table just for me. It is a good life when you find a way through, but I repeat, I am a walker, not a hiker. I shall now have to stay up late to get my thinking done.

P.S. One thing I did enjoy today was sitting down and reading through the material that David sent me after reading yesterday’s post. I’m going to post it here, because it’s truly wonderful and corrects the bits I got wrong.