Day 55 of the End to End in 2019 continued along the Lancaster Canal. This canal provided the longest canal side route of the whole LEJOG. As I look back at it this was a day with many threads, but actually they all are. I am continually surprised by how things I wrote about a year ago on a long walk pop up one year on in lock down. I’m grateful to those people who read it for the comments they send.
There’s an odd thread in a field alongside the canal just as we turn towards the coast. On the map there’s mention of St Patrick’s Well. So I looked over the hedge. There were cattle and hedges. Then a moving slinky shape emerged from the hedge and lopped across the field: it was a fox. Like many encounters of LEJOG it was very brief and I’ve none of the photographic evidence you get on Springwatch, but it was a lovely moment.
St Patrick’s well remained covered in brambles, if it is still there at all. Tradition has it that Patrick was British and originated around Banna on Hadrian’s Wall. Perhaps his father was a Christian in the Roman Army. I like this story and use it in my still unfinished novel which threads its way through the origins of early Northern British Christianity. Here my path crossed with Patrick’s again.
The day’s walk finished early at Carnforth Station, made over to the film set, lasting memory to a short clip, but warm and dry on a grey day. Trains till stop there, however briefly.
A version of ‘St Patrick’s Breastplate‘ from my as yet uncompleted novel ‘Surplus to Requirements‘.
The One I follow is always with me:
In front, behind, underneath and above me.
The One I follow is in me,
At my left and right side, lying down or sitting up.
When I’m standing here,
The One I follow is inside everyone else who is thinking of me,
Everyone who is talking about me.
That’s the one I follow: the Always-Everywhere-One’.
JAL: 31.05.2020