Kathryn Harries

The road goes ever on and on...

2006-06-24T00:00:00.000+01:00

Saturday June 24th
After a day at home unpacking and doing piles of accumulated washing, I set off for the Coliseum at 7.30pm. It felt quite bizarre.
Diana and I walked yesterday morning along Newlands Corner up to St Martha’s and back to Newlands Corner. It was a beautiful day, the air was clear as crystal and the views incomparable. And I felt for the first time in six weeks just a little tired.
It proved to me that long distance walking is all about one’s mindset and it’s as much a question of outlook as it is fitness.
Anyway, I parked in Barnes near Jill Phillip’s home and took the train to Waterloo. I was wearing my black best trousers, my Opera Walk T shirt under my Trinity Star Fleece and my walking socks and trainers. I felt a bit of a twit.
Walking across the smart new footbridge to Charing Cross, I reflected how quickly things that one looks forward to become the present and in no time at all, the past.
I sat on a low wall outside the stage door of the Coli and chatted to Lucy and Rob who are wigs and make-up at ENO. They have both looked after me when I’ve sung at the Coli and they’re both brilliant people. The very people for whom I walked, talked and sang.
And now, there was just one more bit of talking to do.
David Dyer from the chorus (who was also responsible for the marvellous musical send-off they gave me) let me into the building and as I was a wee bit early, he led me upstairs to the Ladies Chorus Room where an end of Ariodante party was in full swing.
I had a great welcome from the girls and a very nice cup of tea and piece of home made cake.
The end of the opera was approaching and David took me down to Prompt Corner where I waited and listened.
The stage manager, Nicole, with whom I’d worked a couple of times, told me the order of events and Bob Holland, the young and very tall Company Manager waited beside me till the opera came to a close.
The thunderous applause that erupted marked the end of this particular run of Handel’s Ariodante and one by one, the brilliant cast took well-deserved curtain calls before stepping back into line.
The conductor went on and then there were two company calls; a mike was handed to soprano Rebecca Evans by one of the actors and she stepped forward to speak. The hush was immediate; she announced that ‘someone very special’ was there, told them I’d walked over 600 miles for the Ben Funds and urged them to give me a great Coli welcome.
They did; and I didn’t have to sing a single note! I bowed, feeling a bit of a pillock standing there in my walking clothes.
Rebecca handed me the mike and I made a short speech to the audience, some of it from lines I’d prepared earlier –another Blue Peterish moment – and some of it off the top of my head as usual.
I made them laugh a couple of times and tried to get my message across. The Ben Funds need MORE MONEY.
Bidding them all safe home, I joined the magnificent cast and conductor for one more bow before the curtain came in. I was very nearly at the end of my adventure, but not quite.
Loretta Tomasi who had so kindly organised my send-off six weeks earlier, sponsored a little party in the American Bar downstairs. People came, stayed awhile before heading home and I had a chance to chat to some of my dearest friends and supporters.
Jill Phillips, Pam Potter and Peter Knight were there; Johnny had organised the company box for them and they adored the performance. And Naomi Hyamson, my one and only pupil was there with three friends. Naomi is a sub-editor on The Times and she not only managed to get a mention about me when I left, she was determined to get a mention in the diary the following Tuesday (which indeed she did).
I had a quiet chat with Rebecca Law who had worked so hard to get us publicity for the Walk. She’d tried and tried but the media basically weren’t interested because I hadn’t been attacked by a alien or dragged a broken leg along behind me whilst battling a terminal illness. A great pity but the way of the world. She’s a clever girl and will go far in her future career as a journalist. Thank you too to Gina Rozner who introduced us to her in the first place and worked on our behalf for much reduced fees.
Lorna had brought some T shirts into the bar and seeing people drifting away empty-handed, I leapt onto a chair, whistled for silence and announced; ‘no one leaves without buying a T shirt.’ So pretty well everyone bought a T shirt and a least another £100 went into the kitty. I should have tried that tactic after concerts!
We gave a T shirt each to the three bar staff as a thank you for staying late and then Johnny arrived having sung Don Basilio in Marriage of Figaro at the ROH. He sweetly presented Lorna and me with gifts to mark the end of the Opera Walk – Lorna had champagne and I had another wonderful selection of foot remedies. Brilliant.
Thank you, Lorna, for all you’ve done during the Walk and all the best for the future. And well done Johnny – you’ve been absolutely brilliant.
Jill, Pam and Peter had arrived by taxi and just before 11.15pm, as the bar was about to close, the four of us slowly climbed the stairs to the street and waited a matter of moments until the car drew up. We got in and laughed all the way home to Barnes….God knows what the driver thought.
I stayed with Jill for the night and we reminisced about the Long Walk for Speakability over cups of hot chocolate in the kitchen; we remembered all the fun we’d had walking and driving the length of Great Britain five years ago. Jill is another total star though she sadly couldn’t nanny me on this occasion; when I said I thought I still had another walk in me, although she rolled her eyes, she didn’t say NO!
As I drifted off to sleep a succession of memories played on my inner eye;
the glorious countryside, the skylarks singing above rippling grasslands, walking with soaking feet beside canals and laughing my socks off with Diana; Hilary and Annabel sliding down that muddy Herefordshire bridlepath and Carolyn, Julia and I having an absolute ball up north; the plaintive bleating of fat lambs and the expression on the face of the cow that charged us; nettle stings and struggling against the gale as Will, Sharon, Diana and I crossed the Severn Bridge; rain, rain and more rain; and then sweltering, sticky heat bouncing off the melting tarmac; Carol, Pam, Peter and Lucy selling T shirts and CDs at Coverwood; riding across the beautiful Rutland landscape past the golden glow of Clipsham quarry; that crazy hare racing along the road in front of me; all the people, particularly my dear friends, who helped me with yet another of my mad schemes; and the music – always the music. So, 642.9 miles behind me and a head full of memories to last me until…

THE NEXT BIG ADVENTURE!

The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone and I must follow if I can.
Pursuing it with eager feet until it joins some larger way, where many
paths and errands meet.
And whither then, I cannot say.

(Tolkein; Lord of the Rings; and the words Toria and Will had inscribed on the silver hip flask they gave me for my 50th birthday and before the Long Walk in 2001. My greatest achievement? No contest – my children win hands down.)

HUGE THANKS TO ALL THE SPONSORS, PATRONS AND DONORS WHO HAVE SUPPORTED ME ON THE OPERA WALK.
HUGE THANKS ALSO TO ALL THE ARTISTS FOR THEIR BRILLIANT SINGING, PLAYING, READING AND PRESENTING AND TO ALL THE WONDERFUL PEOPLE WHO LOOKED AFTER ME ALONG THE WAY.

GOOD LUCK TO BOTH THE BEN FUNDS AND HOPE TO SEE YOU

THE ENO BENEVOLENT FUND GALA
on
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 26TH AT THE LONDON COLISEUM

Still standing

2006-06-22T00:00:00.000+01:00

The last day – apart from walking into the Coliseum on Saturday evening, that is.
I awoke at 5.30am with the trio from Cosi going round and round in my head. We sang it last night and every time I briefly surfaced from sleep, Mozart’s music was echoing through my mind.
I might have gone back to sleep but the day was beckoning so I leapt out of bed (well, sort of) dressed and got the lap-top up and running.
I dashed off a few e-mails and then compiled a huge list of people whom Lorna will be thanking and updating when we get home.
We loaded up the Jag for the last time, said goodbye to Murray and Joan and drove away from one of the loveliest houses and most delightful families I have ever had the pleasure of visiting.
We reached the southern entrance of Trent Park reasonably quickly; there was a short hold-up on the M25 but nothing of much consequence. We pulled into the car park and I put a couple of bottles of water into my rucksack; we’d agreed that nannying me through London was a pointless exercise so Lorna was going to spend the morning at her sister’s home nearby.
The sky was overcast and threatening rain so I wore my grey waterproof and baseball cap. Inevitably they kept the rain away and before too long I was wet through with perspiration because of the heat. Sod’s law. Again.
I set off just before 9.30am and walked southwards past Cockfosters tube station before consulting the A to Z.
Sharon rang and asked me if Diana and I wanted supper: a resounding yes!
Then I headed west for a bit before turning south through East Barnet, Friern Barnet, Muswell Hill and finally to Highgate where I was meeting Diana.
My God North London is hilly; I had no idea how up and down it was. And they’re bloody big hills too. I kept my waterproof on because I couldn’t be bothered to carry it and for some strange reason people kept out of my way as I raced along.
I kept in touch with Mum and Dad who were terribly worried that I’d get mugged; if they’d only seen me they’d have realised at a glance that no one would bother me at all. Quite the contrary. Who on earth in their right mind would try to mug a large, middle-aged, sweaty Betty walking at four miles an hour and with an expression that bordered on alarming?
Diana phoned to say she’d parked her car at Raynes Park and was on the train with her son Richard; poor boy sprained his ankle badly a couple of weeks ago and was feeling pretty cheesed off about it.
I marched up and down hill like the flaming Duke of York; it was so HOT!
Johnny rang and we had a long chat about tidying up the project and how things were going to work on Saturday evening.
Diana and I aimed to meet at Highgate tube station at about 11.30am; I was still tramping up and down like a lunatic when she phoned to say she’d arrived. I told her I was racing up Muswell Hill road and not far away and within ten minutes, she was there in front of me, grinning widely at my dishevelled appearance.
We walked downhill into a coffee shop and she kindly bought me a caramel shortbread and diet coke. The one cancels out the other in my mind whatever they say at Weight Watchers.
I took off my clobber and caught sight of myself in a mirror. No wonder no one came near me; I really looked barking mad. My hair was all over the shop like I’d had a severe electric shock and my T shirt was drenched with sweat. Soooooo attractive.
I suppose it wasn’t surprising; when I looked at my GPS watch I realised I’d covered 8 miles in two hours whilst wearing far too much clothing.
Diana and I left the café and walked slowly down the hill towards central London. We nipped off to the left so she could show me her daughter Helen’s flat and then we walked at a sensibly steady pace down and down and down. London was spread out before us and St Paul’s looked close enough to touch.
Of course it wasn’t, but with some nifty map-reading we negotiated Archway, Kentish Town and Camden Town in short order, and before we knew it were standing in front of the immensely tall Post Office Tower.
While we were taking pictures at Archway, a very drunken elderly man, wearing faded denims and sporting long flowing white hair and a bushy white beard, reeled towards us. He looked like Dumbledore or Gandalf walking in a high wind on Marlborough Downs!
As soon as he spotted we were taking photos, he lurched to a wavering standstill. Slurring that he ‘didn’t want to intrude’ he stood gently rocking back and forth until we were finished. What remarkably good manners.
The crowds increased in number the closer we got to our destination and walking down Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road was all ducking, diving and dodging.
We turned into St Martin’s Lane and suddenly, there before us, was the London Coliseum. It was nearly six weeks since we’d walked away from it and now the adventure was all but finished. My last 14 miles.
We walked thoughtfully up to and into the foyer and, lo and behold, there were Johnny, Jill and Lynne who is Front of House Manager.
Hugs all round with the security staff beaming at us in smiling confusion and then into the Café Nero next door for sandwiches and coffee.
While we sat chatting and munching, Lorna phoned to say she was parked in St Martin’s Lane so we suggested she come and join us. This she did but declined to eat or drink anything as there wasn’t a great deal of time left on the meter.
We said our farewells to Johnny and Jill before driving out of London along the Thames, through Putney and finally to Raynes Park; my last journey in the Jag which had been so generously donated to us for the duration of the Walk by Guy Salmon of Thames Ditton. Our most grateful thanks to David Edwards.
At the station car park, we offloaded all my belongings and bunged them into the Mazda. Then, after more hugs and thanks, Diana and I were waving Lorna goodbye and on our way down the A3 towards the Surrey Hills.
It was strange but lovely to be home; the garden looked fantastic and the house was still standing – always a plus.
After dumping my cases, bags, music, computer and odds and sods in my tiny office we had a cup of tea with Mum and Dad. Angie and Sue’s foot massager, Jill’s picnic table and the remaining case of Buxton Water went in the garage.
And then Diana and I went for a walk. On the hill, with no nasty cars and lorries and a beautiful view all the way down to the South Downs to end our stroll. What a glorious country this is.
Sharon and Will cooked us the best bangers and mash we’d ever tasted and we sank two bottles of very good champagne without any difficulty at all.
We all fell asleep watching a very earnest programme on the box about Pluto not being a planet and then one by one we went up the wooden hill to bed ever so slightly the worse for wear…

A snooze, a sing and a rant

2006-06-21T00:00:00.000+01:00

A no walking day so I could get on with the programme and rehearse for the evening concert during the afternoon.
I was down for breakfast by nine and walked into a hive of industry in the kitchen. Joan was already preparing the meal for the evening with the help of Murray and her wonder-woman Rose. It was perfectly clear that this was not the first time they had entertained a very large number of people to dinner as the preparations were as smoothly oiled as a military machine. Actually, probably rather better…
Lorna joined us and after breakfast she and I accompanied Murray to the greenhouses where we picked tiny runner beans that would serve as a garnish on each dinner plate.
The garden was glorious in the summer sunshine and the long views in every direction were staggeringly beautiful. Serge Hill springs from the ground as if Nature had planted it there and it perfectly compliments and enhances the surrounding landscape. Many alterations have been made over the centuries but there is no disharmony in the whole. With tranquillity and grace it sits benignly regarding the world around it.
I returned to my room and typed out the programme that had been agreed on at breakfast; as usual I had too much music for the allotted time, so I asked Joan and Murray for their opinions and they made the final decision on what would be performed. As well as being extremely well-educated musically, as instrumentalists themselves they knew precisely what would go down well with their audience of invited guests.
The first of the artists to arrive was our brilliant accompanist, Gill Ford. She’d come straight to Serge Hill from Eton, where she teaches piano a day each week and she joined us for lunch outside. The table was tucked into a shady corner out of the stiff breeze and Kate and her husband, entrepreneur David Docherty were at the table as were Ibby, daughter of Elizabeth, the youngest of Joan and Murray’s six children, and Polly and Flora, Kate and David’s young daughters. The girls were all to be waitresses serving canapés to the guests as they arrived between 7.00 and 7.30pm.
After lunch, while Lorna put donation forms into concert shells, I rehearsed with Gill in the music room. We whipped through what I was singing in no time, so Gill went for a stroll in the gardens whilst I found my way to Kate’s office where David printed out seventy-five programmes for me. He’s a power house of achievement; as well as having had an extraordinary career in TV, he is a successful author and is now exercising his considerable entrepreneurial skills in the open market.
Downstairs the activity was fast and furious; Rose and Frances, Kate’s wonder-woman, were in full swing and three of their grandchildren, Holly, Hayley and Michael were poised to help. Joan and Elizabeth were at the table with Lorna, preparing strawberries for dessert. I was finished for the time being so went upstairs for a 40 minute pre-concert snooze.
Around 5pm, Nick Folwell and Sue Bickley arrived and we rehearsed the ensembles; Jill Phillips was later than she intended because of confusion over the directions she’d been given by Lorna – but after a cup of tea (the Great British Cure-all) she recovered and set to gathering information about the artists she would be introducing.
There was no sign of Adrian Thompson and as six o’clock came and went we became a little apprehensive – the M25 is notoriously bad in the rush hour –what a misnomer that is; who on earth is rushing anywhere?
To everyone’s relief, he arrived safe and sound at 6.40pm and after running through his arias with Gill, he joined Nick in the ‘boys’ dressing room to change while the ‘girls’ used my bedroom to get ready.
There was lots of gossip, giggling and catching up with news as we plastered on the Polyfilla and made ourselves presentable.
Guests began arriving at 7pm and we could hear the low murmur of voices as the assembly in the hall grew larger and more convivial.
The concert began just before 7.45pm and lasted until just after 9pm. Spot on, if I say so myself. The audience was most appreciative, though I suspect some were deafened in the comparatively small space. I know for a fact that one gentleman turned his hearing aid off during the singing and turned it on again when Jill was reading. This she did with her usual aplomb and from the adjoining smoking room, where we awaited our turn like patients waiting for the dentist, we could hear the audience laughing as she gave her two very funny readings.
We all sang rather well – and the ensembles were really very good. Murray thanked us at the end and said the concert had been like having their Desert Island Discs without the bother of having to be either castaway on a desert island or castaway at BBC Broadcasting House. The guests were told to check the seating plan and make their way to their allotted seats as dinner would shortly be served. While they found their places, I seized the opportunity to tidy up the music room, gathering together all the concert shells and donation forms that were lying on the seats or on the floor before going into the hall to join Murray and his guests for dinner. There were tables in the dining room, hall and sitting room and Rose, Frances and their grandchildren had lit the candles five minutes before the concert ended. Everything looked perfect and the meal was superb. Polly, Flora and Ibby, their duties done, appeared and disappeared like Titania’s fairies in Midsummer Night’s Dream. And it was midsummer; the evening was still light and a soft, a luminescent glow lay over the garden and fields beyond. The deep gold of the grazing Jersey cattle across the ha-ha melted into the deeper green of the trees behind and in the distance, tiny pinpricks of light dotted the landscape like a carpet of fairy dust.
Back inside the house, the air was alive with chatter and laughter. I sat beside Murray and had most interesting and lively conversations with two of his long-standing friends.
Murray was a most eminent QC and highly regarded judge. Although retired, he has lost none of his brilliance and quickness (and wicked sense of humour) and I’m very, very glad that I never had to appear before him on the wrong side of the law. Justice would have always been well-served, but with his upright, impressive build and keen perception, he must have frightened the life out of any wrong-doer. What an incentive to be law-abiding.
And Joan is equally impressive; Kate told me a little about her and how, with six children in as many years, she ran Serge Hill like a general as well as supporting Murray in his career and involving herself in a colossal number of other activities, many of them charitable.
People like these should run the country; then we wouldn’t be in the bloody awful state we’re in now. One of the great pleasures of walking long distances is that you’re too tired to bother with newspapers and TV. It’s a great relief not to know what ghastliness is going on in the world, because most of the dreadful things we hear about on a daily basis are things we can do nothing about. So we constantly exist in a state of depression and stress, and feel powerless to change the way things are. And that, I suspect, is what politicians and media tycoons around the world intend; by keeping everyone permanently fearful about the next potential disaster (be it bird flu, asteroids, or foreign dictators) and by whittling quietly away at our little freedoms, they gain more and more control over us. We are now living Orwell’s 1984; there has been a sea-change and it’s not for the better.
Off the soap-box and back to the wonderful evening at Serge Hill; I met many charming and generous people who promised to support the Opera Walk and it was a marvellous way to bring the musical part of the Walk to a close.
One by one the musicians departed and as the audience drifted away – many of them clutching the CDs they’d bought from Lorna – peace fell over the house and we whispered our goodnights before making our various ways to bed. One more day to go. How extraordinary.

Walk before you can run

2006-06-20T00:00:00.000+01:00

As all the Graham Halls had to leave the house by 8am, Lorna and I agreed last night that I’d phone her at seven to waken her and we’d load up the Jag at 7.30am.
She was bang on time and after emptying everything out of the car, we repacked before saying our goodbyes and thank yous.
The traffic on the A1 was moving freely and in no time at all I fell fast asleep. I was woken some time later by Lorna’s voice; ‘which junction was it?’ I forced my eyes open just in time to see Junction 7 coming up; ‘it was Junction 8 – go off here!’
So, off we went round the roundabout and back on the A1 going north. It wasn’t many miles before Junction 8, where we exited safely before pulling up in the lay by where I finished last evening.
We looked at the map – we were both working off the same one today which made life a lot easier. Agreeing to meet the other side of Stevenage, we parted company and I made for the giant roundabout which I had to negotiate before I could follow the A602 into town.
Several mad dashes later I was on my way along cycle tracks cum footpaths all the way into and through Stevenage. I was truly astonished that the provision for pedestrians was so fantastic and I fair raced through Stevenage and out the other side.
Picking up the B road to Knebworth I phoned Toria in Oz and had a five minute chat. It was so lovely to hear her voice and it made me realise how much I’ve missed her over the past two and a half years.
Knebworth came and went and, spotting a Tesco supermarket on the right hand side of the road, I decided to nip in and see if they had a café and facilities. Lorna drove past me with a toot and continued past Tesco and across the next roundabout. As I also needed more water, I phoned her double quick and asked her to come back and meet me in the supermarket car park.
There wasn’t a café but there were facilities, and by the time I came out into the car park Lorna was there with a bottle of water at the ready.
Another look at the map and we agreed to meet at Cole Green, which was a good six or seven miles further on. I took two bottles of water as the day was very warm indeed and I do drink an enormous amount when I’m walking. And this, of course, is why I’m constantly on the look out for facilities.
I’d seen a sign in Knebworth saying that London was 27 miles away and it gave me a jolt; the end was in sight and today would be the last full day’s walking on the Opera Walk.
What surprised me about the whole day from here on was the countryside through which I walked. I meandered down narrow, sandy lanes between high hedges and felt that I could have been in the wilds of Pembrokeshire rather than a day’s hike from London. Motorists were polite and the day had a charmed feel about it. The air was warm and pleasant and the bird song was spectacular. I was in seventh heaven and this proved to be one of the best day’s walking during the entire journey.
My map was not really adequate for the task but I guessed my way successfully by a series of footpaths through fields and woodlands until, to my great surprise, I stumbled upon Lorna at Cole Green.
The Jag was parked on the grass in the shade of a huge horse chestnut in full, glorious leaf; she kindly set out the folding chair and I finished the pasta salad I’d started yesterday, had a refreshing cup of tea, sighed a lot at all the beauty before me and then continued onward.
Our next meeting was to be Cuffley and the distance some seven miles or so. As I walked through Letty Green, I suddenly stopped and then walked forward as quietly as I could. On the bank to my right and completely unaware of my presence, was grazing the tiniest rabbit I’ve ever seen. I watched, spellbound. Gradually, it became conscious of the weight of my attention and its black, perfectly round shiny eyes grew larger and larger. In a trice it bounded away into the adjacent garden, its tiny tail bobbing white and fluffy as a puff of cloud.
Shortly after, I met a lady on an incredibly pretty odd-coloured horse and, as I was walking faster than they were, the horse was slightly spooked. I slowed so that we could pass the time of day and when I admired the horse, the rider said that she’d seen him in a field some years before and simply had to have him. And there they were having a great time together and horse and rider looked as though they were meant for each other. Love at first sight.
As I talked to Gill Cribbins on the mobile, I cut across a village green, onto a road heading south and unwittingly walked exactly the route I should have chosen had I had those wits about me.
We had a longish chat and when she asked where I was I had to admit I wasn’t entirely sure. Gill knows the area and fired a few names at me; I hadn’t a clue so when a car driver appeared whom I could ask, I said I’d phone her later and asked him where I was.
All credit to him, he didn’t bat an eyelash! I was precisely where I’d hoped I was and, thanks to him, I was able to cut another several miles off my walk to Cuffley. The angels up there must be sending people my way whenever I need them because they turn up time after time and save me miles.
So I battled my way to Newgate Street on a narrow country road that was evidently a tea time rat run, bore right down Carbone Hill on his instructions, and tried not to get killed by the speeding, unyielding traffic.
As he’d said, there was a well-marked path on the other side of the road that went directly to Cuffley Station and, having sprinted across in the few seconds when cars and lorries weren’t batting past, I gratefully followed the path which led me out of woodland, past neat and tidy houses to the main road. Turning right, and away from the station, I walked up through town, debated which way to go at a T junction, opted to go leftwards and as I marched along the pavement I rang Lorna to see where she was. I’d run out of water and needed supplies – and according to my map, I was about to negotiate an innocuous road that passed under the M25 and that would then take me slightly westwards to the A1005 at Botany Bay.
Lorna was a couple of miles behind me and off the route I planned to take, so as I carried on walking she set off to find me. This she did within ten minutes and after I’d replenished my water supplies, I asked her to scout my proposed route and let me know what it was like.
Off she drove, up the hill and out of sight. Looking at my map, I reckoned that the turning I wanted was at the top of the hill and when I got there, not having heard a dicky bird from my scout I gave her a ring and asked if I was correct. Indeed I was and Lorna advised me that the innocuous road was actually rather dangerous and fast and there were no pavements at all. Grass verges, yes, but no proper footpath.
I dragged on my tabard once again and marched head on into the speeding cars and lorries. It was actually very dangerous but as it was now late in the day – gone 4.30pm – I needed to take the most direct route possible if I was to have a day off walking tomorrow. So I grinned and lumped it.
Lorna and I met in a precariously narrow lay-by just after I went under the motorway – which was, as usual, chock-a-block with traffic and at a virtual standstill.
We agreed that as it was 4.45pm and we didn’t want to be late arriving at Serge Hill, home of Sir Murray Stuart-Smith and his family, she would estimate how long the journey would take us if I stopped as planned at six. I would walk for as long as I could but stop in order to arrive at our hosts by 7.30pm in time for dinner at 8.
And that was the last I heard from her until 6.15pm.
I walked on up the hill and then right handed onto a road with a narrow pavement. What a relief it was to be able to stop hopping on and off the grass verge every five seconds. I had a brief chat with Mum and Dad followed by an abortive attempt to cut a corner off my route by taking a footpath. Two charming ladies suggested that the road would be a better option so I duly back-tracked and as I reached the T-junction at Botany Bay I had my first and totally thrilling view of London.
It was a clear day and I could see for miles and miles; I was pretty high up above Enfield Chase and I cursed the fact that I’d left my camera in the car so as to walk faster without encumbrances.
After a few moments of feeling really quite stunned by the sudden and unexpected sight of my destination, I pulled myself together and went eastwards along the A1005. I looked in vain for a path that would cut across Enfield Chase and was obliged to walk two sides of a triangle to reach the entrance to Trent Park which was almost due south of Botany Bay.
Having heard nothing for ages from Lorna, I tried to phone her and realised to my horror that my mobile’s battery was almost dead. As I pondered what to do, it bleeped and I picked up a text message from her: ‘Where are you? We mustn’t be late for Sir Murray’. I texted back as fast as I could and told her where I was and asked her to pick me up at the northern entrance to Trent Park. No reply. And now I was at the entrance and not sure what to do. So I texted again, fearful that the phone would give out at any minute. No reply.
Just as I was beginning to wonder what the hell to do, she texted me again saying Sir Murray wasn’t bothered about the time of our arrival and she was staying where she was at Cockfosters.
I couldn’t respond – my phone had quietly given up the ghost.
So, having walked 25 miles already, I ran the last mile – except for the uphill bit, I have to be honest – all the way through the park and to the southern entrance where Lorna was waiting. Hmmm.
We drove up the A111, joined the M25 going east and following the superb directions Sir Murray had given us, we reached Serge Hill by 7.20pm.
Sir Murray and his wife, Joan, met us in their driveway and helped us carry our belongings to our bedrooms.
I was deeply aware of how frightfully sweaty and horrible I looked after my run and it was a truly surreal experience to be shown into a bedroom that was fit for a king. It was breathtakingly lovely.
I showered and Lorna bathed hurriedly before joining Murray, Joan and their daughter Kate for dinner at the kitchen table. Murray and Joan had kindly offered not only to put us up for two nights but to host a soiree in their music room. More than sixty people had been invited and they’d spent the day moving masses of furniture out of the house and into a barn so that chairs could be set out ready for the concert tomorrow evening.
How wonderfully generous they are to show support for the Opera Walk by turning their beautiful house upside down and laying on not only a concert, but also dinner for seventy afterwards. I was hugely impressed by both Murray and Joan; they are the most admirable people who, after lifetimes of colossal achievement, showed us unstinting generosity and kindness.
And this is what had been one of the chief joys of the Opera Walk; meeting the most fantastic people. Some have been old friends and others, hopefully, will be new ones. But it is very humbling to know that these dear and special ladies and gentlemen have made it possible for me to realise the idea that became the Opera Walk.
After a much-appreciated dinner, Lorna went to her room whilst Kate took me to her part of the house to connect my lap-top to their broadband. We had a great chat as I floundered my way to success and actually managed to make the connection. I learned that this too was a three generation household like mine – the house was bigger by far, but the pleasure and joy we each derived from living with our parents and children was equal.
Maybe it’s an unusual arrangement – and maybe for many people it would be disastrous. But it’s not, I’m happy to say, for either my family or for hers.
She showed me how to find my way back to my bedroom – I could have done with a map – and after brushing my teeth, I fell into bed, turned out the light and dreamed of tomorrow.

A terrible visitation

2006-06-19T12:00:00.000+01:00

Well, the beginning of the final week. I can’t believe how quickly the time has passed and how this project will soon be history. Carpe diem.
We don’t know what’s around life’s corner – though in my case, it’s likely to be a large lorry – and we must all make the most of the time we’ve got.
Today was Johnny’s first night of the Marriage of Figaro at Covent Garden; you’d never have known because life went on as normal at Rookery Farm and he made no singerish song and dance about it at all.
Helen was working at the Almeida again rehearsing a Michael Nyman piece. It opens in about three weeks and sounds very interesting.
The girls were off to school and Lorna and I planned to set off around nine and head down the A1 to Great Barford. While I was in the bedroom doing my feet, I heard sirens and hooting and wondered if there’d been an accident. When Lorna arrived and we drove out of Rookery Farm, it only took a glance at the A1 to see that there’d been a major shunt somewhere further along and we’d best take another route. We drove to Oakham and then onto the A1 at Stamford avoiding both the accident and its consequences and reached the lay-by where Diana and I had finished the night before.
Lorna was on excellent form and we agreed that she should meet me the other side of Great Barford and generally keep close for the day. I planned to spend most of the time on main roads which always made life an awful lot simpler for both of us. The weather today was good for walking; warm and dry, with quite a lot of high cloud and a light breeze and I set off, minus my rucksack, and quickly settled into a loping rhythm along the road.
Almost immediately a large hare dashed out from the field on my right and in its bewilderment ran ahead of me along the central white line. I was on the phone to Gill Cribbins at the time and she had a blow by blow account of its progress. I feared for its life as the road carried a good deal of heavy traffic and when a large tractor pulling a trailer passed me going towards Great Barford I thought the hare’s number was up.
Had it been a rabbit, maybe the farmer would have accelerated and finished the job, but hares were evidently different. The tractor driver slowed and kept behind the hare which was ducking and diving in terror until it eventually took a mammoth leap into the grass on the left of the road and disappeared. And that was after a good quarter of a mile of dicing with death. What a relief – for me, for Gill – and I dare say, for the hare.
I reached Great Barford in what seemed no time at all and as I approached the main road that passes through the village a very eccentrically dressed gentleman doffed his hat to me and smilingly said, ‘good morning.’ I couldn’t doff my baseball cap because my hands were full of water bottles, my camera and map. But I returned his greeting with a big smile and thought how good manners do make life so much pleasanter.
Dodging the constant stream of cars and lorries on the main road, I walked out of the village, over a very pretty bridge that reminded me of the narrow bridge at Betchworth in Surrey. Lorna was waiting on the other side, tucked neatly into a gateway and she handed me a Kit Kat to see me through the next few miles. We agreed to meet in Moggerhanger – what a fearful name and I hope it had nothing to do with unspeakable things being done to innocent Moggies.
As I walked, I admired the wild flowers in the verges and hedgerows; bright, brave poppies danced in the corn fields and everywhere looked fresh and full of promise.
My need for the loo came upon me like a terrible visitation and as I was walking through the suburbs of Blunham, there was no way I could nip behind a convenient hedge or into a handy field. It’s bloody difficult walking with crossed legs and I was within an inch of disgracing myself when I spotted Harpers Children's Nursery. I crossed the road, rang the bell, put them in the picture and, bless them a million times, they let me in and allowed me to use their Ladies. That really was a close call and I’m beginning to think that incontinence pads might be a very good thing should I ever wish to long-distance walk again.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Harpers Nursery. You saved me from a horrible and very messy fate.
I took a right turn to Moggerhanger and followed the road without paying much attention. Because I was on the phone, I missed a crucial turning and as has happened time and again, someone popped up out of nowhere and put me on the right path. This time it was a charming older lady on a ladder who was clipping her hedge.
So, I blithely followed her instructions, admiring the largely flat countryside as I walked, and arrived at one of the worst B roads I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter on foot – in my entire life.
How I didn’t get thoroughly squashed I’ll never know. I shouted and cursed my way into Moggerhanger like a certifiable lunatic.
It wasn’t a route Lorna would have scouted because she expected me to arrive on minor roads; it was entirely my own stupid fault and I was very lucky indeed to live to fight another day.
It was now very definitely an urban landscape but I could still detect ‘eau de vache’ in the air; I think some muck spreading had been going on quite recently and the warm air was redolent of cow. And I have to add that the smell of cows is one that I find very warm and comforting – except when they’re threatening to kill me.
Lorna and I found each other and after exchanging an empty bottle of Buxton Water for a full one, we agreed to meet three miles further on at Northill.
Lorna had much more joie de vivre today so hopefully the comparatively restful weekend did her good.
Out of Moggerhanger and on the road to Northill I passed a huge field full of onions that were being turned over by a tractor. I wondered whether it was a restful or stressful way to pass the time. The onions lay in neat, straight lines ready to be picked up and transported to their future and the air was heavy with their pungent scent.
I didn’t stop in Northill because I wanted to make as many miles as possible before lunch so I met Lorna in Ickwell where I sat down for ten minutes, ate some lunch, made a continuous stream of phone calls before levering myself out of the folding chair and carrying on.
Ickwell was yet another really pretty village and on one side of the green there stood a very tall pole with a small crown on the top. A maypole I presumed – something I don’t recall having seen on any of my wanderings to date.
While Lorna went back to Northill to have some lunch in a pub, I walked on to Old Warden; it was absolutely fantastic. One wonderful thatched house after another. And the red brick houses had a mellowness about them that was sadly lacking in places like Irthlingborough. I suppose it all boils down to money in the end…
As I consulted my map, I was reminded of a conversation I had with Diana on Saturday; she told me about the lady who decided after the Second World War that it would be a really good idea to create a London street map. So she walked every single London street, charting every one as she went, and it became known as the A to Z. She died not so long ago at a very advanced age – all that walking I expect. What a marvellous idea and what a splendid character to bring the idea so practically to life.
Another piece of interesting information; there are apparently mistakes in the real A to Z so that if anyone produces an unauthorised map by copying the original, the manufacturers of the original will know straight away and deal with the offenders in the time honoured fashion.
Bloody nuisance if the deliberate mistake happens to be just the street you were looking for.
I passed Shuttleworth College with its multitude of tall towers; on a triangle of grass by the entrance were two posters: one was for a concert featuring Abba, Elton John and Queen and the other was for a concert billed as the original Flying Proms featuring the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra with spectacular flying displays. An interesting concept…
There were several thatched cottages which had roofs that were configured like quizzical eyebrows over the bedroom windows and a couple of lychgate like constructions containing ancient pumps. One had a tiled roof and the other was very neatly thatched but I have no idea whether or not they still function.
The gardens I passed were immaculate; and as the road had recently been resurfaced, all the traffic passed by extremely sedately. Not because they didn’t want to kill the nasty pedestrian – they didn’t want to scratch their paintwork.
Even in this village there were England flags on display and I pondered on the pros and cons of such an exhibition. Some people find it alarmingly jingoistic while others think it’s an encouraging sign of unity amongst the population. I stayed firmly on my comfortable fence and came to no decision at all.
I walked through Shefford and went adrift when I turned right at the High Street. A very helpful and genial builders’ merchant put me right and it actually was a blessing in disguise because he told me how to get to the A600 by the shortest route. He was spot on and saved me several miles.
I walked at a good clip and must have looked seriously strange because two men I passed and to whom I said ‘good afternoon’ actually shied away from me making gurgling noises and with terror in their eyes.
So I can surely say to my Mum and Dad, who worry incessantly about my safety, that when I’m walking long-distance people scatter at my approach.
I strode womanfully past Henlow Greyhound Stadium and wondered whether any of Gill Cribbins’ greyhounds had ever run here. And then I spotted Lorna by a parade of shops and stopped for some pasta salad. She gave me a lovely cup of tea which revived me very nicely and after ten minutes maximum I was on my way once more – this time to Hitchin in Hertfordshire.
Hitchen was four and a half miles further on and my plan to reach Codicote was fading fast as it was now getting on for 5pm.
A striped school tie lay on the pavement in front of me and, though I ignored it at first, my conscience got the better of me and I went back, picked it up and tied it around a nearby lamppost as if tying it around someone’s neck. I debated whether to do a Windsor knot but decided that would be a step too far.
Pressing on with my head down, I forgot to look at my surroundings. When I did, I was very surprised to see that although I was walking beside the painfully noisy A600, on either side were great corn fields rippling into the distance and elegant, ancient houses dotted here and there.
My left leg was giving me a bit of gyp because I tweaked a muscle in my thigh riding on Saturday evening. When I consulted my GPS watch I could see that my average speed was under my usual 3.5 to 3.6 and I was sitting at 3.3 miles an hour. Not bad, but not especially good.
And then the urgent need for facilities came upon me once again like a Biblical curse and to my amazement, no sooner had I had that very thought, than a pub called the Angel’s Reply arose before me. How very apt and how extraordinarily fortuitous.
Five minutes later and feeling very much better, as I crossed a side road I stepped in front of a car bearing the number plate ENO---. It missed and I resolved to take more care.
I walked into Hitchen and was diverted by lack of pavement into the old town away from the A602. What an unexpectedly pretty place, full of interesting shops and intriguing nooks and crannies. I guessed my way through the streets, up a steep hill and by some miracle arrived bang on the road I wanted.
It was evidently going to be pavements most of the way from now on so I agreed with Lorna over the phone that I’d meet her near Great Wymondley which would place us close to the A1 for the journey home.
She, poor soul, got there ages before me and then, for some inexplicable reason, instead of waiting for me went the wrong way down the A 602 and got stuck in a colossal traffic jam. When I phoned to say I was close to Little Wymondley she was miles away, so I said I’d just keep on walking until she caught me up. And I must say I was secretly pleased because it meant that when she did find me, I was almost on top of Junction 8 of the A1. A total distance of 25 miles and an excellent position to start again tomorrow.
A slightly frazzled Lorna picked me up at 7pm and we made very good time back to Stretton, arriving as we did, an hour later. Helen’s Mum cooked us a most delicious dinner and afterwards, as both Johnny and Helen were going to be late home, we said our goodnights and went to bed.

Close en-cow-nters. Sorry.

2006-06-18T00:00:00.000+01:00

Having planned to get up early, early came and went and we didn’t.
A late evening and far too much good wine rendered us incapable of getting up before 8am and as Diana was going home this evening she wanted to say goodbye to Helen and Johnny in person and thank them for all their fantastic hospitality.
They’re amazing, those two, because whatever happens they take it in their combined stride, deal with it, and move on seamlessly. They remind me of swans gliding nobly on the surface of the water but paddling like hell underneath.
We ate our breakfast on the terrace in the pallid warmth of the early morning sunshine and before long first Helen and then Johnny, looking frightfully fetching in his bath robe and furry boots, joined us at the table. We spent the best part of an hour chatting and having a bloody good laugh which set us up for the day.
Then it really was time to go; we’d already loaded up the Mazda with Diana’s things and what we both needed for the day’s walking, so it was a quick hug and farewell and we were back on the road.
We drove down an empty A1 and then cut across on the A605 to reach Great Addington. Diana was justifiably concerned that there was nowhere to park except on the narrow street. However, by a lucky stroke of good fortune, we spotted a village hall complete with car park. Diana pulled in, I leapt out and asked the young lady who’d just emerged from the hall if we might park there for the day – and she most obligingly said yes. Diana could now enjoy the day without wondering whether or not her car had been shunted into a hedge or stone wall.
We togged up and walked out of the car park. I had to walk past the church for about fifty yards to the spot where I’d finished last night, turn round and walk back to the car park again. I’m nothing if not pedantic about these matters and the joy of my GPS watch is that all my moves are recorded for posterity – pace, distance and time walking. I’ll have a good look one day when I understand how the blasted thing works!
We left Great Addington, walked through Little Addington, (which was – little that is) and on to the strangely named Irthlingborough.
I can’t imagine that people who live there are strangers to jokes about aliens and earthlings, but it was new to us and we damn well made the most of it. We giggled our way round the outskirts of the town and I swear to God we passed someone coming the other way across a bridge who looked exactly like an alien from Star Trek. He was small, whitely bald, and very peculiar looking altogether. Sadly, we giggled even more and were desperately un-PC.
We stopped on yet another handy grassy bank and consulted the map; it was also a good excuse for sitting down for five minutes.
I was tired to begin with today; probably not enough sleep and too much wine were the reasons, so I’ll have to increase the one and limit the other from tonight. That’ll be right!
We skirted the town centre, lamenting the fact that we had now walked out of the beautiful stone villages and into rather brash red brick terraces and modern housing estates.
We stayed on the main A6 and crossed the river; hanging over the railings, we looked down on a scene that can’t have changed greatly over the last hundred years. Cattle grazed languidly in the water meadows and fishermen cast their lines into the slowly moving streams.
We’d long since passed Kettering to the west – I bought a very large tent there in 1979 – and were now east of Wellingborough. The A6 became a dual carriageway without a footpath so we were obliged to sample the delights of Higham Ferrers. It looked a mixture of housing with some lovely old buildings and some less lovely new ones.
We did another lightning dash across the A6 like a couple of suicidal lemmings and once again entered another universe.
The road we took to Newton Bromswold was empty and astonishingly rural. Diana opened her mouth to say ‘isn’t this a lovely quiet road,’ just as the first large lorry came belting towards us. And like buses, the lorries came in bunches. One after another from God knows where. Then nothing for at least ten minutes until, with weird synchronicity, we encountered two adult cyclists, one of whom had a small child on the back at exactly the same time an extraordinarily large lorry lurched round a bend. An aerial view would have been amazing and very frightening. Diana and I threw ourselves into the hedge and flattened ourselves as much as two middle-aged ladies humanly can do, the cyclists wobbled past in total unawareness of the disaster that was unfolding and the lorry driver dragged the wheel of the titanic monster sufficiently to the right to avoid killing any of us. It was a seriously close shave.
Then the road was completely empty for ten minutes.
Although the land was rural and peaceful our tummies were grumbling so the road seemed boring and endless. Walkers are like farmers; always complaining about the prevailing conditions.
We turned right at a T-junction and upped the pace until we saw a very welcome sign announcing that the Swan was 200 metres away, down a narrow lane off the main road and that it served excellent food.
If we’d upped the pace before, we now broke into what was practically a run. 2pm was upon us and I think we’d have cried if we’d been told that they’d just stopped serving.
All was well and we had an excellent lunch in friendly surroundings. I wasn’t wearing shorts so could relax, content in the knowledge that no one would have heart failure on that account. Facilities were duly visited and we walked straight out of the Swan onto a fabulously wide, grassy bridleway.
It was like a motorway compared with most off-road paths and we luxuriated in the ease of walking on a firm but springy surface.
We made incredibly good time – almost as good as walking on tarmac or pavements – and before we knew it were passing Riseley and approaching an airfield.
I had another ‘famous last words’ moment whilst walking a particularly empty stretch of bridlepath; I was obliged by my mutinous insides to find my way into a discreet ditch and do what I had to do. We’d seen no one on foot since the beginning of the day – and I mean no one at all – and I was quietly confident that I’d be able to achieve my aim and join Diana with no one any the wiser. Wrong again. As I crouched in the ditch, Diana’s voice wafted over on the still air; ‘There’s someone coming.’ I was out of the ditch in a trice – up the bank and onto the path just as a gentleman strode purposefully towards me. There was no doubt he knew precisely what I’d been up to in the ditch, but he was in too much of a hurry to even smirk. ‘Afternoon,’ he nodded and sped on his way. And then we saw no one on foot for the rest of the day…
The airfield loomed before us and we had to walk around it rather than across it because it was still active. The going was variable with easy grass paths alternating with more awkward stubble underfoot. We walked around the edges of field after field and the aerodrome seemed to get no nearer; a horse rider unwittingly showed us the way through a badly signed farmyard in which was parked an American car with the alarming number plate 5 GUN. We hurried through keeping a very low profile.
Gradually the airfield grew closer and by degrees we wended our way to the north and east of it until it was behind us.
The countryside seemed strange to me because wherever you looked there were vast corn fields, very few buildings and the general impression was of emptiness. Considering how close we were to London it had a surreal quality.
We stopped in a little village to look at the map and sat on a plastic box full of grit. How are the mighty fallen. Five minutes’ break, and levering ourselves off the box with reluctance we tottered stiffly out of the village; the riding yesterday had certainly stretched my muscles and they were making themselves uncomfortably known.
Meandering down the lane, we turned right onto a very open road with land stretching flatly either side of us. After a mile or so, we came upon a track to our left and followed the path’s circuitous route towards a distant church tower.
After passing by a container yard that threatened trespassers with all sorts of terrible fates, we had a short bit of road before turning right onto a very overgrown footpath. Diana saved the day by more expert map-reading and we bore left uphill to the church tower, past it and then right onto another path which was overgrown with corn. We followed the path through a hedge and across a wobbly plank into another field and oriented ourselves by following a stream that was clearly marked on the map.
In the corner of the next stubbly field two mallards shot up from under our feet like a pair of Harrier jump jets, and as we passed a farm a German Shepherd barked and barked and barked and barked…until we were miles away. Evidently he was the 6 o’clock doggy town crier and his self-appointed task was to relay the news of our passing to all points of the compass.
As the barking faded from our ears, we clambered into a field and stopped dead in our tracks. Bloody hell, another sodding great bull. This one was as black as night and he stood alone like a statue to the far left of us.
His calves and wives were much more skittish and galloped over with gay abandon to investigate the two idiots who’d strayed into their pasture. That was fine until the chief Mummy Cow decided that we were potential child murderers and she’d better take action. She charged straight at us with death writ large across her face.
Diana and I hopped up and down and shouted loudly while waving our caps in the air. Golly, we were really fierce.
She stopped a few feet away from us and stared at us unblinkingly. There was NO fear in her expression and that, I have to tell you, is actually quite unnerving because, as a rule, animals don’t like to look humans straight in the eye.
Not a year goes by without someone being killed on a footpath by a cow protecting her calf, so we backed up towards the stile, fully aware of how dangerous the situation was, and leapt into the next field as fast as we could.
Where there were more cows. Bugger, bugger, bugger.
These cows, however, were happy cows that simply carried on grazing and it wasn’t until we reached the end of the field that we spotted a very large black cow with very large pale horns standing in the shade of a tree with two calves at her not inconsiderable feet. She didn’t look like an entirely happy cow to us, so we tiptoed past as inoffensively as we could.
Without warning, a rusty red fox appeared right in front of us; he looked as startled as we were and after a long hard stare, he ran towards the big black cow. Not a good move as moves go, because as he paused to check us out again, she lowered her head and went for him. He was offski like a rocket and who could blame him. We certainly had every sympathy.
Our joint blood pressure went off the scale when we climbed into the next field and saw before us yet more huge cows to the right of the narrow footpath and two very new calves actually on the narrow footpath. We looked at them, they looked at us and a situation started to develop.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, we lowered ourselves to the ground and slid in turn under a barbed wire fence into the adjoining field. We felt like a couple of Territorial Reservists on manoeuvres – well, rather more like a couple of prats – but we lived to fight another day and that was most definitely the MAIN THING.
We passed a fat, elderly golden Labrador who tried to see us off before giving up on grounds of obesity and advanced age before reaching a road which took us through Wilden and into confusion. The footpath by the Butterfly Farm we couldn’t find – it seemed to have gone out of business – was unaccountably missing. We backtracked, which is always tedious at the end of a long day and followed another path that led across fields to yet another road. Turning right, we phoned Lorna and said, ‘Come and get us.’
Which she did, and acting upon a text I’d sent her first thing this morning, she came armed with teabags, hot water and Kit Kats. Perfect.
Then back to Great Addington where Diana’s car sat in solitary splendour in a corner of the village hall car park.
We transferred various bits and pieces from one car to another before saying goodbye with huge hugs and many thanks.
Lorna and I drove away as Diana prepared to drive home to Hampshire. What a trooper (she’ll be cross I wrote that, but it’s true).
We had so many laughs, quite often bordering on hysterics and such great conversation during our time together it was an absolute tonic. Who in God’s name wants earnest and depressed all the time.
NOT ME!
Back at Stretton Helen and Johnny had bought in a Chinese take-away which was my thank you to them for having me. It was mega-delicious and the food and wine had the usual soporific effect after 21.25 miles and it wasn’t long before I said goodnight and went to bed. It seemed funny to think that Diana was still in her car somewhere out there heading for home. And that, I’m afraid, was my final conscious thought. Blessed oblivion.

A cow's point of view...

2006-06-17T00:00:00.000+01:00

Diana and I got up at 6.15am – yes, four hours of sleep – washed and dressed as quietly as possible, had a quick breakfast and drove back to Wing in Diana’s car.
We’d agreed with Lorna the previous evening that she should have the day off nannying us and spend Saturday catching up with paper work. She would pick us up at the end of the day and run us back to Wing where we were going to leave Diana’s Mazda.
The main reason for getting up so horribly early after such a late night was to do a reasonable amount of walking before it became uncomfortably hot. The weather forecast for the weekend was for more blisteringly high temperatures; not an appealing prospect when trying to cover more than 20 miles.
Yesterday evening we asked the landlord’s permission to park in the pub car park for the day – and he kindly agreed we might do so.
We chose the shadiest spot we could find, gathered together our rucksacks, maps and several bottles of water each and strolled out of the car park and into the village.
The temperature was blissfully cool and the slight breeze carried the subtle fragrance of jasmine and roses. We ambled rather than strode along the pavements to loosen up our muscles and enjoyed the peace and quiet of early morning in the glorious countryside.
After an uneventful few miles on minor roads we reached the beautiful little village of Deene; it was already very hot and we both needed a pee – is this a problem of middle-age? Do you need to go more frequently after a certain birthday? Perhaps it was just the quantity of water we were drinking but whatever the reason, we looked in vain for a loo.
Studying the map on a grassy bank took our minds off our bladders and we opted to backtrack slightly and walk along a footpath into Deene Park.
We walked into the park and stood admiring a sizable lake covered in shiny yellow water lilies – I went through the usual ridiculous rigmarole to take a photo and as we turned onto the path again we stopped dead.
Blocking our way were twenty or more Friesian cattle; we looked at them and they looked at us for a long minute and no one moved. It was like another scene from a cowboy film where the Goody and the Baddy face each other in the main street while all the townsfolk run for cover.
Bugger this for a game of soldiers, I said, and walked into them waving my cap. They moved higgledy piggledy out of my way and revealed… a very large bull.
He and his latest squeeze were, by good fortune, on the other side of a cattle grid so Diana and I hopped over a stile and crossed a stream to what we thought was safety.
We were WRONG.
As we hopped over another stile into the next field, lo and behold, we were greeted by the bull and his girlfriend who’d simply walked around the thicket of bushes through which we’d passed and which we’d assumed separated one field from the other.
What a statuesque figure he made; what a big boy he was, in every sense of the word; and how close we all were to each other…
Diana and I looked at him, looked at each other, looked at him again and began to sidle very gently along the fence in the opposite direction to the one we wanted. ‘Walk normally,’ she whispered. ‘No problem,’ I whispered back. And we slowly angled our route up and over the hill, avoiding his harem and multitude of progeny, until we were well clear of the lot of them and could have a nervous laugh.
He, of course, was king of all he surveyed and didn’t give a monkey’s about two pathetic female humans; and I must say, from a cow’s point of view, he was rather a hunk.
We strolled onwards, admiring what must have been Deene Hall to our left, and with the threat of being gored behind us, the need to pee returned tenfold. Diana must have a bigger bladder than me – mind you, she doesn’t drink as much water as I do. Whatever, I could wait no longer and nipped behind a handy tree. Oh joy, oh rapture.
Lighter now and with renewed vigour in my step, I ran a couple of hundred yards across the grass to join her as she reached a copse. The footpath sign indicated straight on over the stile, so this we did and entered the cool darkness of the densely growing woodland. The narrow path meandered before us and as I led the way, Diana gave up the unequal struggle and nipped behind a tree. HA!
Within moments, I emerged from the trees and was faced in every direction with impenetrable thickets of five foot tall stinging nettles. Where the bloody hell had the path gone? I picked up a stick and thrashed about in an unsuccessful fashion reminiscent of a field trip up the Amazon; and when Diana caught up we agreed that all the Anthisan in the world wouldn’t be enough to soothe the nettle rash that would result should we be stupid enough to push our way forward. So we made our way back through the wood, over the stile and towards a gateway.
It said in very large letters; WAY OUT.
So, with red faces and tingling, stinging legs, we followed the signs until we walked under an impressive archway and out on to the A43. What a pair of pillocks.
We crossed the main road and wended our way up hill for a short way before turning right along a quiet lane that eventually led us onto what we thought was a disused airfield. As we walked along what I suppose must once have been a runway, a hare suddenly darted out from the undergrowth to our right; it dashed away from us, zig-zagging like a lunatic until it bolted into the grass further along. Then back to silence and the glare of the midday sun.
We gave a first class impression of startled deer as a microlight flew over us without warning; the whining buzz ripped through the air like a circular saw and, shading our eyes, we watched as it motored through the sky like an ungainly invention of Heath Robinson.
The shadeless runway went on and on and on, taking us parallel to the north of Corby on our left, past some aircraft hangars where more microlights were stored until, eventually, we turned right onto a bridleway that brought us to the A 427.
We crossed over onto another bridlepath and after a trouble-free, cattle-free few miles ended up in Brigstock. We stopped at the first pub we came to – the Three Cocks – and staggered out of the bright sunlight into the comparative gloom of the bar. It was fairly full and I was acutely aware that my wearing shorts was a really bad idea; we ordered our drinks and jacket potatoes from the charming lady behind the bar while the mostly male customers looked us up and down in flush-inducing scrutiny.
Sidling past testosterone-packed males seemed to be the order of the day so we slid into a safe and solitary corner of the pub where we ate a very enjoyable meal. The barmaid very generously offered to fill our empty water bottles for free and put them in the freezer to chill until we were ready to leave.
We took advantage of the facilities, comme toujours, and as she handed us our water bottles, the kindly barmaid asked us where we were walking. A grave error from her point of view because we told her.
Leaving the pub, we had to shade our eyes against the brightness of the day. The heat was now very intense and we walked in whatever shade was available as we took quiet lanes and footpaths due south through Cranford St Andrew and Cranford St John.
While we sat for a few minute’s rest on a handy bench, a car containing four well-dressed young people drew up and the front passenger asked us fumily for directions to Cranford Hall. Diana had the map so Diana got up to help them; what a star. They appeared to take in what she had to say – even though more than a little drink had already been taken – and with jovial cries of thanks they proceeded to drive fifty or so yards round the corner to their destination.
Johnny rang to say that after expenses the concert last night made over £4,000 which was terrific and a sizable addition to the funds.
Diana and I eased ourselves stickily off the bench and, toiling in the now unbearable heat, we left the Cranfords. Within a mile we took a footpath that led us across a field and unbelievably down a flight of steps onto the A 14.
This dual carriageway is like a motorway and the average speed of the cars and lorries along the stretch we wanted to cross must be well over seventy miles an hour. Traffic whooshed past in a constant stream and we looked at each other in horror. Diagonally across the four lanes of tarmac was another flight of steps leading into a field on the opposite side, so this was evidently the official way forward.
So, like racehorses in the starting stalls, we waited for a gap in the traffic and shouting, ‘GO!’ we legged it as fast as we could to the central reservation. Whew! And then we had to do it all over again to get to the other side; this was beginning to feel like one of those ‘why did the chicken cross the road?’ jokes.
We climbed the steps and followed the grassy footpath across a scorchingly hot meadow. I felt like yelling at the sun to bugger off because it was really unpleasant and I kept thinking that heat stroke was but a whisper away. Oh, the relief to leave the unforgiving open field and walk along a short stretch of shady road.
It didn’t last long, however, and within a quarter of a mile we were back on the blistering tarmac and heading for Great Addington.
Diana had kept up with me all day without any difficulty but now, because I wanted to get out of the sun as fast as possible, I lengthened my stride and the distance between us opened up. I hot-footed it – literally – up and down the hills heading for the church spire that appeared tantalisingly from time to time.
I reached the Jag, which Lorna had parked beside the church, several minutes before Diana and I hopped into the back seat to avoid the full blast of the air conditioning which makes me cough like an idiot. It’s a boring singer thing.
Diana arrived, plonked herself on to the front seat and map-read us back to Wing while I fell instantly asleep and nodded and drooled attractively in the back. A cup of tea would have been lovely, but Lorna hadn’t thought to bring any hot water or tea bags. Oh well…
Once back at the pub in Wing, Diana and I got into the Mazda, waved goodbye to Lorna and drove back to Stretton.
Now, you might think that having walked 23 ½ miles we’d have had enough exercise for the day. And you’d probably be right. But Helen had offered to take Diana and me out for a ride that evening and we weren’t going to pass up the opportunity.
So, back at Rookery Farm, we changed out of shorts into trousers, borrowed half-chaps and riding helmets and went into the GH stable yard to get the horses ready.
Diana rode Emily’s clever little black and white pony, Keely, I borrowed Helen and Dom’s very large and very forward going mare, Vanity, Helen GH was on her smart young performance horse, James and the other Helen had borrowed a rather handsome grey fellow called Jack.
We rode out through the village in two pairs, chatting and enjoying the coolness of the evening air. The motorists were mostly considerate, slowing down and giving us lots of room as they passed. Out of the blue, James shied violently at something in the hedgerow and pushed Van into a sports car that was creeping past – and fortunately, it was only her tail that swished across the car’s paintwork and nothing more substantial. The gasps from behind me told me how close a call it was and it reminded me that there are around 3,000 accidents each year involving horses and motor vehicles. The two Helens knew of two local women who’d had serious road accidents whilst riding; one died, the other was paralysed from the neck down. A sobering thought.
If you don’t already do so, please, please, please drive slowly past horses giving them as wide a berth as possible; it might save someone’s life.
We left the roads and walked and trotted across beautiful rolling meadows and giant fields of corn, through Clipsham Quarry and along wide inviting bridleways. Van was extremely keen to gallop but as Helen said her brakes weren’t much cop, I held her to a reluctant trot and she thought I was a total spoilsport.
We got home around nine, washed off the horses and joined Johnny on the terrace for a barbecue.
My God, Helen’s a lucky girl; he cooked butterflied lamb on the barbecue and it was gorgeous. Melt in the mouth delicious. We all drank far too much – oh what a surprise – before repairing to the sitting room to watch a recording of Katie’s concert which took place last week.
She sang like a pro and shows every sign of having what it takes to be a star.
Lorna fell fast asleep on the sofa and had to be woken up to walk across to Helen and Dom’s.
Diana and I shall be doing the same thing tomorrow and giving her a day off nannying. She can pick us up wherever we finish and hopefully have a good rest during the day. She looks pale, drawn and exhausted. Perhaps a walk in the fresh air would do her good…

Starring Bernard Cribbins

2006-06-16T00:00:00.000+01:00

After breakfast Lorna drove Diana and me to Whissendine where we resumed our walk armed with rucksacks, several bottles of water each and our maps. Lorna had things to do for the evening concert and we were quite old and able enough to look after ourselves for a morning’s walking.
It was hot with only a suspicion of a breeze so we took advantage of every little piece of shade we could find. The four mile walk into Oakham was on a tarmac footpath so getting into a good, mile-covering rhythm was easy. We sailed past the future Oakham by-pass and reflected what a boon it would be to this pretty little town when all the heavy traffic was diverted away from the narrow, winding streets.
I had a chat with Bernard who’d just finished his interview at Rutland Radio and who was going to Rutland Water for an hour or two’s relaxation. Bernard is a great outdoorsman; he fishes and shoots at a very high standard and you can regularly see him on TV on programmes to do with fishing in particular.
As we crossed the level crossing and walked past Rutland Radio for the last time, I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window. Oh God, what a fright. I suppose we all have a mental image of ourselves that has more to do with wishful thinking than reality; when I saw this bloody great middle-aged dragon with rugby-playing thighs on display, I resolved there and then to put the shorts back in the case, whatever the weather, and seriously consider liposuction when I got home.
Diana bought some new laces for her boots and we followed the signs to the castle where there were some loos. On the way out of the square I noticed a sign outside a shop advertising ‘knick-knacks’ and ‘old peculiarities’. We didn’t linger just in case.
We bore left out of Oakham and made for Rutland Water. It was getting hotter and hotter and the glare from the sun bounced up from the tarmac in a shimmering haze.
Tractors bearing huge rolls of hay grumbled past us – driven, I have to say, by rather handsome young men. A quick consultation with the map spread out on a shady grass bank confirmed we were on the right path and we began our ramble around Rutland Water. We didn’t catch a glimpse of the water until we’d walked a good half mile or so but it was worth waiting for. Through the restful shade of the deep green trees, the water looked coolly blue and tranquil. We took some photographs through a gap in a fence to remind us of the day before rejoining the gravel path that meandered through the woods. Taking photographs is a bit of a song and dance because I have to take off my rucksack, drop my water and map on the ground, remove my baseball cap, put my specs somewhere safe before even beginning to make some sense of my digital camera. Pathetic really.
We heard the Land Rover before we saw it and stood to one side to let the vehicle past; suddenly the driver backed up until he was level with us. ‘Are you the Opera Walk?’ he asked, pointing at our chests. (we were wearing identical T shirts and looked like those sad couples who always dress the same way) ‘Indeed we are,’ we cried. It turned out he was the Ranger in charge of Rutland Water and was coming to the concert tonight. After reassuring him that I wouldn’t look like a grubby tinker, we waved bye-bye and wandered on guessing the odds on that meeting happening at all.
We left the banks of Rutland Water and ended up at the Horse and Jockey pub in Manton. With the weighty heat of the sun bearing down on us, we’d started to trudge rather than march, so being indoors away from the breathless warmth was a relief. Speaking of which, the facilities were excellent.
We had a very tasty lunch in the recently refurbished pub and can recommend it to anyone who happens upon Manton. Top marks.
Diana rang Lorna – she had a mobile signal and I didn’t – and Diana gave Lorna clear instructions on how to find us. And then, surprisingly reinvigorated, we set off to walk as far as we could before being picked up.
We managed another 1.6 miles and stopped at yet another pub in the pretty village of Wing. We piled into the Jag and were back in Stretton by 3pm.
Time for an hour’s snooze for me and a bath for Diana while Lorna went off in search of refreshments for the artists between the rehearsal and the performance.
At 5pm, Diana was by the printer in Johnny’s office as it churned out 200 sheets listing the items for the auction; I warmed up my voice in the dining room and Johnny, who had a million and one jobs to do as usual, dashed here, there and everywhere in a fever of activity. He’s amazing.
At 5.30pm, Diana and I followed Johnny and Bernard into Oakham, parked close to the school and lugged the masses of gear we had with us into the chapel and Green Room.
We had to wait outside the chapel because a wedding rehearsal was underway – it was too late to shout ‘don’t do it!’ – but the wedding party to be rather pointedly closed the doors while we chatted quietly on the bench outside; I think it showed that our version of quiet was not necessarily everyone else’s…
Once the chapel was free, we ran through the few numbers that remained after last night’s rehearsal and then got ourselves dolled up for the concert. Lorna’s first-class sandwiches were demolished in short order and while we got dressed and made up in the funny little lavatory, she and Diana put out the concert shells, donation forms and programmes with the help of some Oakham pupils.
While Lorna went to fetch the wine from Stretton, Diana and Emily GH put the concert shells on the two hundred plus seats, set out about 300 glasses and laid out the T shirts and CDs for sale.
At least sixty people turned up at the door thanks to Rutland Radio and word of mouth and the concert, which began at 8.15pm, was a huge success.
We all sang really well in that splendid acoustic; the Rosenkavalier was a triumph and Peter Davis played the piano accompaniments as if he was a one man orchestra.
The Oakham Chamber Choir sang wonderfully and showed beyond shadow of doubt why they have reached the finals of the BBC choir of the year competition. Johnny joined them in a Czech version of the Lord’s Prayer by Janacek and they brought the house down. Magificent.
Bernard was simply brilliant; he read the Father of the Bride’s reply which he did at Coverwood three years ago and had everyone howling with laughter. And when the piano intro for ‘Hole in the Ground’ began, it was like a Hollywood film. The audience cheered and clapped and then sang along. Bernard’s voice is as youthful and attractive as it was forty years ago and I can tell you categorically that the man’s a genius.
Johnny auctioned a recital by him and Helen as well as several sets of tickets for performances at ENO. He raised a great deal of money and if he ever gets fed up with singing he could consider becoming a professional auctioneer. He certainly has the knack.
After the show, everything that had come out of the cars had to go back in, so Diana, Lorna, a number of very charming and helpful Oakham girls and boys and I tidied up as swiftly as possible. The Ranger we’d met earlier in the day said hello and told me, a little shyly I thought, that I really had scrubbed up rather well. And then, that too was consigned to history.
Back to Stretton and a party catered for by the Olive Branch Pub. What fantastic food and company and it was gone 2am before Diana and I tottered up to bed somewhat the worse for drink. Lovely-jubbly.

Footpaths - an endangered species

2006-06-15T00:00:00.000+01:00

I got up at 5.45am, shuffled all my bags to the front door, stripped the bed, tidied up, had a cup of tea and left my very nice flat in Leeds for the last time. Lorna brought the Jag right to the front door of the apartment building to save me a hernia and as soon as we’d loaded up, we were away and on to the M1.
I fell asleep yet again; poor Lorna drove all the way to Nottingham with me huffling, snuffling and swaying beside her. We negotiated the Ring Road without mishap and she deposited me back at the spot at which I finished last night.
Lorna went pavement hunting for me as I made for the main road to Melton Mowbray. By the time I reached the roundabout where I turned onto the A606 I was seriously overheating. The sun was ferociously hot in spite of the early hour so I dragged off my fleece, tied it around my waist and followed the pavement – a welcome surprise – to a garage where Lorna was waiting. I had coffee and sandwiches for breakfast – not necessarily the healthiest way to start the day – and minus the fleece, and drinking water like it was going out of fashion, I carried on along the main road.
It was noisy and tiring; but when the pavement turned into grass verges that hadn’t seen a mower for several years, walking became annoyingly awkward. I had to switch from one side of the road to the other, time after time, to negotiate these bloody verges and wondered for the umpteenth time why footpaths are an endangered species.
Eventually I regained pavements, but only briefly, and then it was fluorescent tabard on and into fast, unyielding traffic. Hopping out of the way whenever I thought my number was up slowed me down considerably – and did nothing for my temper – but eventually I made it safely back onto a stretch of tarmac pavement and could relax my hawk-like vigilance. There’s nothing better designed to stop you blinking than walking into really fast and aggressive traffic. Every moment demands full attention or you die; simple really.
As I approached the top of a fairly steep hill, I suddenly encountered a tall young bearded man who began to applaud me enthusiastically and unexpectedly. He had a toddler in a pushchair with him and after a moment’s wondering what the hell was going on, I realised it was Ashley Holland, the fine British baritone.
Johnny Graham Hall had told Ashley that I would be walking that route today and Ashley very sweetly turned out with 17 month old Ewan to spur me on.
We bade each other goodbye after a ten minute chat, much to Ewan’s undisguised relief, and I took advantage of the ladies facilities at the garden centre beside which we’d been talking. Ewan’s relief paled into insignificance compared with mine.
Then onwards under the blazing sun, past neat houses with colourful gardens and serried ranks of bins waiting to be dragged back to their household stations after emptying.
I ran out of water – and had no idea where Lorna was. I rang her and got the voice mail because the mobile phone signals were patchy and shortly after she phoned back and said she was a few miles further ahead and would drive back.
Fifteen minutes later, refreshed and clutching yet another bottle of Buxton Water in my hot sweaty paw, I marched at full pelt along the A606 through a couple of villages and began the ascent of Great Broughton Hill.
Time was not on my side at this point because I was due to record an interview for Rutland Radio in Oakham at 1.15pm and I didn’t want to be late.
I pressed on, dodging juggernaut after juggernaut and throwing myself into nasty scratchy hedges every time anything large thundered past. It became very clear that to proceed any further on the road would render my children motherless, so I did a lightning dash across the road, climbed a rusty gate and trespassed my way through a field that followed the direction of the hill. It was rutted and steep but safe; but was there a way out? No.
I shimmied through a tunnel of nettles and brambles, climbed under, then over, two scrappy fences, negotiated a ditch and rather more solid fence and then fought my way into the next field through more nettles and brambles. Uncomfortable, yes, but mercifully not fatal.
There was no way out of the field that I could see, so I climbed another rusty gate back on to the road and started toiling up the tarmac ready to leap into the lowering hawthorn hedge at every moment.
As I sweated past a lay by on the opposite side of the road, I called ‘hi’ to a burly chap standing beside his truck and who was looking at me somewhat quizzically. ‘Are you the footpath lady?’ he called; ‘I thought you might be the footpath lady what with your fluorescent tabard and your map,’ he cried. Ah! The farmer across whose land I had just trespassed. ‘No,’ I shouted back, ‘I’m walking to London and I’m really sorry if I’ve offended you by trespassing on your land. I just wanted to reach London alive and not in a wooden box.’
That seemed to satisfy him and with a final few words of warning about the next killer bend, he leapt joyously into his truck and drove off in a cloud of exhaust fumes.
Were there actually footpaths there, I wondered? The footpath lady in these parts must be quite a formidable character if the reaction of this particular farmer was anything to go by. Go girl!
Time was now getting short and no sign of Lorna so I called her on her mobile and suggested she might like to fetch me asap if I was to get to Oakham in time for my interview.
She picked me up about half a mile further on at a crossroads and we drove into Oakham and parked near the Radio Station. I of course was by now an indescribably grubby mess covered in goose grass, dust and scratches from the morning’s walking. And to make matters worse, I was in my shorts – a sight which was enough to make strong men faint.
So I stripped off swiftly, put on some trousers and a clean shirt, dragged a brush through my hair and, having pointlessly thrown some lipstick at my chapped lips, made my way out of the car park and to Rutland Radio.
What a delightful bunch of people; I was welcomed into the handsome house that serves as the premises of Rutland Radio, given a cup of tea and unstinted use of the facilities, before being ushered into a studio to record an interview with Graham.
Graham was one of the original team which founded Rutland Radio in 1998 and he was great; full of enthusiasm about the walk, the concert at Oakham school tomorrow, meeting Bernard Cribbins and life in general. They really were like a large, energetic and very happy family, all crowded together and getting on with whatever jobs needed to be done with endless humour, patience and expertise.
Graham asked all the right questions and I cudgelled my brain into providing the right answers. The interview was to go out later in the afternoon and our hope was that we might drum up some more audience for the Friday concert. Fingers crossed.
Graham recommended the White Horse next door for lunch and while I was sipping my pint of Guinness, Diana and Lorna joined me and I treated them to a jolly good meal. The landlord seemed interested in hearing about the walk – well, he didn’t glaze over for at least five minutes – and he most kindly knocked a few quid off the final bill as a donation to the cause. What a lovely man.
Facilities were taken advantage of by us all and then we drove back to the crossroads above Great Broughton Hill and Diana and I set off together as if no time had elapsed since the parting of the ways by the Severn Bridge.
Diana’s blister had healed nicely and she was off like a bloody rocket – I could hardly keep up with her!
The day was still sunny and hot but a cooling breeze had sprung up obligingly and the walking was very pleasant. We went immediately onto minor roads and away from the A606. What a contrast to the death-defying morning. Occasional cars slowly and politely wove their way past us and we had a chance to catch up on walk news and family doings. I cheerfully handed all responsibility for our route back to Diana; she’s a damn good map reader and it was a chance for my navigational nerve centres to shut down for a well-earned rest.
We decided to go off road into Melton Mowbray and I phoned Lorna to say we’d see her somewhere in town. The paths were brilliantly well-marked and for the first few fields it was clear that the farmer and footpath lady were close chums. The paths were wide, easy to walk on and even I couldn’t get lost on them.
The same could not be said of the next few fields; the footpath lady and farmer were evidently in dispute about the state of the paths if the notices on several successive stiles were anything to go by. The paths were absolutely appalling. Nettles, brambles, waist high grasses hiding trappy holes and ruts, and the paths were frequently completely obliterated by crops. We had to lift and hurl our legs over the giant tussocks, churning up clouds of bright yellow pollen until we looked like a couple of jaundice victims reeling out of an isolation hospital.
Eventually, we made it onto better ground and walked through a housing estate wafting pollen with every step. A few turns to left and right and we were back on the old A606 once more and heading into town.
All the leg-hurling had led to an urgent need for a pee so, having spotted a suitable pub, we legged it across the road and entered a parallel universe…
The pub was festooned with England flags and the place was full of hoards of men, women and children wreathed in smoke and hollering happily at each other. The din was incredible so no one noticed two middle-aged ladies in shorts surreptitiously weaving their dusty way to the Ladies. The teenage girls in the loo who were painting each other’s faces red and white barely tossed a disdainful glance in our direction and as I sat in solitude in my cubicle, the strains of God Save the Queen filtered through the walls in an eerie and unnervingly out of tune rumble.
We slipped out of the pub as unnoticed as we slipped in; everyone’s attention was on the big screen and the battle of Titans that was shortly to begin.
Melton was like a ghost town; it took no great leap of the imagination to envisage tumbleweed bouncing down the main street and Clint Eastwood riding solitarily into the square with his hat pulled low over his eyes…
WH Smith was open but empty and we bought an OS map in record time from extremely helpful staff.
Lorna was parked in a car park somewhere near by and we told her our route out of town and asked for some more water supplies to see us through to the end of the day’s walking.
Twenty minutes later Lorna finally tracked us down on the main road out of Melton and while we walked the last couple of hours, she took the Jag to Stretton to offload all my gear at Johnny and Helen Graham Hall’s home, which was where we were staying for several days.
Diana and I wended our way briefly across country and onto tiny lanes which looked really quiet on the map but weren’t. Huge blue lorries appeared one after the other and obliged us to stand on the banks out of their bulky way. Eventually things quietened down and we could walk side by side again admiring the lovely views and the translucent quality of the evening light.
We had more than a few anxious moments wondering if we’d missed our turning – one path to Oakham after another beckoned seductively to our right and the dog-eared road map I was using was all but useless. But we were on the right road and ended the day at Whissendine where we met Lorna. I walked 25 miles today and Diana walked a very creditable 13 blister free miles in great style.
Lorna drove us to Stretton where, after a rapid bath, we all ate wonderfully well, courtesy of super cooks Johnny and Helen. Glorious roast chicken and astoundingly gorgeous roast vegetables went down a treat; at least walking long distances gives you the perfect reason for eating shed-loads. It’s going to be so depressing to go back to worrying about how many calories sneak their way down my throat when I get home.
Johnny, Helen and I went into Oakham after dinner to rehearse for tomorrow’s concert. Diana stayed behind and Lorna, who was looking absolutely shattered, went off to the GH’s terrific neighbours, Helen and Dom, who were putting her up most generously for five days.
Oakham school is beautiful; and the chapel is lovely to look at and a delight to sing in. Peter Davis, the director of music was ready to rehearse and he turned out to be one of the best pianists and accompanists we had ever worked with. Sorry – stuff these prepositions. I know I shouldn’t end the sentence with them but I sound like a pretentious prat when I manoeuvre round and round them.
Rita Cullis was there and as my first job in opera was as a Flower Maiden in Parsifal at WNO with her in 1983, there were lots of hugs and girlish cries of joy…
She sings like a goddess and somehow we managed to rehearse pretty well everything including the famous trio from Rosenkavalier. What a staggering piece of musical genius it is. So, no pressure at all to turn in a superlative performance tomorrow.
Back to Stretton and bed after several generous glasses of Graham Hall rosé.
The GH household is grand; they have a lovely big family house and 10 acres of land. Johnny is completely outnumbered by the females of the family who are as follows: Helen (wife and international soprano); Emily (13 yr old very beautiful daughter); Katie (15 yr old very beautiful daughter who sings like a future star); three lady canines; a young lady feline; at least one lady equine; several lady leporines (rabbits to you and me). Then we have the males: Johnny (husband, father and international tenor); Norman and James (geldings – male horses who’ve had their bits removed); and a solitary ginger cat, all of whom fight their manly corners with great strength and energy. Not a lot of success, but plenty of energy.
Diana and I were sharing a bedroom and had no difficulty falling fast asleep within minutes of our heads touching the pillows. Lots of sun, fresh air and exercise are conducive to a really good night’s sleep. The copious amounts of wine had nothing to do with it – really, ociffer.

What a dump

2006-06-14T00:00:00.000+01:00

Last night Lorna and I agreed that we’d meet by the car at 6.15am this morning. It seemed like a really good idea at midnight, but at 5.30am when I dragged myself out of bed, I seriously wondered whether or not we were insane.
The reason for getting up so early was for me to walk as far as possible before BBC TV phoned to organise an interview back in Leeds late afternoon.
I spoke to the producer yesterday and he seemed really keen to record something for the evening Look North programme. Sadly, as has happened more than once on the Opera Walk, they didn’t phone and we didn’t get the chance to publicise the venture. Our publicity efforts have been ill-starred at every turn and I begin to wonder whether the media are only really interested in bad news.
Ho hum; so I walked 25.25 miles instead and when I finished was on the A606 heading out of Nottingham towards Melton Mowbray.
The day started with more traffic dodging on the B road to Mansfield. Given my mind was as vacant as it is possible to be and still function, I was lucky to survive without incident. At one point, however, when faced with a very narrow, blind summit, I’m afraid I took a footpath into a field and then trespassed my way parallel to the road until it was safe to rejoin it. ‘Safe’ is a comparative term as it wasn’t safe in any real sense of the word.
The walk through Mansfield and on to Nottingham was alright but boring. It came on to rain in a dreary, piddling sort of way that reminded me of countless Welsh holidays when I was small. My mind remained vacant and untroubled by any significant thoughts as, clutching my plaid umbrella and water bottle, I threw one foot in front of another hour after hour.
Lorna gave me some pasta salad for lunch and I had a cup of coffee and a bar of chocolate to give me some get up and go. I felt rather weary and, having walked 17 miles by 1pm, my spirits sank when I saw it was still 5 miles to the centre of Nottingham. The food did the trick, however, and my energy levels shot up very noticeably.
I bade farewell to Lorna and said I’d see her again somewhere south of Nottingham, which is a notoriously difficult city to negotiate by car.
As I walked along the A 60, I’m afraid I kept thinking ‘what a dump.’ I rang Sharon, Will’s girlfriend, and asked her how in heaven’s name she’d managed to live there for three years while she did her history degree. ‘Necessity’ was the brief reply [Editor’s note: I assure you it was NOT a brief reply].
The shopping centre was more engaging than the hideous, run-down Mansfield Road but walking out of the city and crossing the river was a gigantic relief. I have no wish to offend people who love Nottingham, but I didn’t see too much to love along the route I walked.
My friend and mentor, the late and great Constance Shacklock, came from Nottingham but I doubt that either she or Robin Hood would care for the way it looks today.
An hour out of the city I met Lorna on the A 606 and called it a day.
We drove to the M1 and as we got onto the motorway, I fell fast asleep in that peculiarly unattractive nodding dog fashion you see on trains. If I hadn’t been restrained by my safety belt, I’d have cracked my teeth on the dashboard.
We got stuck in a huge traffic jam that lasted for aeons and just as we were losing the will to live, we left the motorway and negotiated our way cross-country until we could rejoin it several junctions later - where the vehicles were no longer parked three a breast for the foreseeable future.
Another triumphal entry into Leeds – that is, we found our way to the flats without mishap – and after a sketchy tidying up of the contents of the Jag, we went our separate ways to prepare for another insanely early start tomorrow.
I’ve an interview with Rutland Radio at 12.15 and want to get to Melton Mowbray beforehand if at all possible. Then Diana is going to join me for the afternoon and through till Sunday. It’ll be great to have company again while I’m walking – I do enjoy being on my own when the countryside is beautiful but trudging through dreary towns and cities is dreadfully dull without company.
I’ve packed my bags ready to leave Leeds and shall take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Richard Mantle, Emma Hall and all at Opera North who have helped us with the Opera Walk.
And I’m looking forward to seeing Bernard Cribbins who is coming up tomorrow, the day before he presents the concert at Oakham School. They’re in for a rare treat as Bernard is the most phenomenally gifted and charismatic entertainer I’ve ever met. When he’s performing, his energy levels are so high they’d keep the National Grid going for years.

A change of career?

2006-06-13T00:00:00.000+01:00

I had a radio interview with BBC Radio Leeds at 10.10am, so had to get up at a reasonable hour to gather my wits. I acquitted myself reasonably well and got the message across, but it seems more and more that the people who are going to give money to this venture are actually my fellow musicians, generous philanthropists or people who support me personally (in all my madness). Members of the general public are probably not going to be moved by the plight of theatre people and I’m going to have to lump the fact that I’m not going to make as much money as I’d hoped. Bummer – that’s what I say.
I did some shopping for shampoo and stuff, did an interview for a magazine, and then went back to the flat to sleep for a couple of hours. It’s so SAD. When did I turn into someone who needs an afternoon nap?
Lorna and I met at 4pm and drove to Harewood House just north of Leeds. The Earl and Countess of Harewood had generously allowed us to give a concert in this glorious stately home and, thanks to Emma Hall and her colleagues at Opera North, about seventy seats had been sold at the not inconsiderable price of £37.50 a ticket.
We went in Below Stairs and were met by the super-efficient and charming Sue Paige. She’s in charge of events at Harewood House and she’d organised the room, the piano tuner, the dressing room and the refreshments. Brilliant.
Linda, Tony Kraus, Sarah Beth Briggs, Margaret Howard, Jill Phillips, Johnny Graham Hall and I rehearsed in fits and starts over the next hour and a half. Linda and I also moved the audience seating closer to the stage so neither we nor they would be totally intimidated by the yawning gap between the front row and the stage. We were so adept at doing this that we’re seriously considering a sideways career move into furniture redistribution.
Lord and Lady Harewood came to have a chat with us while we were rehearsing; they didn’t feel up to attending the concert on grounds of antiquity – their words, not mine. Lord Harewood gave me my first job at ENO in 1984, so I was delighted to see him again and say thank you for such a great opportunity.
The concert began shortly after 8pm and, if truth be told, the audience was a reticent one; they didn’t seem to have grasped the concept that they were there to enjoy themselves. Perhaps they were intimidated by the glorious but formal surroundings; maybe they were expecting a serious recital that required a serious response. Whatever, it took a while before they realised we were there to entertain and amuse them as well as sing beautifully. And then they were fantastically enthusiastic and joined in when I sang Vilia and laughed like drains at Linda and Johnny’s antics. When we finished, Judith, the concert organiser, said it was the best concert they’d had there for years. Not bad, eh?
At the end of the evening I signed a T shirt for lovely Tony Kraus; he said he’d wear it for the chorus who are in Aberdeen on tour. It appears that not everyone at Opera North is aware of the Opera Walk, so he’s going to make sure that the word is spread throughout the company.
We all went our separate ways once everything was tidied up and when I finally fell into bed, I was deeply relieved that the evening had been such a great success. A wee curiosity; as Lorna and I drove slowly down the dark driveway towards the main gate of Harewood House, a hare lolloped slowly across the road, paused in the beam of our headlights, and then hopped away into the darkness. Unusual and strangely apt.

On the move again

2006-06-12T00:00:00.000+01:00

I got up at 7am and packed, ready for the resumption of the Walk. Linda and Jim arrived just before 9am and I took them in the Boat to Gatwick for their flight back to Scotland. They are such stars and yet have no overweening airs and graces; rather the reverse because they are self-deprecating and modest about their great gifts.
We said goodbye; well, Linda and I said ‘see you tomorrow,’ which felt bizarre in the extreme given that ‘tomorrow’ would be Harewood House in Yorkshire. And then back home via the doctor’s to pick up a couple of scripts. Thyroxine keeps my metabolism going, as I’ve said, and I needed new supplies or I’d become fat, hairless and tired somewhere near Barnsley…
Lorna, bless her cotton socks, was not only early but had packed the Jag with the help of my aged parents. So it was time for the off.
I slept quite a lot of the journey back to Rotherham; Coverwood is always knackering and this year was no exception.
We arrived at Ridgeway, where the girls had picked me up on Wednesday and I set off just after 3pm.
Within five minutes it was hissing down in torrents; unbelievably heavy rain that lasted for a drenching half hour. Then it was fine till 8pm after which I’d covered 17 miles. Not bad because I was quite tired from the weekend. It was great to be moving again and out in the fresh air without having to worry about pollen because I was singing.
The route was very easy and unremarkable; all pavements for ages until an attention-focusing B road for the last hour. I spent as much time in the hedge as I did walking because the traffic was fast and had nowhere to go – except over me if I didn’t move sharpish!
I’m acutely aware when I’m walking into traffic that I have a great responsibility towards everyone’s safety. It’s the same as when you’re riding a horse or riding a bike; you have to be aware at all times, be grateful to those who slow down or move out for you, and learn strong swear words and gesticulations for the bastards who don’t give a toss whether you live or die. I reckon that four out of ten motorists will actually try not to kill you and the rest don’t even notice that you’re there. And there are those who, should they by some perverse chance spot you, think it’s a jolly good wheeze to swerve towards you and force you into the hedge, wall, or even better, run you over. What in God’s name has happened to this country when it comes to manners and consideration for the welfare of others? Are these people just thick? Or aliens? All answers to the present government please.
I sweltered all the time I was walking this afternoon; it was the hottest June day on record apparently, and I felt rather like a goldfish in a very small bowl trying to suck in oxygen for dear life. The air was heavy and humid and thunder rolled and grumbled from time to time as I sweated damply up hill and down dale. Not a pretty sight as many startled passers-by could testify.
The towns were all slightly run down and glumly depressing. Lovely countryside surrounded man-made ugliness and the industrial past resounded throughout the landscape. Remains of mines stood starkly and accusingly silent as I passed and the buildings often had an air of down-at-heel neglect.
When I stopped I was just east of Bolsover in Derbyshire and it was a fairly simple journey back to Leeds on the M1. We found our flats at the first attempt so retired for the night justifiably proud of ourselves. We were both weary after a long day and I’m afraid my supper consisted of two boiled eggs and two whiskies – or was it three? Lorna very kindly had offered to cook for me, but I knew I’d fall face down into my supper if I accepted. Not an appetising prospect, all in all, so I declined and said I’d see her sometime the next day. Zzzzzzzz.

Bordering on insanely hot

2006-06-11T00:00:00.000+01:00

Well, I had a voice this morning and spent a couple of hours catching up with paper work and packing for tomorrow’s journey back up to Rotherham. I decided to try staying indoors as much as possible and not singing a great deal before the concert. Hope springs eternal. Ha!
I felt very proud of myself when I finally sorted out all the post, tidied up or chucked out piles of paper and sort of packed for tomorrow.
Pathetic really.
I put some medium and small Opera Walk T shirts into the boot of the Boat with a box of Kathryn Harries and Friends charity CDs. My dear friend Peter Knight, with his customary generosity, paid for the CD to be produced and manufactured back in 1998. It was wonderfully produced by former concert pianist, Amanda Hurton, who is in huge demand now in her capacity as Panda Productions. She has the most phenomenal ‘ears’ and can be trusted to produce recordings of the highest possible standard. Clever girl.
Then a very brief rehearsal because today I was trying the ‘not singing too much’ approach and certainly trying the ‘keep indoors as much as possible’ approach in an attempt to thwart this bloody hayfever.
It must be so wonderful not to suffer from it; I’m sure all my singer friends who don’t get it think I’m a whinging Moaning Minnie. But it is such a difficulty and like a lot of things, only people who’ve experienced it can truly understand what it’s like. I know at least one singer who has given up because allergies made the continuation of her career impossible. I had Kenalog injections until last year to enable me to keep going but it seems that these slow release steroid injections (which go into the buttock of choice) make your hips disintegrate and collapse. So, that’ll be off the menu for the foreseeable future.
I’m going to try desensitisation if my allergy specialist agrees and see if that works. What fun it is; hayfever from February to August and colds and bronchitis in the winter. It’s all very character building but my character is quite well-built now, ta very much.
The concert in the evening was probably the best of the bunch – a fantastic crowd, lovely weather bordering on insanely hot – and everyone sang and played really well.
My boring hayfever meant I had to wriggle round the problem all evening but I managed to do it reasonably well and the result was ok. Not fun but tolerable. And the members of the audience were very generous when it came to donations in the bucket, lots took donation forms home with them, and quite a few T shirts were sold.
A final supper party after the show; I’d loaded up the Boat with the remaining T shirts, CDs and Opera Walk literature and after paying the artists, had some of Ann’s famously delicious lasagne. And a welcome glass or two of red wine.
What a pleasure Coverwood is; and when we do the ‘post mortem’ in a few weeks time, we’re going to bring some exciting new ideas to the table and make the Festival even better next year. If you’re interested, have a look at this site early next year and read about the 2007 Coverwood Concerts; I do hope you’ll come and I promise you, you’ll be in for a real treat.
Then back home and bed. I left everything in the Boat to be sorted out first thing in the morning. Lorna is hopefully going to be on time and arrive at 10.30am to load up the Jag and then back to Rotherham to start walking again. It’ll be a very funny feeling after being home to resume the gypsy life. Still, only about ten days to go.

Horrible Hayfever

2006-06-10T00:00:00.000+01:00

Well, the forecasters have been dead right just for once; it was boiling hot even at 9am this morning and the day turned into an absolute scorcher. Rosie, Gordon and I breakfasted by the fish pond and huddled away from the glare of the sun under the umbrella. The quality of the light was more like Australia than England today; it had a brazen glare that seemed out of place in these greenly soft English hills.
Rosie went off to rehearse with Angela so she and Gordon could spend some of the day sight-seeing before the concert and I took Robert and his very expensive cello back to Gatwick. I drove extremely sedately and gave him no cause for concern at all. He’d heard tales of my arrival at Gatwick on Thursday from Jim and Linda; I was driving my parents’ Primera, which is a great car, but not when cornering at speed. I took the corner into arrivals at the North Terminal somewhat faster than ideal for this particular car and apparently, as I hurtled round the bend at a precipitous angle Jim said to Linda – ‘that’ll be Kathryn.’ And he was right. The car is a bit like a recalcitrant boat to drive – but it does hold rather more people than my MX 5; that came back from the repairers on Thursday looking as good as new after I rear ended someone at a roundabout down in Devon before the walk started. It was very buckled indeed and a very depressing sight. Anyway, Jim and Linda are using it for the weekend and I’m sticking to the Boat.
I rehearsed my solos with Angela before having a bite to eat at the farm and my voice was really rather good. By the time I came back to rehearse the ensembles with Linda, Donald Maxwell and Adrian Thompson, however, it was a different story and I could feel the hayfever taking hold.
I went home, had a rest, got my stuff together and was back at the farm by 6pm. I could feel my throat shutting down and did a long, gentle warm up to try to shift the muck off my vocal cords. With very little success, I have to say.
The concert went fantastically well; we had a full house and Linda, Jim, Angela, Rosie and Adrian were on spectacularly good form. I fought my way through my songs and arias and apparently sounded fine. I didn’t feel fine though; the effort and anxiety that result from trying to sing with hayfever of this magnitude make performing seem like one long, middle-aged hot flush of gigantic proportions! HORRIBLE.
Ann produced another delicious supper for us as our fabulous audience wended their way down the dark Surrey lanes to their homes.
Around midnight, the party broke up and Rosie and Gordon followed me back to my cottage and bed. Goodness knows what my poor old voice will be like tomorrow. I wonder if my hayfever will magically disappear when I stop singing.
It’d be sod’s law.

Coverwood begins

2006-06-09T00:00:00.000+01:00

It’s a boiling hot, sunny day and the forecast for the weekend is astonishingly good. I had my hair cut and coloured by Mike King, my wonderful hairdresser in Ashford, Middlesex. He’s such a lovely man and he, his wife Julie and their three boys, Thomas, Matthew and Samuel are my ideal of the perfect family.
I discovered this morning that I’d left one concert shoe in Leeds; very Cinderella, don’t you know. So I’ll have to wear my black stilettos this weekend and try not to get stuck in the grass at the farm.
On the way home along the M25 I saw ahead of me slow traffic turning into static traffic, so left the motorway one junction early at Woking. Thank God I did because I might well have ended up as one of the poor devils who were stuck on the M 25 for seven hours on the hottest day of the year so far. Junctions 8 to 10 were closed because of a lorry fire and the repercussions were shocking. Gridlock everywhere and water had to be dropped from helicopters onto the motorway to prevent hundreds of motorists expiring in their vehicles.
A similar thing happened on Friday July 21st last year when I picked up Linda and Angela from Heathrow for a weekend of charity concerts. The same junctions were closed because of a lorry fire and chaos reigned for hours in the south-east. It was a miracle that the concert happened at all and if the girls had taken the airport bus as originally planned, they certainly wouldn’t have been there. I’d have had to do my Les Dawson impersonation yet again. Lucky audience that our plans changed.
I picked up Linda as I was driving through Woking and brought her home to my cottage to pick up my car which she’ll be using over the weekend. There is bugger all by way of public transport round here and if you don’t have a car, you have to set aside what seems like days to get to neighbouring villages or Guildford.
We rehearsed in the afternoon minus Garry Magee who was caught in said terrible traffic. He eventually made it to Coverwood and during the evening members of the audience staggered into the Barn in dribs and drabs, all with dreadful tales of ghastly car journeys from all over the country.
The concert itself was a great success and everyone performed superbly. James Nicol and Linda Ormiston were their usual brilliant selves; whatever they do, serious or comedic, it is always spot on. Audiences adore them both. Angela Livingstone was our truly wonderful accompanist – she makes my old piano sound like an orchestra. Garry sang like a star as ever and his worshipping fans were in seventh heaven. The treat and surprise of the evening was our guest instrumentalist, Robert Irvine, who flew down today from Scotland with his £400,000 cello. His playing was phenomenal; and his dry and witty introductions for the audience won him a legion of new fans.
As Carol Challis said; Robert certainly has the ‘wow’ factor!
Ann Metson gave us a lovely supper after the concert and I went home around midnight. My hayfever had been bloody awful but I managed to sing ok. It’s just horrid hard work trying to manoeuvre around your voice because of a stupid allergy. It’s very hard work and takes the joy out of singing. It’s a bit like trying to play football with a broken leg – or indeed, a broken metatarsal…
Rosie Elliot, tomorrow’s flautist had arrived with her husband Gordon Muir earlier in the evening and after brief hellos, we said goodnight.
As usual, I fell into bed with relief and went straight to sleep. Yawn.

Dreary, eh?

2006-06-08T00:00:00.000+01:00

You’ll be relieved to hear that for the next four days entries will be brief. Not without incident I’ll be bound, but there’s only so much one can say about housework or shopping.
I paid off my mortgage in Guildford this morning and bizarrely felt nothing at all. No jubilation or relief raised my blood pressure one jot and I went to Sainsbury’s feeling just the same as usual. Dreary, eh?
I was probably just tired and preoccupied and perhaps the riotous delirium at being mortgage free will hit me over the weekend.
I caught up with the diary – tough luck, everyone – and had a visit from my wonderfully cheerful, capable, and very close friend Carol Challis. Carol and I plotted my route on a map of Britain she’d bought and which she will display at Coverwood over the weekend. She’ll have a bucket handy for donations and I’m hoping she’ll make as much money as five years ago.
Then I went off in my parents’ car to Gatwick to pick up Linda Ormiston and James Nicol who are singing at the concerts. They were on excellent form and survived my slightly rusty driving with all their body parts and humour intact.
I left them in Woking, where they are staying with friends, collected my one and only pupil, Naomi Hyamson from Woking station and she and I spent a very useful two hours in the Barn at Coverwood going through the programme she’s giving at the Goethe Institute at 4.15pm on June 21st.
I threw supper together before taking her back to Woking and finally settled down to eat in front of the box at 9.30pm.
Apologies to all those who’ve left messages on my answer machine; I’ll do them in the morning as I’m very shortly off to bed. Night, night.

Homeward bound

2006-06-07T00:00:00.000+01:00

We all slept like proverbial logs and after a quick shake of the tootsies on the foot massager, my lower back gave up the unequal struggle and stopped aching. We had breakfast, and I gathered together all the things I was taking home to Surrey this evening. The Coverwood Concerts will be happening this weekend and I always planned to break off from walking today, do the concerts at home in Surrey, and then resume walking on Monday 12th.
I did the same thing when I walked from John O’Groats to Land’s End in 2001 and the wonderful Coverwood audiences donated nearly £2,000 to Speakability. They’re a fabulous crowd and all my artists love appearing in the Barn; we get the sort of reception when we start the concert that most performers would be thrilled to receive at the end of a concert. This is the 16th year and during the winter, Ann and Nigel Metson and their son Tim, who own Coverwood (and with whom I’m in partnership for the concerts), are going to pool our ideas and revamp the Festival; we’ll keep some of the elements the same and introduce some brand new ideas as well. Perhaps a jazz evening or an audience with a celebrity – we’ll see. Old and new side by side – it works really well – which is just as well at my advanced age…
I said last night to Lorna that she should have a lie in and meet us in Barnsley around lunchtime; she looked dreadfully tired again and a morning off seemed a good idea. Nevertheless, she rushed out of the flat when she saw us driving away and handed me a couple of bottles of water to see me through to midday or thereabouts.
We made excellent time to Royston and parked the Volvo in Cross Lane. As my former married name was Lane, I found it very funny and, sadly, rather appropriate these days. I saw another road name a few days ago which at first I thought said ‘unfit’ lane, but then it disappointingly turned out to be the much more prosaic ‘Linfit Lane.’ I still laughed out loud, however, which is slightly worrying given that I was walking by myself at the time. Neee, naw, neee, naw… (pathetic attempt at siren noise).
We rejoined the TPT and walked mile after easy mile along well-marked footpaths that were sometimes narrow, sometimes wide, sometimes rural and sometimes unattractively suburban. But it was bliss being away from the roar and fumes of traffic. The din as you walk beside major roads is deafening and tiring, and the guff you inhale must be horribly bad for your health.
The hawthorn bushes were magnificent; heavily laden with white, pink and red blossom. During these last three weeks of walking, the May blossom has been so astoundingly luxuriant that sometimes the fields and hedgerows looked as if there had been a great snowfall. The grass was vivid emerald green wherever we looked; today the weather was intensely hot and muggy and the sky was a picture; mostly duck egg blue and with impressive white clouds that were artfully dotted about as if by design.
We left the trail at Stairfoot and, courtesy of Carolyn, each had a very large, cold Diet coke at a Little Chef cafe. She was the only one with any money on her and she now reckons that Julia and I have taken a leaf out of the Queen’s book and are travelling cash-free.
We arranged to meet Lorna at Wombwell and rejoined the trail in the searing blaze of the midday sun. Oh God it was hot. Blisteringly, enervatingly boiling with absolutely nowhere to hide. I had several phone calls that took my mind of the temperature and we finally reached Wombwell looking like a bunch of sweaty refugees.
Lorna was close by and we decamped to a nearby pub that turned out to be a complete gem. The Thawley Arms is a large, well-designed and homely pub which advertises its excellent food on a board outside. Now, how many times have we all seen signs like this and been bitterly disappointed? Well, go to the Thawley Arms and be amazed! They had on offer today any one of their magnificent burgers plus chips and salad and a pint of either alcohol or soft drink for the unbelievable price of £4.99. Yes, £4.99. And it was delicious; freshly cooked, charmingly and efficiently served by Leanne who was a great advert for Northern lasses, as well as being depressingly young and slim. Oh where, oh where did our youth and slim figures go, we all ask? If you happen to find them, drop me a line and I’ll come and get them.
We spent an hour in the pub enjoying this lovely lunch to which Lorna very kindly treated us. I can state categorically that no weight was lost today – at all.
After using the facilities – no surprise there, then – Julia and I set off through town leaving Lorna to take Carolyn back to Royston to collect the Volvo. Funnily enough, Carolyn showed no signs of distress at having to take a few miles off walking in the increasingly unpleasant high temperature…
We strode womanfully through Wombwell, on into Brampton and finally across country towards Rawmarsh. We were sweating buckets – not remotely lady-like, but a fact – and the sun was more of an enemy than a friend. Never happy, I hear you cry; she complains about the rain and now she’s complaining about the heat. Abso-blooming-lutely right. But walking a long way in boiling hot sunshine is really unpleasant, even when wearing a hat. And of course, we were wearing shorts. Not necessarily a pretty sight but jolly practical. We made a few people laugh as we marched past, so without even trying we managed to give strangers something to smile at.
Carolyn and Lorna were waiting for us at a pub and because there was still time to add a few miles to my day’s total, I asked the girls if they’d mind my walking a fast two or three miles before we set off for home.
Bless them, they agreed and bidding farewell to Lorna till Monday, I shot off down the hill as fast as I could.
I added nearly three miles by the time they caught up with me and my total for the day was 16.2 miles. Not a huge amount but respectable considering we’d had a long lunch stop and the heat was terribly energy draining.
We drove down the M1 in air-conditioned luxury; it still seemed an awfully long way in the car and astonishing to me that I was even contemplating it on foot. Which is really weird when I know perfectly well from experience that I can do it quite easily.
We reached Ripley village after a speedy, trouble-free three hour journey; I’d asked Will to come and collect me to save the girls an extra 40 minutes driving and he duly turned up and gathered up his grubby old mother and her ragbags of belongings.
Home felt very strange indeed; more peculiar than the times I’ve come home from working abroad, for example. Goodness knows why but after a shower, a prize-winning supper cooked by Will and Sharon and a veg in front of the TV, I had acclimatised enough to wend my way wearily up the wooden stairs to my very own bed. Heaven.

Pressing on

2006-06-06T00:00:00.000+01:00

During the night I was aware of bits of me hurting that have never hurt before. I got up and took some Nurofen at 5am and it helped enough to let me go back to sleep till 8.30am. Then I got up and did some gentle stretches to warm up the tired muscles. The foot massager that Angie and Sue lent me really eased the complaining ligaments and tendons, and gradually the chorus of groans from my body died down to a tolerable murmur.
Lorna and I left the flats at 10am and arrived, nearly half an hour later, at the Grand, which is about half a mile away. The one way system in Leeds is a total nightmare; if the aim of the planners is to keep cars out of the city centre, they’re going about it the wrong way. So many people get lost in the inner city loop and one way streets that it takes several circuits of the city to either get out of Leeds or reach your destination. A strange way of dealing with the problem of pollution; a local said to me it was all ‘arse about face.’ So there you have it.
Lorna took a photo of me outside the Grand Theatre, which is the home of Opera North and which is in the midst of a huge refurbishment. It promises to be spectacularly good and will make an excellent home for a truly excellent company.
Then I set off out of Leeds; back the way I’d come to begin with and then I started my doomed search for the A61. It’s so much harder on foot to find a direct way out of a city because all signs seem to be road signs.
I started with a flourish and then mistakenly followed road signs which, after a long, hot slog beside a dual carriageway, brought me to – the M1. Whoops!
So I made for Middleton, had superb directions from a lady pharmacist and found my way back on to the A639 which would eventually connect with the A61 rather than the motorway.
I was a bit dim to be honest, but after the strenuous day yesterday my brain was as foggy as my feet were tired. The weather was hot and getting hotter by the minute and I felt as if I’d be walking in circles indefinitely if I didn’t hurry up and get a grip. Of Lorna there was no sign; she was lost in the one way system again, poor thing.
My two great friends, Carolyn and Julia, whom I’d last seen at Buckingham Palace on Day 1, were joining me for two days walking; and by a series of phone calls, they tracked me down at a gigantic roundabout just as the A61 reappeared. Of Lorna there was still no sign and I began to wonder if I’d ever see her again…
Carolyn began to walk with me while Julia drove quickly ahead to do a recce. In no time at all, Julia phoned with a complete description of the route to Wakefield including footways, pavements, difficult crossings and pubs! Yes, pubs. These girls certainly have their priorities firmly in place.
So, while Julia carried on scouting the road ahead, Carolyn and I walked the route she described and had a good old chinwag. Carolyn was a branch manager for Barclays Bank until the end of last October; she decided that her health and sanity were worth preserving and since she retired she has got her life just the way she wants it. She’s started a gardening business; ‘Carrie on Gardening’ which is a huge success and she plays as much golf as she wants at Effingham Golf Club where she is secretary to the Captain. Being super efficient and capable like Julia, who has also recently retired from her job (something demanding to do with computers), Carolyn has such a busy life she doesn’t know how she ever managed to go to work.
Lorna eventually passed us about forty minutes after the girls found me and when we met briefly for water supplies, we all agreed to meet for lunch at the Rose and Crown which was another two miles further on.
The girls treated us to lunch, which was very much worth the wait. Newly baked baguettes with delicious fillings and perfectly judged side salads were just the job, and sitting in the cool of the pub was a huge relief after the relentless heat outside.
The young lady behind the bar let us leave Julia’s car in the pub car park for a couple of hours and after use of the facilities, we three set off again towards Wakefield.
After several miles, Lorna picked up Carolyn so she could retrieve their car and Julia and I negotiated our way through and out of Wakefield. It was not what you might call ‘fun’ but we did have the pleasure of walking over a medieval bridge beside an ancient chapel, which overlooked a really lovely stretch of river. What a contrast to the busy roads and grimy buildings that looked as uncomfortable as us in the sweltering heat.
We toiled out of the city and as the need for facilities was yet again upon us, we cheekily nipped into a pub and used the Ladies before cheekily nipping out again. We gathered a few stares and glares, but tough. If pressed, I’d have bought some crisps but fortunately, I wasn’t – pressed, that is.
We passed the very Volvo garage from which Julia’s car had originated – even though she lives in Surrey near me; and Carolyn, who was, like Lorna, scouting ahead, spotted a Guy Salmon dealership. I phoned Lorna and suggested she might like to pop in and see if we could have a picture taken with the Opera Walk Jag on their forecourt; this she duly did and the charming manager not only had the picture taken by his equally charming assistant, but he also promised to e-mail it to Guy Salmon of Thames Ditton. Brilliant.
Carolyn parked the Volvo once more and we three set off on the B road that Lorna had scouted earlier. Unfortunately, it turned out to be rather fast and dangerous with longish gaps in the pavements which rapidly became suicidal to walk along.
A quick consultation with the map and we realised that the Trans Pennine Trail was accessible a short way further on. So, with Carolyn back in the Volvo and heading for Royston, Julia and I ended the day’s walking with an hour and a half’s rambling through lovely wooded countryside. The path was shaded, level and clearly marked; just the job after a long, hot day. The last half mile stretched, as country miles do, into at least double the figure written on the finger posts; but it was so peaceful and pleasant and the temperature had subsided into gently warm rather than ferociously baking, that neither of us minded the extra distance.
Carolyn was waiting for us at the end of the trail in Royston – clever girl – and of Lorna there was no sign. When I phoned, she reported that she was in the Co-op car park some two miles away; so Carolyn, Julia and I sank gratefully into the air-conditioned comfort of the Volvo and drove to the middle of town to locate Lorna and the Jag.
I collected some bits and pieces from the support vehicle and told Lorna she could go back to Leeds; we three did some food shopping at the Co-op and then followed her sedately, retracing our journey and measuring the mileage on the trip. I walked 18 miles today and the girls did a little less.
As they’d been unable to find accommodation for the night whilst we’d been walking, I suggested they stay at my flat and we’d do something clever with cushions to make an extra bed. A bit Blue Peterish really, but it worked. Lorna kindly brought more cushions from her flat and joined us for a glass of bubbly before she retired for the evening. I treated Carolyn and Julia to a really great meal at a pucker Italian restaurant on Leeds Bridge and then it was home to bed and into the arms of blessed Morpheus yet again!

A very cross bunny indeed

2006-06-05T00:00:00.000+01:00

I rose at 6.30am, stripped my bed, had some breakfast, carried all my bags outside ready for the off and waited for Lorna. And waited and waited…
She showed up at 8.15am, and I made it very plain I was seriously pissed off by her lateness. We then had to empty the Jag and repack it before driving nearly an hour back to Dunford Bridge.
I was a very cross bunny indeed.
I was expected in Leeds at 5.30pm and had a minimum of 24 miles to cover which was why I had to start on time. In addition, thanks to her faulty scouting on Friday, I was three to four miles short of where I should have started. So, I was furious if truth be told. I hate being late and I hate it even more when I’m late because of someone else’s inefficiency.
I left Dunford Bridge at 9.25am and headed steeply uphill in less than my best temper. My mobile suddenly trilled and when I answered it, I was instantly cheered to hear Toria’s voice all the way from Sydney. That brightened my day immediately and we had a very brief but enjoyable chat.
I marched at a very good pace to Holmfirth; talk about uphill and down dale. My legs seem to be getting stronger and stronger as the miles mount up and it now takes a monumentally steep hill to disturb my breathing.
As I gathered pace on the long hill down into the little town made famous by ‘Last of the Summer Wine,’ I felt ominous stirrings in my tummy which made me want to increase my speed while simultaneously needing to cross my legs.
By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, I thought my luck had run out and I was going to disgrace myself in public. But, fate stepped in – thank God; I asked a young woman waiting with her small son outside the entrance to a pub if there were any ladies facilities close by. She said she thought that the lady owner of the pub, who was about to open the door, would allow me to use the pub loo. Thank goodness, she did and I was spared a ghastly accident.
This long distance walking lark is marvellous for the bladder and bowels; if any of you suffer from constipation, just try drinking a few litres of water and walking a dozen or more miles each day. It works wonders.
I left Holmfirth on the Barnsley road and made for New Mills. I asked directions at a corner shop – which was just an excuse to buy a bar of chocolate. And then I walked on minor roads through lovely country for several miles. Lorna eventually caught up with me at Kirkburton after getting somewhat lost, and with new supplies of water I pressed on without stopping for a break.
Because of the late start, I was obliged to walk without stopping for the entire 28 miles it took me to reach the Grand Theatre in Leeds. I shot through Dewsbury and reached the outskirts of Leeds at around 4pm. But there were still 7 miles to do and I really didn’t want to be late for the people who were so kindly going to meet me outside the Grand.
So, I upped the pace, though my feet, legs and lower back were beginning to hurt and raced towards Leeds as fast as I could.
Poor old feet! Slap, smash, thump on concrete and tarmac hour after hour and the weather was hot and humid. I drank gallons of water which Lorna supplied every so often and people stared as I raced past them with grim determination written all over my sweaty, grimy face.
First Lorna and then Susie from Opera North guided me in to central Leeds on the mobile and I felt like a pilot being talked down onto a runway.
On and on and on; hotter and hotter; faster and faster; running across huge junctions and dodging and weaving between startled pedestrians.
Finally, I was walking up Briggate and then –when I thought I’d never make it – there was the Grand and the sweet people who’d waited outside to meet me. I arrived at 5.50pm and looked a complete and utter fright.
Kisses all round and Richard Mantle, the boss of Opera North, handed me a bottle of champagne. How thoughtful and I very much appreciated their effort and kindness.
We chatted for a short while and I met, amongst others, Susie who’d guided me in and Emma Hall who has been doing wonders organising the concert at Harewood House on June 13th.
Then Lorna and I were taken to the flats that Opera North have generously given us until after the Harewood House concert and we unpacked our things and retired to our separate new homes.
As we finished unpacking, I spotted something jammed under the front of the roof rack; when I looked, I discovered my blue baseball cap with my digital camera inside it. I’d been wondering where they’d got to and to my horror and disbelief, realised that they’d been jammed under the metal strut since Friday evening when Lorna dropped me off at Fawlty Towers. How in God’s name they stayed on the top of the car for the entire weekend as the car went up hill and down dale and was parked in a variety of public car parks I shall never know. Blinking amazing.
Having wrestled all my baggage into the very nice one bedroom flat, I unpacked and bathed my poor tired old body; for dinner, I had the tiny salad I should have had at lunchtime plus a couple of stiff whiskies and then went to bed. I hadn’t the energy to go out to do any food shopping. Everything ached and it was heavenly just to lie down. I don’t know how people run marathons; Tracy Connell, the daughter of one of my dearest friends, Vivien Bishop, ran the London marathon in 3 hours and 14 minutes. I just don’t know how she managed it and my admiration for her achievement was multiplied ad infinitum after today’s 28 miles.

Small, but enthusiastic

2006-06-04T00:00:00.000+01:00

I woke up with the birds. Bugger. But that was fine because I had to go with Jane to Manchester airport at 8.30am as she was off to Helsinki for a week’s conference.
She drove the Golf there and I drove it back to Rainow; not exactly the same route but it got me home, via Tesco where I bought some thank you cards and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot for Jane as a birthday/thank you present. I wrote my thank you letters as soon as I got into the kitchen; I’ve been walking such long days that I’d been rather remiss in thanking all the lovely people who have put me up over the last fortnight.
Having learned just how long it took my printer to print yesterday, I then set to and typed up the new programme, spoke nicely to the printer, pressed the right buttons and said a quick prayer. I dropped it last night after the concert and it had every reason never to work again. By some miracle, it consented to work but, boy, it’s slow. I read a substantial number of chapters of the book I’m reading while it huffed and puffed its way through sheet after sheet of programmes.
Then, Jill and Pam arrived to spirit me away to Buxton. I treated them to lunch in a pub and then we went to the Pavilion Gardens, looked at the fantastic collection of vintage cars on display, had an ice cream before going back to Fawlty Towers.
I had a half hour snooze and then we went to St John the Baptist for the concert rehearsal. Except we couldn’t get in. It was locked. Shut fast and Tony Kraus, his fiancée Libby, Jill, Pam, Graeme, Val and I hung about for half an hour until a dear lady called Esther arrived to let us in.
It’s a gorgeous church with a lovely acoustic. We had a good rehearsal and the concert was a triumph artistically. Sadly, it wasn’t exactly a triumph as far as ticket sales were concerned. In spite of Esther’s and Lorna’s efforts the day before, we had an audience of forty or so people. They were, however, wonderfully enthusiastic and full of apologies that so few people had attended.
Not to worry. When I was still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, I did a recital in a church in North London which was attended by no fewer than 9 people. We took a vote, I sang a reduced programme and then we all went to the pub. With that as a benchmark, 40 plus people was absolutely fine!
As I left the church, I reminded Lorna that I needed to start walking no later than 8.30am the next day and should therefore need collecting by half past seven at the very latest.
A couple of friends very kindly took me back to Rainow where I packed all my bags for the early start next morning before going gratefully to bed.

A very good day all round

2006-06-03T00:00:00.000+01:00

No walking today. I typed up the programme on my computer and waited, not always patiently, as my tiny printer very slowly produced a hundred or so sheets to go into the concert shells which have been kindly donated by Cantate Print Ltd.
Jane Davies and I had lunch in the garden on what has turned into a spectacularly gorgeous day and we celebrated her birthday today. I am deeply envious of her tiny waist as well as her gigantic brain. Life is not always fair.
I gathered my concert things together while the printer staggered through the last twenty programme sheets and waited for Lorna to arrive to transport us to Milton, Staffs for the rehearsal.
She arrived ¾ hr late, but we eventually made it to the church where the rehearsal was well in progress.
A huge thank you to Graeme Danby, his wife Val Reid, Johnny and his wife Helen Williams, Jill Phillips, and the brilliant accompanist Annette Saunders for coming up to Milton to perform for absolutely nothing. What generosity. And what a wonderful concert it was; fantastic singing and playing to an audience who really enjoyed every moment. The raffle, donations in the plate and ticket money will have brought in around six hundred pounds, so well done Milton Methodist Church, Mrs Washington and her team and to the delightful lady vicar for giving us the use of the church for nothing. A big success and a very good day all round.
Jill and Pam took me back to Rainow and, as we were all starving, we stopped at what we thought was a fish and chip shop close to Macclesfield. With the ironic inevitability I’m beginning to associate with this walk, they no longer served fish and chips. So we had Thai instead and it was fab. We crept into Wyn and Jane’s and made as little noise as possible while we munched our way through the freshly cooked and delicious take-away. Jane had gone to bed early as she’s off on a work trip tomorrow. We giggled and tidied up in whispers and then they were gone into the night. I retired to bed, replete and pretty knackered if truth be told.

Relief. Blessed relief.

2006-06-02T00:00:00.000+01:00

I’m getting used to dry weather remarkably quickly. Lorna picked me up and we drove back to Dove Holes where she took a photo of me by the Jag for Guy Salmon back in Thames Ditton.
While she returned to Buxton to do various jobs, I set off towards Chapel-en-le-Frith, which is certainly a name to conjure with.
There was a pavement or footpath all the way which was a real treat, and I skirted the centre of the village and headed for Glossop.
I’m aware of quizzical glances as I walk through built-up areas because I stride out much more energetically than, say, people doing their shopping; and the blue leggings are certainly a questionable fashion statement!
As I entered Chapel Milton, I began to tackle real hills; a wonderful viaduct straddles the village and, with its lofty blackened brick, it looked like invitation to travel.
On the long, steep hill that climbs out of Chapel Milton, I felt an ominous stirring in my tummy that meant ‘facilities’ would soon be required.
I slogged on and on, hoping that said facilities would hove into sight, and just as I was beginning to think that a mad dash into a nearby (and rather exposed) field would have to suffice, fate stepped in and I came upon the Lamb Inn.
I hurried across to the entrance, praying it would be open, and having ordered a coffee, did a barely disguised, cross-legged shuffle to the Ladies.
Relief. Blessed relief.
And when I returned to the bar, my Rambout’s coffee was waiting. It was just the job and when I came to pay, the lady behind the bar made the grave mistake of asking me where I was walking…
She took it bravely on the chin when I replied ‘Leeds’ and we had a very entertaining chat for ten minutes.
I can recommend the Lamb Inn for the friendliness of the people running it, the elegant comfort of the bars, the delicious coffee and, of course, the ladies facilities.
They don’t do bed and breakfast, sadly, because one day I’d like to come up to Derbyshire and walk across country rather than dicing with death on the roads.
From this point on there were no pavements worth speaking of; I had some grass verges for a while and then it was into the road and head on into traffic. Every hill climb was rewarded with a spectacular view, but I had to stand still to see it or fall over my feet under a car or container lorry. I’ll have to write a book called ‘Katie and the Juggernauts’ after the legend of Jason and his Argonauts. Maybe I’ll make a fortune – hmm.
On one particularly dangerous stretch, where what passed for a pavement was six inches wide, I climbed a dry-stone wall onto the grassy strip between the wall and the adjoining field and walked along above the traffic. I continued in like fashion for a mile or two, jumping down onto the road when the grassy, elevated ground petered out and climbing more walls to get above the roadway whenever I could.
There were patches of ‘access’ land which enabled walkers to cut across seriously dangerous bends – well done County Council and farmers alike – but at one point I had no option but to run down the road when it was clear, then jump onto the minute kerb and flatten myself against the wall to avoid being run over. I ran about a mile this way, mercifully downhill; I ran when I was little, but I hate the way all your bits jiggle when you run as an adult.
Eventually, Glossop appeared like a distant mirage before me; there was yet more unpleasant road to negotiate, so I cut across country on footpaths until I reached the town. It was longer but infinitely preferable.
One nice moment – Lorna and I briefly met in a lay-by, a postman drove in from the other direction. As he got out of his van, he did a double-take and said, ‘you’re that girl who’s walking and singing’ etc,etc. (I thought ‘girl’ was an especially nice touch.)
It turned out he listened to Classic FM and was a great fan of the lovely Jane Jones – so thanks Jane for spreading the good word. And thanks to Colin the postman for his encouraging words and even more encouraging advice on off-road options to Glossop.
Lorna went off to check out the roads ahead and I sat in the sunshine on a wall in Glossop having a chat with Johnny Graham Hall on my mobile. The dismal dampness of the past couple of weeks seemed a distant memory in the midday warmth and, while we discussed concert programmes for the forthcoming weekend, I could rest and enjoy the glow of survival-yet again.
Then onwards through Glossop and out on a very pleasant B road which carried little heavy traffic. My stick broke, which was ludicrously like losing an old friend – dear, dear. And it’s now laid to rest in a Derbyshire hedgerow.
Lorna and I met in a pub car park for lunch and she filled me in on the state of the roads to come.
I set off after a very short break and, making the most of access land, either paralleled or walked along the winding B road. I had one wonderfully surreal moment when, faced with an oncoming motorcyclist, I stumbled on the verge and landed flat on my face in front of him. He very kindly slowed, and drove around me – and I put yet another hole in my leggings and my knee. What a pillock.
To my left were a series of dams/reservoirs and with the sun blazing down they sparkled and shimmered invitingly.
I spotted a long pathway beside the water and legged it down a steep field until I reached it. Yipee! It was the Trans Pennine Trail and I was able to follow it eastwards beside the reservoirs and within sight of the road.
I had plans to cut up north towards Holmfirth, but Lorna’s scouting ahead unfortunately failed. My B road joined with an A road after which there was a mile before the turning I wanted; I needed to know whether it was fit to walk on and Lorna wasn’t sure how much pavement there was. So I opted to stay on the other side of the water until I could cross, which I couldn’t, it transpired.
I walked miles beyond my turning, catching a glimpse of the road I wanted winding away into the hills across the broad expanse of water. So I looked at the map and decided on another cunning plan. I met Lorna to replenish my water supplies and then spent a very pleasant hour and a half walking the TPT in an easterly direction. My only companions were sheep with fat lambs and cattle standing guard over their calves. The climb was ferocious but looking back over the tiers of reservoirs was magic; the sun had turned the water to silver and the black silhouette of hills rising into a clear blue sky was breathtakingly beautiful. Shame about the pylons that march across this glorious countryside like an army of metal giants. Wouldn’t it be great if all those wires could be piped underground.
Eventually Lorna and I met at Dunford Bridge and she drove me back to Buxton, where I was going to have dinner with friends of Jane.
First, we stopped at the bed and breakfast place where Jill and our great friend, Pam Potter, were staying. I won’t name it, other than to say it was Fawlty Towers revisited and expensive to boot.
I only had my walking clothes so I retrieved a clean Opera Walk T-shirt from the roped-down luggage box on the roof rack. The key jammed in the lock on day two and hasn’t been fixed yet, so a few girl-guide knots later it was roped down again and Lorna went home to Stoke.
Jill let me shower in her bathroom, and the tape that held the shower together immediately unravelled, so the showerheads bounced around the bath until I could retrieve it. See what I mean about Fawlty Towers.
And then, clean and wearing Pam’s black trousers as my leggings had quietly and finally disintegrated, the girls dropped me off at a typically lovely Buxton stone house and I had a great evening in great company.
I really look like an overdone chip now after all the sun today. My arms are rather red and I look more and more like a gypsy; I haven’t worn my shorts yet, however. I think I’ll save that for another day when I’m not walking through any towns! 23 miles.

A brief foreword

2006-06-01T23:35:00.000+01:00

Hello all, Will here.

Due to my Mum's lack of various things essential to writing a blog - regular access to the internet, computer literacy, a paid sub-editor - I shall be in charge of checking what she writes and posting it periodically. Necessary editing jobs therefore fall to me, such as the removal of excessive swearing (quite a task, I assure you), tidying up Mum's rather liberal approach when dealing with the humble comma, avoiding tiresome legal proceedings, and generally attempting to get the entries onto the site in an accurate and timely fashion.

You may have noticed that, with regards to the very last of these tasks, I have failed spectactularly. Fortunately I can just pass the buck, like any good editor, and blame the author herself: she has evidently found time to write prodigious quantities about the walk, quite how I do not know, but it has only recently winged its way to me. What I have received is really quite staggering in volume so, in order to avoid swamping you with the whole shebang, I shall be releasing it in installments, and slyly altering the dates shown so that it appears to have been published at the time of writing! At some point we may even catch up with the star herself - probably the only way any of us will be catching her! - and be able to read her entries almost as they are written.

Anyway, the first posts should appear below; I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have. Feel free to write comments for each post, as I am sure Mum would be keen to hear from her readers.

Re-enter mad person

2006-06-01T00:00:00.000+01:00

A considerably easier journey in the car to yesterday’s end point – a lay-by opposite a garage intriguingly emblazoned with the message ‘Shirley’s Transport’. Odd trains of thought are part of the fun of walking long distances every day and some trains of thought are deeply peculiar.
I did have a chance for meditation and reflection during the early part of today’s walk as it was all on pavements. Well, for a while. Grass verges took over again but good old tarmac won the day as I approached Leek.
The day started cloudy and it had rained during the night. So, ever the optimist, I carried my umbrella, wore my waterproof jacket and promptly roasted.
At our first meeting I offloaded the jacket and umbrella into the Jag and Lorna updated me on all manner of things that she’d dealt with during the hour I’d been walking.
I reached Leek really quickly – as you do on pavements – and asked a lady for directions to the nearest chemist’s shop. Now, I was perfectly aware of where I was on the map, but still nearly fell over with surprise when she answered me in a broad local accent.
I found Boots, had a prescription dispensed, and then made a complete arse of myself when I tried to buy a foreign to UK adaptor. I queued for an age, reached into my pocket and found that I was 50p short of the necessary. What a twit; I’d left my debit card in my backpack which was still in the car. So I had to abandon the purchase, mutter an apology and sidle out of the shop.
Fortunately, Lorna was not far from Boots, so she bought the blasted thing for me and I hope to have some photos to put on this site very soon. I bought my digital camera in the Netherlands so the charger has a two pin plug. And I’d left my own adaptor at home. Really organised – not.
Lorna and I met at a comfortable pub called ‘The Three Horse Shoes’ and I had a very nice sandwich and salad. It was a timely stop for fuel as I then tackled one of the biggest hills I’ve encountered on this walk.
Funnily enough, I don’t get at all out of breath on steep hills – it’s the concentration on oncoming traffic that’s tiring. The biggest danger when walking into oncoming traffic has proved to be people overtaking vehicles going in the same direction as me. By the end of the day I’d had four lucky escapes when overtaking cars missed me by what felt like a whisker. It probably wasn’t as close as it seemed, but each time it filled me with such rage that I stood and shouted swear words at the offending motorists and made violent gestures while jumping up and down on the spot. Re-enter mad person.
Walking over the moor had all the charm of walking across the Solway Firth. It was an endurance test; occasionally I stopped to admire the incredibly spectacular views, but for the most part I had my head bowed looking at the grass verge with total concentration so I didn’t trip and break something. The vehicles flew past at seriously high speed and every time a large lorry roared by, I was buffeted to a standstill by the wind they created. Motor bikes sped past doing a ton or more and God only knows how they don’t all get killed.
One fascinating thing about walking along a verge is all the objects that you come across; and then your train of thought spirals away and possible scenarios play across your inner eye.
I saw enough gardening type gloves to open a small shop and bits of number plates which made me speculate as to whether they were the result of horrible accidents. And shoes, lots of shoes. Why are there always shoes strewn across our roads? Do people just chuck them out of car windows or what?
Finally, and after hours of saying under my breath ‘this too will pass’, I reached Buxton where Lorna and I had tea and biscuits at the splendid Palace Hotel. The girl behind the reception desk very kindly said she’d display concert shells and donation forms for me, and after a ten minute sit down and refreshment I set off on the last hour and a half’s walking.
I ended up at Dove Holes after walking 24 miles and the last few hours were all on pavements. The A6 has miles of pavements and when I did my last long walk, I actually fell asleep whilst walking along. I was following Alan Peart, a great friend and my biggest fan, who’d joined me for three days, and he covers the ground like a machine with extra long legs. I suddenly woke up and realised I’d been asleep for several seconds during which I’d covered more than a few yards. How the hell I didn’t fall over or wander into the traffic, I’ll never know. Maybe it was just another example of sleep walking, but that time without the gin…
I really could have done another four miles this evening, but I thought we ought to stop and Lorna was very happy to concur. She gets quite tired after a day nannying me; I end the day full of energy because physical exercise begets energy. Driving in fits and starts and wondering whether I’ve survived or not is evidently a bit of a strain and responsibility which leaves Lorna worn out by the end of the day. But she’s enjoying staying with her mum and being looked after. And her mum is an absolute star; the concert at Milton is definitely sold out and Mrs Washington and her committee have done a fantastic job.
Buxton is a different story unfortunately and we’re all hoping that sales of tickets will improve radically over the next couple of days.
Eight comps are going to wonderful BUXTON WATER who have sponsored me once again on a long walk and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all my sponsors and patrons again.
The support they’ve shown me has been marvellous – I only hope that millions of people will also take notice of what I’m doing and send their donations to the Opera Walk. It would be wonderful to make the future of the two Ben Funds more secure.
It was a nice short journey back to Rainow and Jill Phillips would have been proud of me; I cooked lamb chops and spring greens for my supper even though a sandwich would have done. And I started today with eggs and bacon and had loads more energy so I’ll have to try it again tomorrow. I may have to abandon the leggings, however, because when I’m walking through towns they provoke unseemly mirth particularly amongst the young – I suppose they do make me look like a refugee from a pantomime…..
Even though I’m doing all this walking I’m don’t think I’ve lost very much weight; and though I’ve always wanted elegant legs with nicely turned ankles, I have to say that I’m very proud of my good, plain, Welsh tree trunks that are serving me in stalwart fashion. As my old riding teacher, Mrs Esme Jack, used to say, ‘handsome is as handsome does’, and while my pins may be chunky, they certainly can cover miles and miles without any difficulty. So bugger elegance and hooray for strength and stamina!

Bloody brilliant

2006-05-31T00:00:00.000+01:00

My Dad was 83 today! Bloody brilliant. I wish both my parents could go on in good health forever.
And, another dry day – it’s a miracle! I said goodbye to Wyn and Jane; Wyn was off to Montreal for ten days’ rehearsal on a modern ensemble piece and Jane was off to Manchester until Friday evening. She runs a Science Park and calls herself a glorified landlady; given she’s one of the brightest and most formidable people I’ve ever met, her lodgers must count themselves extraordinarily lucky.
Lorna arrived in the Jag; thanks again to David Edwards at Guy Salmon of Thames Ditton. It’s a wonderful piece of sponsorship and David is about to embark on a cycle ride to Berlin to raise money for charity. I’ll find out more about it and let you know.
We had a very long drive back to Church Eaton – when we cover ground in the car that I’m going to have to walk, I can’t believe I’ll ever do it. Then I do, and it doesn’t seem nearly as far. Strange.
The walking was nice and straightforward along country lanes – just the odd pile of cow muck to avoid – and I walked through several villages to Great Bridgford where Lorna had some lunch ready for me.
I don’t stop for long now because I want to cover as many miles as possible each day, and when the day begins with a long drive, my walking starts rather late. And if I stop for very long everything seizes up somewhat…oh the joys of middle age!
I crossed the M6, which was unbelievably noisy and brought a phone conversation to an abrupt halt, and then followed a dead straight bridleway which paralleled the M6 and the A34. It was bliss not having to worry about traffic and it meant I could really look at the countryside properly.
I took off my fluorescent tabard – cows and sheep seem to find it disconcerting – and swung along just enjoying the day.
As I passed a beef farm, two farmers called out hello and asked if I was walking a long way. Well, I had to answer ‘Leeds’, didn’t I?
They came over and we had a good chat about the walk, beef cattle, the state of farming and life in general. They looked me up and down and plainly thought I was barking mad but after an enjoyable ten minutes wished me all the best for the rest of my journey and waved me goodbye.
I found Lorna outside a pub near Stone – she’s going to get a terrible reputation at this rate – and had the profound pleasure of using proper facilities inside the said pub.
I’d had to leap into a field for a pee earlier in the day and unwittingly parked my behind on a stinging nettle – that’ll teach me to look more closely in future!
I marched swiftly through Stone and out the other side; there was a pavement for several miles which was such a relief. But then it petered out and I was obliged to walk on grass verges and it was interminable.
Grass verges are rutted and uneven and sometimes turn into steep banks that are useless for a pedestrian. Cars and lorries passed by at high speed and only a few feet away. I would have to say that this was not the time for meditation or reflection; total concentration was required in order not to twist/break an ankle or, indeed, fall under a lorry.
Eventually, the grass verge turned into a pavement – I literally cheered – and I walked with rather hot and tired feet through Meir Heath.
I was determined to do a good mileage today so carried on to Cellarhead – an interesting name the origin of which I know nothing as yet.
I finished the day having walked 23 miles but my feet were really very tired for the first time. Perhaps the heat and the turning and twisting as I stumbled mile after mile along the grass verges made the poor old plates of meat a bit bruised. Whatever the reason, I was very happy to travel back to Rainow with my shoes off and sitting cross-legged on the front passenger seat. A ten minute shop at Tesco, supper and then bed. A girl can’t ask for more than that, I reckon.
I caught sight of myself in a convex mirror at the edge of a driveway last night and I honestly looked like a mad person. I’ve been wearing my old navy blue leggings (no chafing or flapping, if you’re interested), Opera Walk T-shirt, a blue baseball cap and either using my new stick or umbrella to propel me along. No wonder people don’t offer me lifts!

More than halfway there...

2006-05-30T00:00:00.000+01:00

I packed up all my belongings and put them downstairs beside the front door. It was strange to be moving again and sad to be saying goodbye to Bridget and Kingsland. By the time I’d moved all the boxes of concert shells, donations forms, water and odds and sods from the dining room to the hall, I did have to wonder how on earth all this stuff was going to make it back into the car.
Bridget and her two long haired Dachsunds, Harriet and Stukeley bounced downstairs and we sorted out the world over breakfast.
Lorna joined and then we loaded up the Jag and were off.
I popped into Jackie and Brian’s to say goodbye and leave them a gift of wine and chocolates as a thank you; nipped into the post office to write and send a birthday card to my Dad who’s 83 tomorrow, and finally, we waved Kingsland farewell and drove for about an hour to reach yesterday’s stopping point at Worfield.
A quick consultation over the map and I started walking. Today was going to be a day of small country roads.
The weather was DRY and SUNNY. I couldn’t believe it would hold so marched along using my plaid umbrella as a walking stick. The lanes were meandering and rose up and down over the rolling hills with splendid views to each side.
I’d left Lorna with the instruction booklet for my watch and the watch itself as she’d kindly offered to have a go at finding the right screen for me.
Mum and Dad phoned, several people checked in to see how I was and then I had a long conversation with a charming lady from Radio Scotland. We arranged a time for a phone interview tomorrow and I heard myself say that I’d be happy to do a fund-raiser for Scottish Opera. I would, actually, because it’s a lovely company and they’ve had a really hard time of it over the last few years.
I turned off towards Badger; what a great name for a tiny village and it happens to be the name of a fantastic terrier I once had. I bought him as a minute black and white fur ball back in 1998 after I divorced my serially unfaithful husband. Badger kept our Labrador, Sox, company until poor old Sox suddenly died at the end of 1999 while I was working in Paris. Badger needed constant company and my make-up artist friend Lois Mackintosh was happy to take him on. They’ve been inseparable ever since and Badger has appeared in a number of films and TV programmes as well as making hordes of admiring fans wherever he goes.
Lorna and I met in Beckbury for a cup of tea standing by the car and then onwards. The sun shone, the traffic was sparse and the drivers mannerly. It was enjoyable walking.
Lorna and I met around 3pm at a rose garden/tea room but as they’d stopped serving lunch, I took an apple with me to eat as I walked; I’d started at midday and needed to keep going if I was to make decent mileage.
There are some amazing buildings in this part of Staffordshire; huge barns of red brick around large courtyards placed on ridges with far-reaching panoramic views.
I’d walked past Donnington aerodrome and watched a gleaming black jet fighter fly past at low altitude; as it rolled and banked, its wings shimmered in the sunshine and the roar of the engines ripped through the peace of the afternoon. It was a thrilling sight, but maybe not on a daily basis.
I crossed the A41 and then the M 54 and slowly made my way up the map towards Church Eaton west of Stafford where I stopped at 6.30 pm. There was one hairy stretch of road which had me leaping up and down onto the verge or into the hedge to avoid being mown down; it certainly concentrates the mind when you regard each car as your possible doom and as I stared the motorists down and leapt back and forth onto the grass as they raced past, I felt rather like a matador dodging a series of bulls doing seventy miles an hour.
Bishops Wood was an interesting little village with guys (as in Guy Fawkes not chaps) in every garden and by the name plate entering and leaving the village. I’m not sure what they were celebrating but it probably had its roots in ancient history and it gave a rather pagan air to the place.
I’d made 14.7 miles according to the GPS watch since Beckbury so today’s total was 20.7 miles. Not bad in an afternoon.
Lorna drove me to Rainow near Macclesfield where I shall be staying with friends, Wyn and Jane Davies, for just under a week.
The views from every window are astonishingly beautiful and it’s going to be a treat to stay in one place again for more than a day or two.
And it was great to catch up with two long-standing friends who happen to be two of the brightest people I’ve ever met. We talked about everything under the sun including my plans to start a business with Toria when she comes home from Oz next year. They were full of commonsense advice and when the walk is over, I’m going to have a longer chat with them about the project.
Lorna went back to Milton near Stoke-on-Trent to stay with her mum and I’ll be seeing her back here at around 9.30 am tomorrow.
An uneventful and very pleasant day and my total mileage is now 322.4 miles, which must mean I’ve passed the halfway point. Wahey!

Wetter and Wetter

2006-05-29T00:00:00.000+01:00

Breakfast and then off to Far Forest. It was a funny day; I dithered rather more than usual and managed to press a wrong button on my GPS watch so it didn’t display what I needed. That’ll teach me to read the instructions.
All in all it was pretty uneventful after yesterday. I enjoyed the minor roads to Button Bridge and was then plunged into a leap, dodge, leap, dodge nightmare on a very busy B road to Bridgnorth.
I gave up in the end because motorist after motorist ignored my presence and drove past me at sixty and seventy miles an hour while only three feet away from my cringing person.
I tried another B road and gave up on that too; a quick dive down a minor road to the left gave me some respite from dicing with death and then I actually had a stretch of B road that possessed – yes, a pavement.
But that didn’t last long; as the pavement disappeared and the verge looked impossible, I looked at the map, and while I was deciding whether or not to carry on this unequal struggle, a local gentleman asked me if I needed help. He asked where I was going and though I mentioned twice I was walking to Leeds, he gave no sign that he’d heard what I said, which struck me as unusual to say the very least.
Perhaps he thought I was mad and he’d better gloss over my nonsense. Whatever; I followed his excellent instructions and made my way across the fields. And then it rained. It really, really rained and in two minutes my feet were as wet as if I’d been standing in a bath of water for half an hour.
I slipped and skidded down filthy muddy slopes, trying not to fall A over T and finally reached a cycle path beside the railway. Following the tarmac path was a pleasure but not for long. It was going to end up on the ghastly B road in a couple of miles, so I opted to walk all the way to Bridgnorth beside the River Severn.
On a fine day it would have been paradise. As everything was soaked and dripping and I squelched for the next 8 miles across muddy fields and waist high greenery, I suppose paradise was a bit below par. But in spite of the swimming feet and sodden socks, the cold, wet leggings and the drenching showers, the countryside was still breathtakingly beautiful.
The River Severn was brown and oleaginous and the waters swirled around half drowned trees as the weight of water rolled by dangerously swiftly.
A steam train huffed along the single track, first one way then the other and reminded me of all the journeys I made to West Wales when I was a child.
The sun came out and everything steamed till the next torrential downpour; startled ducks dashed quacking into the river as I passed and my trusty stick kept me upright; another wet and muddy derriere was mercifully avoided. I began to talk to my stick in a way that was reminiscent of Shirley Valentine and her Wall. Well, it’s company… It took absolutely ages to reach Bridgnorth and my filthy wet legs were like lead by the time I walked into town.
Having consulted the map, I crossed the river by the old bridge and rang Lorna to arrange a meeting point. Suddenly the black sky opened and the rain came down as if someone had turned on a giant faucet. I dashed into a hotel and while I waited for Lorna and a much-needed change of clothes I had a cup of tea and biscuits.
The lady who served me was deeply unimpressed by my tale of walking to Leeds and told me to go into the lounge where I could sit on a leather Chesterfield which wouldn’t mark, what with me being so wet and all…
Lorna joined and was nearly as wet as me-the downpour had caught her out.
I surreptitiously changed in the Ladies loos, and did another four miles in my walking boots along the side of the A454. It goes to Wolverhampton, which I am not, but when I finished at Worfield I was poised to head north east to Stafford and beyond. Between 20 and 22 miles. I’ll have to use a ruler on the map to be accurate as the watch was a dead loss thanks to my technological stupidity.
Home to Bridget’s and a last lovely meal in excellent company here in Kingsland. Catherine and Charles MacCarthy joined us; what delightful and clever people. And how kind of them to host the soiree last Friday, which by all accounts is regarded as a huge success.
I’m going to miss Bridget, but the good news is that we’re planning a concert in 2007 to raise money for the local hospice and for Hereford Cathedral. So, I’ll just have to come up to Kingsland regularly to check everything’s going ok. No ulterior motive, naturally.

An unexpected companion

2006-05-28T00:00:00.000+01:00

No coughing during the night; Bridget has been giving me cider vinegar and honey in hot water and I think it has done the trick. I’m feeling much better.
Breakfast and then Lorna rearranged the Jag. We needed to accommodate four people in the car today as Hilary and Annabelle were meeting us at the Holly Tree in Bromyard for a day’s walking.
Lorna and I arrived at the Total garage and Hilary and Annabelle followed us to the pub. We sorted out what we wanted to wear and what we needed to carry and set off up a fairly busy B road towards Stanford Bridge. The distance by road was around 11 miles, but we decided after a couple of narrow squeaks with oncoming traffic that we’d be better off taking footpaths than ending up in hospital.
We followed a winding lane with virtually no traffic which enabled us to walk side by side and have a proper chat. The countryside was magnificent; rolling hills with every shade of green imaginable. The sky was largely blue – oh joy, oh rapture – and there was a slight coolness in the light breeze that made walking a real pleasure.
We passed an oast house and speculated on farming past and present; and then found ourselves crossing a cattle grid which had a herd of heifers standing sentinel the on other side. I shooed them away but like yobos hanging around on street corners looking for trouble, they followed us, bellowing what sounded like insults. Annabelle was understandably anxious, but we walked on with a convincing air of insouciance as they barged and shouted behind us, until we reached an old fashioned metal pedestrian gate and walked into the comparative calm of the adjoining field.
The heifers lined up along the fence and jeered at us as we walked down the meadow until they lost interest and looked for something else to amuse them.
We crossed a couple of stiles and slipped and slid up a very muddy slope to a road. Then it was up and up and up a long, very steep hill. The reward was a fantastic panoramic view, although I’m not sure Hilary and Annabelle were quite as enthusiastic about it as I was.
As often happens, when a crucial decision needed to be made someone turned up to help us. A young man with his dog checked his map against ours – and miraculously we were exactly where I thought we were – and, on his advice, we set off downhill along a bridlepath. He did warn us it was muddy, but we didn’t really grasp just how muddy he meant.
I furnished us all with sticks from the dense undergrowth beside the treacherous, steeply descending path and they enabled us to reach the bottom without falling on our backsides and sliding all the way down.
Our shoes were caked in thick, red Herefordshire mud and poor Annabelle’s trousers were mud from the knee down.
The next challenge was a fallen tree across the sharply rising path that led us away from the stream. I scrambled up a bank and shoved my way through God knows what to get to the other side and H and A picked their way through the tree itself in a considerably more lady-like manner.
We toiled along a forest road for much further than my map indicated-that was when I realised that I’d gone wrong yet again. Pathetic.
Our guardian angels were looking out for us however, because with the help of a charming lady in a wheelchair, a group of adults leading a bunch of kids on ponies along the bridleway and a delightful landowner, we got ourselves right and reached the ancient church of Lower Sapey. The church is still consecrated but is empty apart from a large cross. It had a deep and intense peacefulness and because of the history of the village and church during the time of the Black Death, there was a great poignancy and tangible connection with the distant past.
I checked with the house owner next door that we were headed in the right direction and then, accompanied by said house owner’s black and tan Jack Russell, we set off up the steepest hill of the day.
Charlie, the dog, obviously thought that all his Christmases had come at once, and we were his new best friends. We tried to send him home but he was having none of it; it was walkies whether we liked it or whether we didn’t.
Eventually, I caught hold of the little bugger and rang his owner who came with unnecessary apologies to collect him. We waved him goodbye and strolled the last mile into Clifton upon Teme. The pub beckoned and after a swift half of lager, I left Lorna, Hilary and Annabelle nursing their drinks and sore feet as I headed off towards Stanford Bridge.
Alone, I could get into my stride and swing along at just under four miles an hour. And, with a bit of cross country as well as road work, made Stanford Bridge in very short order.
Hilary and Annabelle joined once more for a few miles; Annabelle is only fifteen and she was not only first class company but she walked exceptionally well for a youngster.
Enough was enough eventually, and she retired to the Jag leaving me and Hilary to slog our way up hill to Clows Top. The views in every direction were some of the best I have ever seen and worth the long climb and traffic dodging.
Hilary bowed out at the crossroads and I carried on to Far Forest, three miles further on, where I stopped. I still had my trust stick and found that it was quite helpful for keeping up the pace. And it would make a really good weapon…
We drove back to Bromyard and made our way back to Leominster in our separate cars. Bridget cooked yet another delicious supper, this time of salmon fishcakes and they all disappeared in very short order between the five of us.
Hilary and Annabelle departed for the Youth Hostel they were staying at – it was called the Priory and I said to Hilary that people might very well confuse it with the place people go to in order to get over their drug problems…
And we all said goodnight and went to bed. Only one more day in this idyllic place. Shame. 20 ½ miles.

Fighting on

2006-05-27T00:00:00.000+01:00

Poor old chest had me coughing all night. What a pain.
A surprise delivery of a large box of crisps of all flavours and made by Tyrells, a local and very highly regarded company.
I met Leonard and June Chase at the concert last night and Leonard told me about his son William, of whom he was justifiably very proud. William was a potato farmer who realised pretty swiftly that however hard he worked, there was no livelihood to be made in farming the old fashioned way. So he took himself off to America and lived with the Amish in Pennsylvania for a year. After which he returned to Herefordshire and developed Tyrells Crisps which is now a multi-million pound business. He grows the potatoes, turns them into the most delicious crisps I’ve ever tasted, on site, and then sells them all over the world. How’s that for drive, focus and daring. Bloody marvellous. Perhaps he’d like to run the country…

No surprise for guessing that as I walked out of the house the rain started to fall heavily from a leaden sky.
We drove to Kivernoll and I set off along the B road equipped with my fluorescent tabard and plaid umbrella. I was determined that whoever ran me down had a good look at me first.
No problem with the traffic – what a relief – and then minor roads nearly all the way to the outskirts of Hereford.
I walked into the city at least twice as fast as the traffic which was backed up for the best part of a mile. Hereford was buzzing – full of people braving the rain to do their shopping – and the city centre was virtually at a standstill as far as the traffic was concerned. This is worth noting as it had an impact on the following few hours.
I’d had several long phone conversations to while away the miles and Hereford itself was a joy to walk through. I didn’t find a branch of Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society, so have still not paid off my mortgage. Bummer.
So out of Hereford I marched – along pavements and up a very long, steep hill. I’d heard nothing from Lorna since 10.15 and it was now 1.00 pm. I’d asked her to check out the A465 as I had a horrible suspicion that there would be no pavement to walk on safely. Unfortunately, by the time I reached the said A 465, Lorna hadn’t been able to check it out and was still stuck in town. I was not sure what to do for the best because the road was not pleasant to walk along even when there was a pavement – seriously fast traffic and nowhere to hide.
But not knowing what lay ahead I pressed on until it became clear that walking any further would be suicidal. So, having spotted a bridleway, I phoned Lorna who was still stuck in traffic in Hereford, and said I was going off road to cut off a corner off two dangerous roads.
The path started off reasonably well, albeit grassy and therefore wet – very wet it truth be told – but I resigned myself to another soaking and followed the clearly marked byway without difficulty.
The problems arose once I turned onto what must have been a four wheel drive path; laughingly known as a ‘green lane’: it was unbelievably muddy and rutted and, with pathetic inevitability, I lost my footing, staggered briefly and fell over into deep, slick, glutinous mud and thereafter looked like Big Foot staggering into town.
I was filthy; wet through, caked with enough mud to do justice to Glastonbury, and I spent two electric minutes swearing very loudly indeed into thin air. As Toria says, ‘you gotta laugh’. HA bloody HA.
Then I carried on. And on. Eventually I reached a road and had a funny five minutes watching the reaction of a group of horses who found my umbrella astonishingly exciting. A cheerful conversation with the Cribbins’s, which lightened my mood considerably.
And then it was onto the A465 and head on into fast traffic in the pouring rain. To be absolutely honest, I didn’t give a shit by this time.
After a couple of miles, however, I took to minor roads in an act of pure self-preservation. Lorna showed up – four and a quarter hours since I’d last seen her – and I changed out of my sodden clothes into dry ones. A passing motorist got more than he bargained for when he drove past me as I struggled into my clean clothes. I hope he had a penchant for rugby playing thighs with a touch of cellulite – otherwise he must just have suffered extreme shock.
Lorna had found a garden centre which had some super hanging baskets; and we wanted to give Bridget Eastaugh, our remarkable hostess, a present to express our gratitude for her amazing hospitality.
So as I set off, dry, clean and comfortable – and munching my delicious Tyrells crisps – Lorna drove to the said garden centre to buy a really lovely basket for Bridget.
It stopped raining. Truly. It was DRY. The sun came out, steam rose from the tarmac as I tramped up and down hill after hill, and the air became muggy and stifling. I started to get wet inside my clean Musto jacket and had to wrap it round my waist to cool off. So bizarre.
For some weird reason, I didn’t feel the need to stop for food or rest and was very happy to keep walking.
I stopped for five minutes to watch two tiny ponies wrestling with each other; there were no holds barred and they reared up and boxed before shouldering each other with all their strength. One caught hold of the other’s hock in his teeth and they spiralled round in circles until they separated. Two other tiny ponies grazed feet away from this titanic struggle without even raising their heads. It was very entertaining and I suspect they were chaps; male horses, whether they are gelded or not, will constantly juggle for top position in the herd. Mares, on the other hand, have one sorting out and then stick to the same pecking order indefinitely. Mmmm.
Shortly after, I passed a beautifully kept equestrian centre which had a Welsh dragon on a tall pole at the entrance and the Welsh flag was flying proudly above it. The fields were beautifully kept and the show jumps and cross country fences all looked in excellent repair. It made me feel quite nostalgic; perhaps the next fund raiser should be on horseback. Then I’d have blisters on my bum rather than my feet!
I’d met a charming couple painting their fence a really nice shade of green a mile or so earlier and I’d made them laugh by telling them I was walking to Leeds. It never fails.
Swinging along cheerfully, I greeted a young man coming down the hill towards me with his adolescent dog and not unreasonably, given we were the only two people around, expected to receive an equally friendly greeting. Did he say a word? Did he hell. So I shouted ‘manners’ as I marched up the hill away from him and was seriously annoyed by his deliberate rudeness. Too much inbreeding, I expect. And poor dog, having such a boor for an owner.
I decided against going off road as I was becoming quite attached to dry feet. So, down to the main road and I strode womanfully into oncoming traffic until I reached Bromyard.
As I gathered speed down hill – passing a very particular wooden sculpture with sheep and apples on it – there was a toot on a car horn. My friend Hilary and her daughter Annabelle, who were joining me for the next day’s walking, were driving past; they were in urgent search of a loo and I was opposite a garage with ‘facilities.’ The coincidence was extraordinary – I could have turned off earlier into town, for example – but, as often happens, the unlikely came to pass.
A quick chat and then I walked through Bromyard to the Holly Tree pub where I met Lorna.
Then back to Bridget’s and a delicious and sociable supper with Bridget, Jill, Lorna, Hilary, Annabelle, me, Jackie and Bryan . And then, bed. Oh joy. 23 miles.

A feast fit for Kingsland

2006-05-26T00:00:00.000+01:00

Today was a day of rest. I decided last night that I’d have a whole day off to catch up with this diary and to get over the chest infection.
I spent the morning writing while the sun shone blissfully and a touch ironically outdoors. I wasn’t walking so the rain kept away…
Nothing much to report until the evening when we had a soiree at the home of Catherine and Charles MacCarthy in the village.
Jackie, Bridget and several other ladies had prepared a splendid meal for after the concert, which was to take place in the drawing room of yet another fabulous home.
The piano was tuned, the seats were arranged in rows and at 7.45 Jill P, Gill Ford, Garry Magee, Lorna and I, together with the charming and very entertaining Dean of Hereford, began our performance.
The audience of forty was impressively attentive and everyone performed really well. Jill excelled herself in her readings, Garry sang like a god, Gill saved the audience from another of my Les Dawson impersonations, Father Michael was super in both his songs and readings, and I sang quite well considering the state of my lungs.
And then we had supper. Fantastic hardly describes the feast that had been prepared and we all had the chance to chat with our audience and enjoy another perfect evening in perfect Kingsland. If I didn’t live in the Surrey Hills I’d move here. Or to Uley. They both have a magical quality about them which I’ve not experienced anywhere else.
Oh dear, can I hear those men in white again…

Best. Day. Ever.

2006-05-25T00:00:00.000+01:00

Goodbye Llandaff, Angela, Gareth, Linda and dear Jamie who gave up his room for me. What a star. As my friend Pam says about my son, Will, I’ll have to just jump in the freezer and wait for him… That, of course, will completely freak the poor fellow out. Sorry.
Lorna and I emptied the Jag and stuffed everything back in as well as we could – at least well enough that she could see out of the rear window. Our belongings seem to be expanding and I’m not sure why.
We drove back to Abergavenny in brilliant sunshine. I couldn’t believe how blue the sky was and what a difference it immediately made to both our outlooks.
I took my rucksack and wore my old grey waterproof into Abergavenny and boiled in the heat. There seems to be no half-way house at the moment as far as the weather is concerned.
Lorna went on ahead into town and bought me an ordnance survey map of the area. I had a suspicion I’d need to cut onto minor roads and in very short order I was proved right.
The A465 had a pavement but was very noisy and tiring. And what’s the point of walking through some of the most beautiful countryside in the UK on a smelly, noisy main road? So I quickly branched off into the glorious Monmouthshire and Herefordshire lanes and had one of the nicest day’s walking I’ve ever had. Ever.
I hardly saw a car; the lanes were often little more than dirt tracks and the rolling hills and craggy outcrops dipped and swooped away into the purple, hazy distance. The sun shone, the birds warbled and chattered in their droves, the sun beat on my back and every hill revealed another priceless view. I started the day feeling very slow and under the weather because of this annoying chest infection. So I followed my body’s command and settled for a gentle, consistent speed that allowed all the muscles to warm up gradually.
I sweated the infection out as the day went on and gradually regained my normal energy level and, after an excellent lunch provided by Lorna, felt almost back to what passes for normal.
What a lot of hills. I couldn’t believe how many seriously steep ones there are in this neck of the woods. Up and down I went, taking in one magnificent vista after another. Everything was perfect on both the large and small scale. The grandeur of the panoramic scenery was way beyond spectacular; but in each hedgerow there were splashes of wild flowers; around every corner lay another treat for the eye; and the scent of the air was clean and clear and bore traces of coconut from the gorse and the jasmine of wisteria.
We lunched in a lay-by on a ridge which had long, long views on each side. It was breathtaking: I don’t have the words to describe the deep sense of peace and rightness I felt as I sat there in the open air simply being part of the glory all around me.
We arranged to meet at Grosmont some five miles further on and Lorna had a cup of tea and chocolate digestives ready in a trice when I arrived.
Onwards to Kintchurch and while I was wondering whether I’d made yet another mistake, I spotted the spire of an ancient church tucked into a copse of densely green trees. Phew! I was in the right place.
That didn’t last for much longer because I disbelieved my map and went past the church instead of taking a tiny lane to my left. A helpful young lady put me straight and after a short backtrack I set off up a very long, steep hill.
Lorna and I had agreed to meet at a place that sounded like a cross between a sneeze and a cough. But when I reached the junction there was no sign of her. So I gave her a quick call on the mobile and said, horror of horrors, that I was setting off cross-country because it was so much more direct.
Well, it would have been if I hadn’t wandered aimlessly round a large, muddy field looking for a gate that was only fifty yards from the point at which I’d entered.
After that, however, I was really quite good and I found my way to Kilpeck without mishap and met Lorna beside another pretty Herefordshire church. It really is my favourite county, and I constantly have the sensation that I’m surrounded by the shades of all the thousands of people who’ve walked these hills before me. It has an ancient feel to it like Wiltshire, but is less wild and intimidating. In this county of Herefordshire, I’m very aware of the bending of Time and feel past and present exist simultaneously. Cue the men in white coats again.
I decided to do another few miles and ended up in Kivernoll. The light was beginning to dim and the next mile or so was on a very busy B road that had no pavements and nowhere much to hide. So, with discretion and valour uppermost in my mind, I called it a day and Lorna and I headed for our next temporary home.
Kingsland is aptly named; it is the land that time forgot and a piece of paradise as far as I’m concerned. Jill P. and I stayed there five years ago on the long walk and had a really special time with a group of truly special and marvellous people.
We stopped at the rambling home of Jackie and Bryan Markham in the centre of Kingsland and Jackie took us up the road to the home of Bridget Eastaugh who was looking after us for the next four days. Bridget is the widow of Bishop Eastaugh of Hereford and one of the most capable and kind people on the planet.
By the time she and her newly married daughter, Katie, arrived home, Lorna and I were well ensconced and ready to go up to the Markhams for supper.
A great meal in great company and if I don’t stop stuffing all this wonderful food into my face I am going to explode. Oh dear.
Back to Bridget’s and bed. This is what it seems to boil down to; the nitty gritty of walking is very basic. One operates at human being speed, one’s surrounded by natural things, the loo becomes an overriding issue at least half a dozen times a day, and bath, food and bed take on enormous importance. It’s all very therapeutic and fulfilling. Goodnight. And by the way, I walked 22 miles today.

A stroll along the waterway

2006-05-24T00:00:00.000+01:00

Lorna arrived after a long and dreary hold up on the A48. There’d been a horrible accident involving a National Express Coach and five cars. A dreadful way to start the day.
And then we were off; back to Bassaleg and on towards Abergavenny.
The day started wet and stayed wet. But as the wind had dropped I was able to use my big, plaid umbrella for the first time. I bought it for 10 euros at least 10 years ago in Montpelier after being caught in a rainstorm of tropical proportions. I got it from Monoprix and naturally, it never rained again.
Getting out of Newport was as big a challenge as going through Newport but, thanks to a friendly florist, I found the Brecon and Monmouth Canal and embarked on a really delightful section of the day’s walk.
It was lovely strolling – well, sort of strolling – beside the peaceful waterway. Goodness knows what size boats ever used the canal because the bridges and weirs, as well as the extreme narrowness of the canal itself, could never accommodated a normal sized canal boat or barge.
I passed the time of day with the handful of people I met but, for the most part, I had all sorts of birds for company and masses to look at on either side of the canal. Bill Oddie would have been in his element because the waterfowl were plentiful and varied. Ducklings and goslings; baby coots and moorhens; prehistoric looking herons, which flapped languidly away at my approach, turned the walk into a glorious nature ramble. It was brilliant, but wet. Wet underfoot and wet from above. The umbrella was a godsend for my upper body but no good below the knee. So, as usual, I spent the larger part of the afternoon with soaking shoes and socks pondering time and again the seriousness of this terrible drought we seem to be having. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s due to the two dry years we’ve had, but don’t tell me that a large part of the problem isn’t to do with the pathetic way the water companies manage their pipes and reservoirs. And while we’re on the subject, does anyone else remember that way back in the 1960s there was talk of a National Water Grid. What ever happened to that? Ok, rant over.
Canals do meander, so at about 5.45pm I followed a footpath and regained the road. Only to discover that I was still five miles from Abergavenny. The rain was pouring down but I refused to stop so far short of my goal.
I walked along the pavement for at least twenty yards and then it disappeared. It was me, the traffic, the pouring rain and the very wet grass verge. What fun.
I walked on the road when I could but had to keep leaping onto the grass to avoid being mown down. I was wearing my very fetching white baseball cap and failed to spot a triangular road sign until it was too late. I hit the top of my head so hard that I nearly passed out momentarily and I must have been quite a sight as I reeled gently about on the sodden verge trying not to fall into the path of the gigantic lorries that passed every ten seconds.
That really hurt and I didn’t know whether to swear or cry – so I shouted rude words very loudly for several seconds and then carried on.
Lorna shadowed me for the next hour and I made it to within a mile of Abergavenny. I dripped my way into the passenger seat and nearly fell asleep several times on the way to Cardiff. I walked 26 miles today which was very pleasing. We had a delicious Indian take-away and I went to bed quite early as the wine with dinner made me even sleepier. You know you’re getting old when you can’t keep your eyes open after 10pm!

Bloody government

2006-05-23T00:00:00.000+01:00

No concert today; it was cancelled last week because there was no support. Also, astonishingly, not much interest from the press. What a missed opportunity for raising money. Which is WHY I’M DOING THIS WALK!!
I woke up this morning with a bad cold and the beginnings of a chest infection. Too many soakings and too many hours in wet shoes and socks.
I spent the morning in my night clothes tapping away at the computer and catching up on e-mails. I had a horrible suspicion that quite a lot had ended up in my junk mail and been ruthlessly deleted…whoops.
Linda gave me some lunch – and then took me back to the Millennium Centre for 2pm. Lorna arrived clutching all my belongings for walking and, in brilliant sunshine, I waved WNO goodbye – this time there was no one to see me off apart from Linda and Lorna – and I started the next leg of the walk. Pun not intended.
Linda said later that it gave her a very strange feeling to see me striding off; she knew intellectually that I walked here, there and everywhere but seeing me simply walk out of Cardiff with the intention of reaching Leeds brought it home to her in an entirely unexpected way.
I retraced yesterday’s footsteps towards St Mellons and branched off northwards to cut above Newport. Leaving Cardiff city centre and dodging ambling shoppers was really bizarre. It seemed odd to be walking through them with this strange goal and I almost felt invisible.
It was a bit like being a time traveller who was passing quietly by in a parallel dimension. This is the point where the men in white coats leap out and drag me away!
It was showery but not unpleasant and I had some really nice walking along country lanes and some cheerful phone calls from friends that helped the miles speed by.
There came a point where I had the option of walking a rather long way round to the village for which I was aiming or cutting straight across country. You may well groan. I took the ‘direct’ route and within a mile was more than a little confused.
As I ploughed up a narrow bridleway trying to avoid ankle deep ruts, I berated myself for my idiocy. Never mind, it was still sunny and I knew I’d get somewhere eventually.
Which I did. I arrived at a farm in the middle of the glorious Welsh countryside. I had to climb a few strategically placed obstacles to get to the front door and when the farmer answered my knock at the door, I could in all honesty exclaim, ‘I am so sorry to trouble you – I am the world’s worst map reader. Could you please tell me where I am on my map!’ What a plonker!
He was wonderfully helpful and barely raised an eyebrow when, in response to his question as to where I was headed, I replied ‘Leeds.’
We had a chat about this government’s appalling attitude to farmers and farming – total agreement on that issue. What good is it living in a country that is not self-sufficient for food? We’ve got the land and expertise (I’ve been walking through it for years) so why drive farmers into ruin country-wide? Bloody government.
It turned out to my amazement that I was where I thought I was. He gave me very clear instructions which I followed to the letter and I ended up in Bassaleg at almost the exact same time as Lorna. That was a very impressive piece of Nannying! 11.6 miles.
Back to Llandaff, yet another lovely supper in great company and some packing before bed. I was quite tired this evening because of the cold which has now landed with a thump on my chest. Thanks to my doctor I have antibiotics with me and I started a course tonight. This is an all too familiar scenario and if I neglect the infection now I’ll be really ill in a couple of days. BORING.

A weirdly wonderful day

2006-05-22T00:00:00.000+01:00

I was ready for the last few miles into Cardiff which would bring the first leg of the Opera Walk to a close. So off we went, back to Tredegar Country House Park, and I set off down the old road to Cardiff via St Mellons and the longest section of road works known to Welsh motorist.
It was quite funny, really, doing this stretch on foot and caused more than a few raised eyebrows from the workmen I encountered.
I had to dive into some convenient bushes – notice the pun – because when nature calls on a long walk, you certainly have to listen pretty sharply. There were no proper facilities so it was al fresco once more.
Onwards and the weather veered between wet and blustery and really sunny and warm. Hot in fact, which necessitated a lot of taking off and putting on of outer clothing.
Lorna and I met a couple of times but I basically wanted to get to the Millennium Centre as fast as possible so I could get ready for the evening concert which was being managed by WNO.
Jane Jones gave me and the Opera Walk a terrific mention on her show and played a fanfare to welcome me to the capital city of the Land of my fathers; and I am Welsh by blood and certainly by temperament. Ask my kids.
That was the only fanfare I got, I’m sad to say. When I reached the Millennium Centre I was met by – wait for it – three people from WNO.
No one else could be arsed to come out during their lunch break and welcome me. I had asked Jill and Linda to join the throng… and I’m glad I did – it made five people and me! Not to worry; the three people who did meet me had done all the work for the concert and I was delighted to see them. Particularly Wendy Franklin who is an absolute diamond without whom WNO would sink slowly into the Bay…
It’s a very funny thing, but whenever my ego threatens to surface it gets well and truly bashed on its head. So my disappointment at being reminded how thoroughly insignificant I am lasted – ooh, all of two minutes and after a quick photo (on a mobile phone) I went back with Linda to Angela and Gareth’s.
You’ve gotta laugh really. Life is never quite what you expect, is it?
Linda had very kindly booked an appointment with Angela and Gareth’s osteopath as I wanted to be sure that the twinge I was feeling in my left hip was muscular and not something that needed manipulating back into position.
I saw Mari Evans and she pummelled me brilliantly back into shape; she must make fantastic bread and I guarantee that, as a keen golfer, she can hit the ball a hell of a long way. I felt miles better when I’d had my treatment and she reminded me that I must have baths, not showers at the end of a long day’s walking and that I MUST do my stretches before and after. Lesson duly learned.

The evening concert was fantastic; Wendy had done us proud and members of the chorus, orchestra and company sang and played brilliantly. The lack of reception at lunchtime was forgotten because of the quality of performance and the support and goodwill of the unexpectedly large audience.
Donald Maxwell presented in his truly inimitable and articulately funny way; and with his daughter Ailsa editing every single word and giving him a running crit, he should be quite good one day!
Suzanne Murphy sang as wonderfully as ever, as did Linda and Gwyn Hughs Evans. Anthony Negus played the piano for me and it took me back 23 years to my early days with WNO, when he recommended that I cover Kundry in Parsifal for Sir Reginald Goodall. That recommendation took me to the Metropolitan Opera three years later and gave my singing of Wagner a greater depth and understanding than I ever would have achieved otherwise.
We went out for supper at an Italian restaurant to round off a weirdly wonderful day and then it was back home to bed.

Alone once more

2006-05-21T00:00:00.000+01:00

Diana, Will and Sharon went home today and I knew from the moment I got up that it was going to be a very strange sensation walking alone once more.
It was raining – oh no! Will and I spent the morning working on my website and he tried and very nearly succeeded in showing me how to operate the Blog site. He’s very patient.
We packed, loaded up the Jag and then Lorna and I drove away towards Wales, leaving all our chums behind. I felt quite bereft.
We parked in the same lay-by and I backtracked in my boring way to make sure I didn’t miss a footstep. And then onwards in the rain; the very, very heavy rain. I had no time to feel bereft – I just felt WET.
There’s not a huge amount to say about the day’s walking other than it rained solidly for three hours and I had the great, good fortune to be on pavements. Well, apart from one impossible and impassable bit of the A48. I cut across a very smart golf course and amused a series of golfers who found the sight of me in my sodden clothes, fluorescent tabard and white baseball cap hysterically funny. And you have to admit it, they had a point.
I negotiated the golf course without actually getting lost – I must be improving – and met Lorna for lunch just as her husband drew up in his very smart Jaguar Sports Car. I’m becoming rather taken with these quality cars – I wonder if they’d let me have one to drive around for free just so I could advertise them? Probably not. Oh well, a girl can dream…
The sun came out, I had chats on the mobile with several of my friends and then it was time to stop for tea at the Hilton Hotel outside Newport. Heaven; hot tea, delicious cakes and a proper loo. One’s needs are really very simple.
Onwards and within a quarter of a mile, down came the rain – and it belted down for ten soaking minutes before the sun shot out again and left me steaming like a tropical water feature.
I marched through Newport and, it will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever been there, I managed to go astray. My guardian angels must have been working overtime as I asked a charming gentleman and his family a) where I was and b) where should I go. Between them, they put me straight and I fair galloped out of town, ending up at Tredegar Country House Park.
Lorna drove me to Llandaff – by possibly the most circuitous route known to man or beast! In our endeavours to avoid the thousands of football fans exiting the city, we ended up doing a comprehensive tour of the Cardiff suburbs.
Not to worry; I arrived at the home of Gareth Roberts and Angela Livingstone in time for a marvellous supper, after an equally marvellous giant whisky and marvellously hot bath. Bliss. The company was spectacularly good – John Fisher, the new director of WNO and long time friend of Linda Ormiston who was there in all her glory and enthusiasm: I met Patricia Mcmahon, who was a delight and I was seated by Angela and Gareth’s lovely son, Jamie. I had a wonderful end to the day. Jamie gave up his bed for me, bless him, and I shall be eternally grateful. Some girl is going to be very lucky in due course.
Lorna and her husband spent the night at the Newport Hilton as a treat to themselves and we were all poised to enter Cardiff itself with a flourish.

Croeso i Cymru

2006-05-20T00:00:00.000+01:00

Sue cooked us a splendid full breakfast with consummate ease and Lorna drove Diana and me back to Latteridge. Will and Sharon hadn’t yet surfaced and we’d arranged the night before to meet late morning somewhere or another.
We marched into Rudgeway on the A38 and then, undaunted in spite of recent experience, set off on footpaths towards the Old Bridge that crosses the Severn. It was a marvellous sight standing enormously tall and gleaming whitely in the sunshine. Yes, sunshine.
We actually managed not to get lost at all and surfaced near Olveston where we met W and S. Again, the best route for walking and enjoying was not the most direct one. We branched off onto a cycle path and then across fields. We found ourselves in a muddy and mucky meadow full of foreign cattle who, unlike their British counterparts, found us deeply terrifying. The big, butch bull took off at the sight of us and jumped a wooden rail into the next field; his comrades took their cue from him and it was like a watching a stampede in an old Western movie.
And then across the Severn Bridge. Five years ago I crossed it coming the other way, after 800 miles of walking and some five concerts. It had been a little breezy then, but now the wind was shockingly strong.
Sharon is only waif sized and she had to hold on to Will in order to avoid being blown away altogether.
We battled across, heads down, arms flailing and leg muscles weeping at the effort required to breach the gale. And then the wind dropped immediately as we reached shelter on the other side. We looked battered and windswept, but hey, we were nearly in Wales.
Another mile or so and we were standing in front of a big brown sign on the A466 which said; ‘Croeso I Cymru’ Welcome to Wales.
Photographs all round and then into the Jag, back to Olveston to pick up Will’s car and a speedy journey back to Uley.
14 miles (which brings the total so far to; 22, 22 ½ , 16 ½ ,21, 24, 25 ½ , 14, 20 ½, 11.3, 11.6, 26, 22. 177.3 to the Cardiff M. centre.)

A quick lunch at Tim and Sue’s and then Will and I hotfooted it over to Berkeley Castle.
As the cast arrived, we took it in turns to sing and play through our pieces and Will installed himself in an upstairs room (which actually had modern sockets and not the old round pin ones) and typed out the programme. The cast comprised me, Linda Ormiston, Hugh Rhys Evans, Heather Tomala, Angela Livingstone, Gillian Ford and Jill Phillips. A huge thank you to you all for coming to support the cause for nothing; and an extra thank you to Linda for compiling the programme when I ran out of time. For the fortnight before the walk started, I needed at least 50 hours a day to get through the work…I know I’m slow, but even so!
Rehearsal over, Will ran me back to Uley and we gathered our belongings, showered and drove back.
We should have collected an elderly friend of the Powells on the way, but thanks to my faulty hearing, I believed the arrangement had been cancelled. So, when someone asked an hour later,( and thirty minutes before the concert), ‘where’s Virginia?’ the awful truth dawned and poor Will was despatched back to Uley, yet again, to collect the faintly puzzled and uncomplaining lady from outside her house. Sorry Will and sorry Virginia.
Meanwhile, back at the castle – and what a magnificent castle it is – the crowds had finished their picnics and were making their way to their seats in the Great Hall.
What an amazing privilege to sing in the room where the Knights of the West gathered before riding to Runnymede to sign Magna Carta. It puts a certain perspective on things, especially when it’s very wet.
Jane Jones of Classic FM hosted the concert and she was simply marvellous. Without fuss or bother, she quietly collected all the information she needed from the artists and was the perfect presenter throughout. She immediately established a terrific rapport with the 140- strong audience and guided the evening with the same sure hand and delightful personality that makes her such a favourite on the radio.
The concert shells which had been printed and donated to the Walk by Cantate Print were a triumph – apart from one glaring misspelling of SPONSERS (sic). I looked really quite good in the photos – thanks to Paul Mitchell and Lisa the make-up whiz – and may have to consider a career in old people’s modelling!
The concert was a huge success and we made nearly £4,000 profit. What a testimony to the hard work of Tim and Sue Powell and their committee. And a very big thank you to Mr & Mrs John Berkeley who allowed us to use the castle at a very generous charity rate; and finally, another big thank you to all the castle staff who were extraordinarily helpful and patient throughout the rehearsal and performance.
The goodbyes and tidying up were done in a matter of minutes – musicians are like lightening when it comes to getting away from the scene of the crime! And for the last time today, back to Uley and bed. Hooray.

And then there were four

2006-05-19T00:00:00.000+01:00

And off we went again; we had to pack everything up inside the cottage and then stuff it all into the car. It made us realise for the umpteenth time what a good job Will did when he packed the car in the first place outside the Coliseum. It’s never been quite as good since!
Back to Dauntsey Lock and we were now heading northwest for Chipping Sodbury. Diana’s foot was still troubling her but she’s made of steel; she soldiers on regardless. Her determination is reminiscent of those formidable Ladies who ruled India and put the Great in Great Britain! She’ll kill me for that.
My blister really is so much better since I took out the insoles from my trainers. They’d been recommended and I’d trained perfectly satisfactorily in them – but slap, slap, slap on tarmac and concrete proved their and my undoing.
Will and Sharon were to join us for a bit of walking today. They’d both taken time off work and were driving from Surrey to Malmesbury, or thereabouts, sometime late morning.
We crossed the M4 and went cross-country on what looked like a direct route to our first meeting point with the ever patient Lorna. Joke! The farmer, whose land we had to cross, obviously had it in for walkers because there were no footpaths signed and everything was overgrown or barred. We trudged through a horribly claggy and muddy field only to find ourselves on the wrong side of a river. So back we trudged carrying most of the field on our shoes and, cursing the farmer, finally made it across a weir and onto well maintained paths and then lanes.
As my foot was now pain free, I kept up a good pace and Diana followed at a speed that was comfortable for her. This meant regular phone calls to check on directions as the gap between us widened.
We met Lorna for refreshments every so often and before lunch Will phoned to say he and Sharon were running late; no surprise there, then. So we carried on and, happily, stayed relatively dry. The wind was still very blustery but as the land lay were lower we looked less like two drunks.
Will and Sharon joined us at around 3 pm and then, with grim inevitability, it started to rain really hard. We all were soaked – but I have to say, remarkably cheerful.
By this time and sadly for W and S, we were on a B road – that’s B for bloody busy – and we were obliged to walk in single file. Several leaps into the hedgerows later and one swift climb onto a wall to avoid being crushed by a container lorry, and we decided to find an off-road alternative.
We were lucky enough to find a series of footpaths that mirrored the main road. But the big disadvantage was that the grass and crops through which we waded were soaking wet. And in a matter of minutes our shoes, boots, socks and trousers were too.
It really didn’t matter, however. Once you’re that wet, you just get on with it and we had a great walk and great talk all the way to the other side of Yate.
Lorna took Will and Sharon back to their car in Acton Turville while Diana and I carried on walking; we tried some off-road and ended the day as we began; cursing a miserable landowner for failing to properly mark the footpaths. Mud, mud and more mud attached itself to our sodden shoes and boots and it was with huge relief that we clambered over our last gate and onto the nice clean road. I ended at Latteridge after 25 ½ miles.
And I still could have done another 4 miles which was very encouraging. Then the forty minute journey to Uley in Gloucestershire where we were all staying for two nights.
Jill Phillips, Diana and I were being put up by Tim and Sue Powell – two of the nicest, kindest people in the world. Will and Sharon were over the road in another beautiful house and with lovely hosts and Lorna was a short drive away in yet another magnificent house owned by a charming couple with three young daughters.
This walk is turning into a tour of the most desirable homes in Britain!
After bathing, changing and putting things to wash and dry, we had a delicious supper cooked by Sue, lots to drink and fell into our respective beds with gratitude.

A couple of old drunks?

2006-05-18T00:00:00.000+01:00

It was raining – how very surprising – and all our clothes from yesterday were still sodden. But the sky looked marginally more promising so we could but pray for an improvement in the weather.
Lorna drove us back to the lay-by where we’d finished and Diana and I set off north-east on minor roads. The A4 was a complete no-no. It was far too dangerous.
What a relief to be walking in quiet country lanes and the hills were ridiculously exciting after days of walking on the flat. Suddenly we could feel muscles that had hitherto been redundant and there was a strange kind of delight in puffing up and down the short sharp Berkshire hills. The sun came out, a breeze got up and as we walked we admired the glorious views. To our left the densely packed crops in an enormous field rippled in the wind. It looked like a gigantic Mexican Wave and with bluebells, violets and a myriad of wild flowers in the hedgerows we were seeing England at its best.
We walked through Ramsbury – an idyllic, pretty village – and on to Ogbourne St George. Lorna had set up table and chairs ready for our arrival and we had a lovely lunch on the grass verge whilst hanging on to all our belongings; the wind was growing stronger and stronger.
In our inimitable fashion, we set off in the wrong direction. But spotting our error in a matter of two hundred yards, we turned round and got it right on the second attempt. When you’ve got blisters, every extra step is a disagreeable one!
But the good news for me was that, having had to remove the insoles from my trainers because they were soaked, I discovered that without them my blister ceased to pain me. So, I shan’t be using them again.
We followed the Ridgeway and began to cross the Marlborough Downs. The strength of the wind was unbelievable. We had fantastic views in every direction but had to battle to stay upright.
Leaning into the wind, which was blowing from our left, was a great idea; until the wind suddenly dropped and we fell the other way.
Diana and I reeled our way across the huge rolling expanse of downland like a couple of old drunks. Absolutely hilarious and absolutely knackering.
When we found a little respite in the lanes by the ancient hill fort at Barbary Castle, we still lurched about like sailors who’re back on dry land after months at sea.
I can only liken the force of the wind to putting your head out of a car window when it’s travelling along a motorway at about seventy miles an hour. It was really difficult even to breathe; we both ended up gasping for air out of the corners of our mouths and contorting our lips like old fashioned baritones!
We ended up at Dauntsey Lock, just short of the M4. A good landmark to finish a good day and a total of 24 miles. Diana treated us to supper in the lovely local pub at Wootton Rivers and I limited myself to Guinness. Gin is off for the time being!

A moralled tale...

2006-05-17T00:00:00.000+01:00

Sad farewells to Standlake and the Websters. We packed up everything yet again and had to empty the Jag before we could cram all our belongings inside.
Then off to the Kennet and Avon Canal to start a day of canal walking. Oh, the pleasure of walking beside a canal compared with the ducking and diving we endured all day yesterday.
Throughout the day we had a great time enjoying varied scenery to the left of us and the calm, steady meandering of the canal to the right of us.
Cattle, sheep and horses dotted the pastures and ducks, coots, Canada geese and swans sailed or scuttled on the brown, sliding waters.
We saw lots of young birds trailing in the wakes of their anxious mothers and every so often, a train whizzed past on the track that parallels the canal and the A4.
When we started at around 10.30am, we had a chat with the gentleman who ran the pub beside the canal at Midgeham. It turned out he’d studied singing at the Guildhall at the same time as Bryn Terfel. Unaccountably he disappeared before he could give us a donation – ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.
We stopped in Newbury to have a cup of tea with Lorna in a car park; and she pointed us in the direction of the nearest facilities. The issue of ‘personal relief’ plays an important part in long walks. I’ve ‘gone’ all over Britain and this walk is no different in that department from all the others. This time we were lucky and could use a proper loo rather than struggling behind a hedge in the pouring rain.
Speaking of rain; what happened to the drought? From Newbury onwards it rained steadily and very wetly.
We stopped for lunch further along the canal and in the time-honoured tradition beloved of all British campers, sat in the rain eating our salads and watching the world go by.
Two ducks provided entertainment; every time a car approached, they dashed into the middle of the lane and stopped dead. Every vehicle had to come to a standstill, at which point, the ducks strolled with a leisurely waddle to the other side. It happened at least six times, so was apparently their way of brightening up a dull, damp day.
We walked into Hungerford rather wet and bedraggled and joined Lorna for a really hot, fresh cup of tea and cakes at a handily placed tea room. What a pretty place Hungerford is and it is a terrible shame that it will always be remembered as the sleepy town where Michael Ryan went on a murderous spree, which ended in the deaths of many innocents.
As we left the tearoom and regained the canal, Diana was surrounded by at least forty tiny ducklings; they dashed around her, skittering between her feet with absolute confidence; a very funny and endearing sight.
Then the rain came down in earnest. We passed a very handsome young fisherman who had caught the biggest river fish I’ve ever seen. I had to take a photo – of the fish, of course!
Finally, we ended up on the A4 in pouring rain. The sky was dark and lowering and water was falling out of the clouds in waves. We were lucky enough to have a pavement for a couple of miles but then it disappeared. Suddenly, we were faced with what had once been a pathway and was now a neglected grass verge covered in – yet again – nettles, brambles, sopping wet cow parsley and holes and ruts inviting a broken ankle at the very least. Why is everything designed for the motorist? Why can’t councils keep roadside pathways in decent repair?
Well, by the time we stopped three miles further on, we were soaked to the skin from the rain and the splashing from cars and lorries driving through the standing water on the road. Not their fault, I hasten to add; the road was awash with water. It certainly is a terrible drought…
Over and over again I have discovered that Britain is now almost entirely geared towards the car. Bugger the pedestrian, horse rider or cyclist.
Lorna picked us up in a lay-by 7 miles short of Marlborough. And driving along the A4 proved to me that it would be suicidally dangerous to walk along. We resolved to look at the map and find an alternative.
We stayed at Bella Mathieu’s cottage in Wootten Rivers, south of Marlborough. Bella is the most photographed face ever for Vogue, Harpers etc and she is a great chum of Jill P’s. It’s a beautiful cottage but slightly damp and without heating. This made drying all our sodden clothes something of a challenge.
When we’d unloaded the car and settled in, I took my right sock off with some trepidation. Revealed in all its gory ghastliness was a bright and bloody mess of titanic proportions. It wasn’t actually as ghastly as it looked, thank God; the Second Skin had leaked everywhere under the pressure of a day’s walking and my blister had bled into the general mess.
It cleaned up reasonably well and more Second Skin knocked the pain on the head. I also, rather mistakenly, had a generous swallow of neat gin which unsettled my stomach.
Jill cooked us a delicious roast lamb dinner and I toddled up to bed around ten leaving them to watch the gloomy news and even gloomier weather forecast. Lorna repaired to the annexe for the night and when Jill and Diana came upstairs an hour later, they found me fast asleep on the bathroom floor…snoring very loudly.
I’ve no recollection of how I got there; it seems I sleep walked from the bedroom to the bathroom, did what I had to do, and then simply continued sleeping on the floor.
Diana, who has seen me do this from time to time over the last 44 years, put her hand on my shoulder to wake me up and I apparently said I was fine but busy sorting out all those Chinese…
The moral of this tale is, don’t drink neat gin on an empty stomach when you’ve walked 21 miles in pouring rain.

A miraculous cure

2006-05-16T00:00:00.000+01:00

What a wonderful place and what marvellous hosts Suzy and Colin are. Hot baths, a lovely supper and delectably comfortable beds ended the day and we awoke ready for action. Another full breakfast; I’m going to be the size of a barn door by the time I finish this walk.
Back to Barkham in the Jaguar – what a stylish vehicle – and off in the direction of Shinfield and Newbury. I’ve developed a nasty blister on the ball of my right foot and am trying to forget it; if you hit it hard enough and often enough on the tarmac either your brain or your foot gives up hurting, I’m not sure which.
We had a lot of walking into fast traffic today. On the map, the roads look like quiet minor ones; in reality they were rat runs. We wore our fluorescent tabards (so the motorists could see us before they hit us) and eventually we reached Aldermaston Village without being squashed flat. Not a lot of fun but most certainly a challenge.
Diana and I spotted a footpath heading in the direction we wanted so, after a warm cup of tea and a biscuit, we struck off across the fields towards Newbury.
What a contrast and what a relief. We could walk side-by-side, have a decent conversation and enjoy the scenery at last. And it was really lovely. Only two days walking from central London and it was another world altogether.

So, somehow or another, Diana and I clocked up 16 ½ miles in tolerably fine weather, ending up on the Kennet and Avon Canal. What a treat after dodging cars, lorries and coaches all day. It still astonishes me how far one can walk in just a few hours.
We stopped around four thirty at Midgham station and headed back to Standlake. The concert was at 7.45 pm which gave us all time to tidy up a bit and repair our feet.
I had had a sore patch developing during the day but didn’t realise until I took my shoes off just how bad the blister was. When I cut away the Compeed Blister Plaster, I inadvertently removed quite a lot of my foot. Oh Lord, had I forgotten the ludicrous amount of pain a raw blister can cause. I looked through our medicine box and tried one thing after another, and none of them actually enabled me to walk even a step.
Then I looked in Johnny’s parcel and discovered a magical pack of ‘Second Skin’. It was a miracle – literally. I followed the instructions and instantly I could walk, and the pain went away. How extraordinary is that?
So, dressed in my finery and able to walk around in my socks (but not high-heeled shoes), I met the gathered throng and prepared to entertain them.
Given that I accompanied myself like the late, great Les Dawson on a particularly bad day, it passed off reasonably well. I sang tolerably, my bad foot survived the rigours of pedalling, and the audience was most tolerant of my ham-fisted playing.
Jill Phillips, my great friend and veteran of the John O’Groats to Land’s End Walk five years ago, read as brilliantly as ever and had the listeners in stitches. And when Lorna and I closed the 45 minute concert with the duet version of Ivor Novello’s song ‘We’ll gather Lilacs’ everyone seemed to have had a good time.
Lorna is/was an opera singer but for one reason and another has relegated singing to the back burner. Singing the duet rounded off the concert perfectly and I think whetted her appetite for performing once more. And so it should; she has a lovely voice and it deserves to be used.
Lots more marvellous food and drink rounded off the day and when Colin did his sums at around midnight, we seemed to have made £800 or so for the Ben funds. Good.

Thank God for Anthisan

2006-05-15T00:00:00.000+01:00

The stinging nettles left our legs tingling in a peculiarly special and unpleasant fashion that had absolutely nothing to recommend it. Vicky gave us a tube of the above mentioned miracle cream and we were well and truly sorted in a matter of minutes.
A fabulous full breakfast with not only Vicky and Bernard but the world’s looniest and most hard-working vicar, Simon Douglas Lane, set us up for the day. Simon drove us to the station and thank God I asked him where the 200 foot crater we’d been warned about was situated: Right where we wanted to go. Of course.
He offered to drive us past the obstruction – and him a man of the cloth! – but I refused. I am compelled by my conscience to walk every step of the way and on the last walk would always backtrack a little, when I resumed each morning, to make sure that I didn’t miss a single yard. Pedantic is as good a word as any…
So Windsor was off the menu and Diana and I decided to head for Ascot. This was an excellent idea as it eventually took us through Windsor Great Park.
No prizes for guessing; we got lost; but with the help of a ranger and a dog walker near Smith’s Lawn, we got back on track and found Lorna at Black Nest Gate. Lunch in the car park of a Chinese Restaurant proved to be just the job and after a bit of foot repair, we went into and through Ascot.
I took the opportunity to pay off my daughter’s overdraft – Toria lives in Sydney and somehow had drifted a little into the red. That, of course, is what mothers are for.
Bracknell was interesting in a perverse sort of way – it’s a bit like Telford; full of roundabouts and underpasses. It took me a day to get through Telford on the Long Walk. Mercifully, we got through Bracknell in a matter of hours.
Then we had an awful stretch of road to negotiate in order to reach Wokingham. The A329 is bad enough in a car; on foot it’s a nightmare. Suffice to say that we managed and because it was the rush hour we were quicker than the traffic. A veil can be drawn over the rest. We survived, and that was enough.
A good day all told, but Diana’s first-day blister got worse. She’s perseverance personified and it was only at the 18-mile mark that she decided to stop rather than make the blister even worse.
I raised the pace and did a swift four miles to Barkham where I ended the day. 22 ½ miles and south of Reading.
Lorna then drove us up to Standlake in Oxfordshire where we were to spend two nights in the most idyllic house imaginable and with the delightful Suzy and Colin Webster. After hours of map reading at walking speed it’s a shock to the system trying to negotiate your way at 60 miles an hour, and after 8 or 9 hours on your feet, it’s REALLY nice to sit down.

The Opera Walk Diary

2006-05-14T00:00:00.000+01:00

Here at last is the first – and massive – post on my new blog site. I owe Matt Hasteley (the designer of this great website) and my son William a big thank you for making it remotely possible for me to keep a diary this way. Computer technology and I are on nodding terms only and I can manage only as long as I’m told precisely what to do and when. I’ve never known what went on under the bonnet of my car, even though I’ve been driving for 38 years; and as far as this computer is concerned, I have the brain capacity of an amoeba.

After months of preparation – and more than a modicum of strife in the latter stages – May 14th finally dawned and it was time to set off for the Coliseum in St Martin’s Lane, central London.
Or not.
We discovered a little late in the day that we had too much stuff to go into Will’s car; so we packed the rest into his girlfriend Sharon’s car and drove in convoy up to Weybridge and the Cribbins’ house.
Gill and Bernard Cribbins (yes, the film, TV, radio and theatre star) have been unbelievably helpful with the Opera Walk. Gill had the most professional donation forms on the planet designed by Taurus Print of West Byfleet and she and Bernard have given me wonderful advice, support and encouragement throughout the gestation period of this mammoth project.
We left Sharon’s car in Weybridge and then headed into London; only to discover that Wandsworth Bridge was closed and there was a gigantic parade to do with either Chelsea Flower Show or Chelsea Football Club. I never learned which.
So, it looked as if I was going to miss my own departure – a surreal and dreamlike experience which only dissipated when we changed direction and battled through Clapham instead.
Oh joy! We finally reached the Coliseum, loaded all the gear into our fabulously smart Jaguar Diesel Estate (kindly donated by Guy Salmon of Thames Ditton) and joined the party inside the Coli.
ENO management had very kindly laid on complimentary tea, coffee and biscuits and after a couple of press interviews and a quick hello to the galaxy of stars who’d sweetly come to wave me off, we all finally adjourned to the foyer for the goodbye.
It was bloody marvellous. Members of the ENO chorus had given up their Sunday lie-in to sing for me – and appropriately they chose ‘Keep Right On to the End of the Road’ and ‘When You Walk Through a Storm.’ How very prophetic that turned out to be…
Johnny Graham Hall made a lovely speech and gave me a large parcel full of wonderful foot goodies. And boy have they all been useful. I thanked everyone for coming – without making a complete fool of myself and then it was time to go. It was time to hit the road for real and become a gypsy again, roaming the highways and byways of Britain.

Another surreal experience; walking out of London with the intention of reaching Cardiff was bizarre in the extreme.
Accompanied by a group of my dearest friends, I walked up the Mall to Buckingham Palace; and as we were all wearing Opera Walk T-shirts and Carolyn was carrying a Welsh Dragon tea towel, we did get some strange looks. At the palace, Carolyn, Julia and Hilary wished me luck and turned back for the Coli.
That left me, my best friend since I was eleven, Diana Watson, and her son Richard to accompany me out of the metropolis.
Diana was going to walk with me for the first week and it was great to have her company, as well as her rather useful ability as a map reader. I’m generally ok but have to admit that I quite often go wrong. And it’s more than a nuisance if you go seriously wrong on foot. It’s alright in the car or on horseback but when you’re on Shank’s pony there’s a huge incentive to get things right first time.

On we walked, dodging the strolling Sunday crowds and passing familiar landmarks left and right; the Albert Hall, Kensington Gardens, Hammersmith Flyover all rapidly dwindled from sight and, in what seemed no time at all, we had our first meeting with Lorna Washington, the project manager of the walk, in Chiswick.

A quick sandwich, renewed supplies of Buxton Water – thank you Caroline Juin at Nestle – and it was off along the A315.
We decided the A4 would be less than pleasant so chose to meander through the heavenly delights of Brentford, Isleworth and Hounslow. I stopped for twenty minutes to do a phone interview with the Daily Mail and Richard showed me how to use the GPS watch I’d been sponsored by great friends of mine, Julian and Vivienne Bishop and Coast and Country Estates of Fishguard, West Wales.
I couldn’t even turn the blasted thing on – but Richard, with the confidence of all young people confronted with gadgets, pressed all the right buttons and told me in words of two syllables what to do.

Around tea time, Richard was encouraged rather firmly by his mama to go home (revision for important exams), and Diana and I walked on alone. It was beginning to feel like ‘ten green bottles’ – and now we were down to two.
I cannot lie and say that the A30 is an interesting road to walk along; and how anyone lives under the flight path from Heathrow I shall never comprehend. But the miles rolled by and eventually we were obliged to leave the A30 a mile or so short of the M25. We followed a cycle path and to our astonishment found ourselves on Staines Moor. This was something of a surprise. Fields, cattle and hedgerows were unexpected to put it mildly – and of course, we immediately got lost. I don’t know why I ever go off road as I always go wrong.
We found our way off the Moor, along an old railway embankment and eventually reached some houses.
We were directed towards Wraysbury by a very nice and somewhat startled young man and his instructions were impeccable. What he did not take into account was that every plant known to man had erupted in joyous abandon over the previous few days and what had once been passable was now a wasteland of stinging nettles and brambles.
Two miles later and stung to buggery, we fell into Wraysbury at the station and called Lorna, who was by now beginning to worry about our whereabouts.
The joy of a hot bath and a fabulous dinner in the company of new friends Vicky and Bernard cannot be adequately described. Fantastic doesn’t even come close.
Comfy beds, Nurofen to ease the stiffness of a first afternoon’s 22 miles and a quick foot massage on a rather wonderful machine lent to me by physiotherapist friends, Angie and Sue, brought the day to a close.
Not bad.