Day 10 of the #GrandWalkOut was, like most of our walking days, about connections.
Bob dropped me off at Hawkesbury Junction where we finished yesterday. Most days start like that with a connection to the day before. We call this a tiggy. It also offered an opportunity to upload the blog from the day before, as there’s no connection at our current glamp. This may therefore happen for a few days.
Canals are all about connections. I walked onto Ansty while Bob started there at bridge 16. On the way to Ansty along the Oxford Canal I was reminded of two connections. The first was the M6 that I was walking near (there was a fence). The sign I could see said Junction 2 so this was the other end to my M6 experience in Cumbria in 2019. I was on the End to End then and used the back roads round the M6 corridor from Sedbergh to the border. It’s a very loud road.
The second connection was that Bob and I met in Oxford in 1989. We have not often been back.
At Ansty I picked up the car and drove onto Newbold on Avon, a small place with both a Co-op and a fish and chip shop. Bob found me in the Co-op. The small portion of lunch chips turned out to be quite big.
Bob remembered some routes in the Coventry area from when he’d lived there. We have now made many tracks criss-crossing the country.
The Rule of St Benedict is about connections, firstly because building community is about people becoming connected. Secondly there’s a huge world-wide Benedictine family living by the Rule of which our Lay Community is a part. And thirdly because of the internal connections in the Rule itself: connections to the bible are particularly common.
As I walk along it is the connection with my remembered bible that keeps me company. I recall a phrase and sometimes it turns into a song of sorts. I make a connection between my remembered bible and the landscape. I am thankful for these and many more connections.
From my remembered bible: Jesus, remember me.
I remember
From a friend of Scholastica and a member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
Janet Lees, Newbold on Avon, 3rd May 2022.