LEJOG blog

Day 88 of the End to End in 2019 was once more on the West Highland Way. I knew it would be a good walk because we’d actually all done this section several years ago when Hannah was a child, sometime after Bob’s LEJOG. It was another good day for a walk with lovely view of Ben Dorian and plenty of insect life to admire in the wide range of plants along the way.

Bridge of Orchy is a small cheerful station, and even if the Caledonian Sleeper was running two hours late, a good place for a snooze or picnic lunch. It is now a small hostel. The Inveroran hotel still did excellent cake (and long may that be true) and was a good place for some afternoon tea at the end of the day’s walking.

Fast forward 1 year to 2020 and it was a still a good day for a walk. After three unexpected days staying in Tameside Hospital, it was good to be back in the valley and out in the beautiful scenery of Longdendale. I took a slow walk along a short section of the TPT. I enjoy the beautiful reflections in the reservoir and the clear air as well as seeing quite a few butterflies.

I understand there’s a local scarecrow festival in the village, but time tomorrow to report on that.

From the remembered bible, psalm 139: You know when I sit down and when I get up.

When air is clear and skies are windows,
I praise the Creator, air-maker.
When air is troubled and breathing is hard,
I praise the Son, air-breather.
When air is ruffled, rushing past, disturbed,
I praise the Holy Spirit, air-mover.
I rest here and praise the Holy Three,
Embraced as I am by the beautiful clear air.

JAL: 12.07.2020 on a bench in Longdendale.

Day 86 of the End to End in 2019 was memorable for lots of reasons. Firstly, I had Hannah and Bob with me at the beginning. Secondly it was on the West Highland Way.

Scotland can be beautiful in the wet. I remember lots of streams tumbling down the hills, some over the path. It was a day of water.

Bob and Hannah got some bacon sandwiches at the Crianlarich station cafe. I was cross, tired, wet and hungry by the time we met. Not a good combination, although I prefer bacon sandwiches to Snickers. Its important to remember the less good bits of LEJOG too.

A bit further on there was an honesty box with chocolate. There were quite a lot of gold banded dragon flies flying around too. When they met me again at the end of the day’s walk, we went for cake in a former church that had been turned into a cafe. That’s one transformation I can recommend.

Fast forward one year and it’s day two in Tameside Hospital. I found myself thinking as I was going through the scanner, about the last time I was involved with a similar amazing machine. My three year old daughter was being scanned as part of a follow up from an earlier illness. I wonder what she’d made of it all at the time: me holding her still as we went through the process.

These days, inside and outside of hospital there seems to be one common feature: anxiety.

From the remembered bible, psalm 55

Morning, noon and night, I call to God for help. God hears those moans, and groans…
Leave your anxiety with God, who is always on your side.

Outside one day, inside the next:
Care is welcome but unknown situations increase anxiety.
Snippets of conversation whirl around me.
The divisions between workers and those cared for is not so obvious at these times. Uniforms are one thing, but voices blend together.
Be with us in each word and phrase,
In each touch and gesture.
Tears and moans are trodden down
Like receding flood water.
Remind us of the free flying dove,
May we imagine safe times and places.

JAL 10.07.2020 in Tameside Hospital, Ashton-under-Lyne.

Day 85 of the End to End in 2019 was my first on the West Highland Way, probably the most famous walking route in Scotland. I took the waterbus to Inversnaid, which was full of folks on the Rob Roy tourist trail. After a welcome hot chocolate in the hotel I set off on the path along Loch Lomond in the rain.

Rain is an essential for the kind of temperate rain forest they get in the west of Scotland. Walking right next to the shore, you do get dripped on a lot. The path has its ups and downs, its squeezes and slides: it’s quite physically demanding. There are also some quite famous wild goats.

I was glad when I arrived at the bothy and Bob did too from the other direction. It was a house for all nations as people come from all over the world to walk the WHW and most appeared to be having lunch there.

We walked on to Beinglas campsite and had some excellent soup, I remember.

One year on and at 3am I was on the phone to NHS 111 describing the severe abdominal pain I had developed. Bob took me to the local emergency department and I’m now writing this from a bed in a ward waiting to have a scan in the morning.

Outside the window I can see the grey cloudy sky so I’m not missing much. Inside we’re a community of all nations working for the health of all. This is an unexpected stop off on my way and I’m grateful for the care offered.

From the remembered Rule of St Benedict…

Welcome everyone as if they were Christ.

From the remembered bible, psalm 117…

Praise God, all people from all nations! God’s love is strong and God always keeps faith with us.

I praise you God for the rainbow of people,
caring and attending, supporting each other and the unknown ones.
May this be the model from which your kindom grows.
May we keep faith with each other as you keep faith with us.

JAL 09.07.2020 in Tameside Hospital, Ashton.

Day 84 of the End to End in 2019 was the final section of the Three Lochs Way from Arrochar to Inveruglas, and a beautiful walk. After a ‘rest and be thankful’ day the previous day I was ready for some more uphill walking, which was just as well. I was the first member of our family to walk this section and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Taking it at my own pace, which is slowly, I had plenty of time to enjoy the views and the wildlife.

After some uphill, the downhill section was signalled by the change in direction of the electricity power lines, also going downhill. Sloy power station was at the loch side at the bottom of the hill. It wasn’t a very busy walk, with most people on the Sloy side, where there were also some young cattle. Bob came up the path to meet me and we walked down to Inveruglas information centre.

In the Three Lochs Way guide book it reminds the walker not to forget to sign the achievement book. Eighty-four days walking seemed quite an achievement so I was happy to comply. Initially the book could not be found. I had an ice cream instead. Having unearthed the book from somewhere or another, it was bought out to me. I got excited about adding my name to those who had gone before me. Mine was the first name in the book.

I’m not usually first at much. I’m no athlete and whilst proud of my many achievements in various fields most are not in the sort of categories that get you widely noticed. As a woman I’ve done a few firsts: I was the first female chaplain at the school I served, for example. I’ve researched some other first, many women ministers, some of them recorded in the book Daughters of Dissent.

It felt good to have this achievement under my belt. I’d still got quite a long way to go after all, and any boost, whether uphill or down, was welcome. The countryside was still encouraging me and with the West Highland Way beckoning me I was now ready for the Highlands.

From the remembered bible, psalm 46: Be still and know that I am God

God of stillness and of chaos,
as alike to you as night and day,
I love the still places and the whirring energetic ones.
Seeking a balanced life in your company,
I give thanks for knowing both
and being with you.

JAL 08.07.2020 in Longdendale.

Day 83 of the End to End in 2019 was my first on the Three Lochs Way, a path we’d not used before but for which we had a helpful guide book. We’d made the decision to use the Three Lochs Way back at the planning stage of the walk. Not only was it new to us and had a nice guide book but for this part of the route we could both walk together using Arrochar and Garelochhead stations. What could go wrong.

The station bit was fine as was the one stop on the train to Garelochhead station. We found the path up from near the station to the American road, as this part of the route was called. Indeed it was a good route. Sound under foot and surrounded by great views and lots of interesting plants and insects. Deer had been this way fairly often by their hoof prints in the mud.

There were several places worth remembering. First the Gurkha Bato was a track laid by a group of Gurkhas to make the route easier a few years ago. It included the first bridge. A notice told us that it was not in good condition and advised us to wade across further up stream. We were not inclined to follow this foot wetting advice so we took the decision to risk the bridge. It did not let us down.

Further on the second bridge was more study and dedicated to the memory of Warrant Officer Dave Markland who managed the development of the Gurkha Bato but who was KIA in Afghanistan in 2010. We ate our lunch by this second bridge.

Then there followed quite a lot of steamy uphill sections through the forestry workings. It was getting hot and taking us quite a long time. Where the road to Douglas Glenn crossed the route we made the decision to go down the road and along to Arrochar that way as this would be easier and quicker. We were rewarded with some lovely views and reflections of Loch Long and some ice cream at the Mansfield Studio and shop on the outskirts of Arrochar.

Not all decision making is rewarded with ice cream. I was reflecting on my walk yesterday, how we don’t know what all the knock on effects of our actions will necessarily be. We make a decision as a community and it may exclude one person. We may decide that price is worth paying: what choices have we got? May be we don’t know what else to do. Hurt is caused and a person leaves the community. Maybe we don’t know how to change that?

As someone who has left a community carrying a lot of hurt, I can say that such things leave very deep wounds and stay long in the memory of the excluded one. How they leave the excluders I don’t know. Does it leave them better equipped to make more loving and inclusive decisions in the future?  I live with hope.

From the remembered bible, Psalm 40:
God set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand, so I could sing God a new song.

I sing to God, my rock:
sometimes I sing a lament, about hurt, betrayal and injustice;
sometimes I sing with yearning for justice and a new kindom;
sometimes I sing with joy as peace breaks out and new relationships grow;
sometimes I am silent waiting for the song to begin.
I sing to God, my rock,
and God sings with me, a soulful harmony of understanding and acceptance,
and sometimes together we enjoy the deep silence of the hope filled universe.

JAL: 06.07.2020 in Longdendale.

Day 82 of the End to End in 2019 had me crossing the Firth of Clyde via the Kilcreggan Ferry, which from 1st June 2020 is now operated by CalMac as this report confirms:

CalMac takeover of Kilcreggan ferry finally confirmed

I was soon walking up towards Garelochhead through the sort of weather that made Scottish holidays memorable in my childhood. Thin streams of cloud, like scarves, were strung out along the coast and hills, there was drizzle and showers and lets face it there were midges. Yet we still came back, although we avoided Ullapool for many years.

Today British people still talk weather. It’s the sort of subject that fills a conversation with my father in a neutral sort of way. Yet weather is anything but neutral. Caught on the adverse end of weather, as this week in Japan, then it’s memorable for all of the wrong reasons.

The problem is that weather is a sort of backdrop, atmospheric wall paper we can smudge into generalisations and thereby ignore the serious implications and most especially the way in which as human beings we affect it. As I walked up to Garelochhead a year ago the weather was not very different than it would be walking the same route anytime of the past few decades, or was it?

From the remembered bible, psalm 147
It’s God who covers the sky with clouds, supplying the earth with rain and making grass grow on the hills.

Cosmic One, as we play weather roulette,
make us mindful of our own weather related behaviour:
may we stop playing games with the future of others
and seriously respond to the climate challenges.

JAL: 05.07.2020 in Longdedale.

Day 81 of the End to End in 2019 included route 75, a sort of off shoot of route 7, which was a new route for me. I think I got a few photos muddled from today’s route with yesterday’s route, but hey-ho, never mind.

Meanwhile in 2020, it’s difficult to find new routes in Longdendale that I’ve not taken many times before, especially on a rainy day. I can see the hills shrouded with cloud. Some days it’s so low or think you can’t even see these small hills.

Of the psalms in my remembered bible the one about hills is my most frequently used. Last night, not sleeping very well, it was my go to psalm for a night vigil.

Here’s a version of it from the Mobile Chapel of St Scholastica, which is currently stationary in Longdendale:

I lift my eyes up to the hills
From where does my help come?
My help, it comes from God the One
Who heaven and earth has made.
Who heaven and earth has made, my Lord,
And always watch does keep,
From morn to eve and through the night
God neither rests nor sleeps.

It is also called the Traveller’s Psalm.

I try to walk everyday, even if only a little, to keep up some momentum and of course fitness. I’m itching to go beyond the current confines but only if safe to do so. I frequently look up routes I’ve not tried before to see if they might be a possible adventure. I’m currently helping on line to beta test the Old Way Guide, a pilgrim route in the South of England, which I’d like to walk at sometime if I can.

Most new routes are someone’s old route. We can take advice and courage from those who have gone that way before. Day 81 of LEJOG ended with a swim in the open air pool at Gourock where I happily floated about looking up at the clouds.

Song of the day: ‘For it’s from the old I travel to the new’ (Sydney Carter).

God of heaven and earth, of hills and clouds
those awesome witnesses to the way we go.
Be with us on routes old and new, that stepping out
We may be courageous: share in our discoveries.

 

JAL: 04.07.2020 in Longdendale.

Day 79 of the End to End in 2019 was on Sustrans Route 7 mostly along an disused and repurposed railway line. It was a longer way round than originally proposed but worth it to be traffic free and see all the wild life.

National Cycle Route 7 is a 601 mile section of the National Cycle Network connecting the Borders to Sutherland in the NE. I had walked on previous sections in the Arran area. The route on day 79 was also part of the Whithorn to Tain pilgrim route. Such off road routes as these are a delight for a walker like me who enjoys easy, flatish, traffic free walking through lovely countryside.

Other interesting sights along the route included some sculptures and odd bits of old railway paraphernalia. It’s always good to try to guess what they were or are.

There was a helpful community information centre in one village where I was able to use the toilet. Unfortunately many of these routes have few public toilets: one thing that needs improving.

Fast forward to 2020 and there’s no doubt we’ll not get the green light to new normal without more attention to traffic free routes and accessibility for people of all ages and abilities. A few pretty countryside walks are lovely but we need to establish everyday routes if folks are really going to swap cars for greener transport on the daily basis and build it into their lifestyle. This will mean quite a lot of investment, but surely will also create jobs and new industries.

Each time a revolution occurs that reshapes our nation it’s a lot of change. Others like the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution and the whole of the post war period of the 20th century, change has been pretty constant. Walking along Sustrans Route 7 is a gentle reminder of how what was once crucial was then closed and later repurposed. Looking ahead maybe we can already see what will change and need new use. Rather than dig our heels in and insist on subsidising the old normal we need to see how more sustainable habits could come from obvious new normal developments.

Song for the day: Oh, you’ll never get to heaven on a Stockport bus…
(fill in your preferred ending).

From the remembered bible, Psalm 25
God, show me the right path; point out the route for me to follow.

Being human is habit forming.
As we fall into line to return to our old ways,
show us your new ways, Cosmic One.

JAL: 02.07.2020 in Longdendale.