When you’re down and troubled and nothing is going right, the best thing for it is to head outside…if it’s not blowing a gale or snowing or pissing down with rain, that is.
On Saturday, the sun came out and after a week of anguish and stress I decided to drag my Englishman and dog out of bed (yes I know the dog shouldn’t be sleeping on the bed!), and head for the Wayfarers’ Walk on the North Downs. We parked the car on the side of Whitehill, near the radio mast and headed towards the west down the chalky path that thousands of travellers have walked before us.
The Wayfarers Way is a long distance trail that stretches 70 miles across the countryside between Portsmouth and Newbury just over the county border in Berkshire. The section of the route we like to walk is high on the hill outside the cute little town of Kingsclere, it always rewards with stunning buccolic views across to Watership Down.
The world is quiet up there, you can even hear yourself think.
Looking towards Watership Down, no sign of bunnies
Richard Adams wrote his famous novel about a tribe of bunnies living on Watership Down and how their lives were threatened by the creation of residential developments stretching out from Newbury, in 1972. Ironically, developers announced in December last yearv – thirty years after Adams wrote Watership Down - that they were going to develop Sandleford exactly where he described in the book. The author and many others are currently protesting against the development.
The tremendously sad book was one of the first real length books I read as a child. It was the book that signalled the end of my childish ‘fairytale’ reading, and the first I’d read in which a character dies.
I say read, but I mean, wept through. I’m still not over Hazel’s death.
We started down the chalk path from Whitehill, our faces still drawn and grey with stress. Bailey, the dog stood impatiently panting at us, willing us to hurry up, to come along.
We walked in companionable silence, we simply couldn’t talk above the rabel of thoughts in our own heads.There are way too many decisions for us to make right now. We have decision exhaustion.
Which way? What next? This road, or that one?
At our feet a thousand diamond drops still clung to blades of grass, but we were avoiding puddles of mud – too preoccupied to notice.
How many diamond slivers are hiding underfoot in our day to day? We’re too busy tapping keyboards, checking tweets, planning, preparing and parenting. We don’t even notice the view.
The road is long
But as we walked our spirits lifted and we couldn’t help seeing the verdant green grass, the sapphire sky, and the steady gentle path that leads onwards.
It’s not a dramatic view, there aren’t any rugged mountains, or sharp cliffs, just gentle English countryside. But we are so overwhelmed by work and stress I don’t think we could have managed a challenge. This gentle walk restored our perspective and as we neared the car, our spirits started to soar spurred on by six red kites leading the way.
Soaring takes strength and a calm spirit
Where: Wayfarer’s Way, just outside Kingsclere, Hampshire. Drive half way up White Hill and park the car on the side of the road.
Cost: Free.
Why: England has a tremendous network of walks and seeing the country is a great deal more than ‘doing London’. Walking the gentle paths knowing that thousands of others have pilgrimaged before you is a tremendously reasssuring way to regain perspective.
Go on, watch it if you have a hanky at the ready…
