LEJOG Day 35: Buttington to Porth-y-waen

Weather: Cloudy with some sun

Distance covered today: 21.1km (13.3mi)

Last night's B&B: Buttington House (£50)

Cumulative distance: 677.8km (421.2mi)/ % Complete: 38.5%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 35 (click!)

Another excellent, pack-free day!  What’s more the early part of the day was almost entirely flat, because the route lay along the Severn River Valley and the Montgomery Canal.  Only at the very end did I encounter a serious little climb and descent to test my limbs and I am delighted to report that they all worked as expected without reporting any malfunction to my over-sensitive brain.  I find that now I am questioning every twinge in case it portends another problem! I am though, a little anxious about tomorrow as there is a return to hillier territory and I will be reunited with the full pack, so that will be the real test. Still, no use in losing sleep over it. We’ll see how I get on soon enough…

Actually, I probably deserve at least a little punishment. I fell amongst thieves last night, or more correctly, a thief, or possibly even more correctly he fell amongst me! But after the good day’s walk and with the prospect of an easy walk today, and with the pints tasting better with every sip, I regret to have to admit that Rob and I overindulged perhaps just a little. Phyllis was the sole of discretion and Nigel, who joined us, stuck strictly to his single pint, but I had a party and talked my head off, ably assisted by Rob, it has to be said!.

I paid for it particularly early this morning. There were a number of chickens at the B&B roaming freely in the garden. In fact, Phyllis had been so interested yesterday afternoon that she had spent some time trying to identify them in a conveniently placed book on poultry. At 5 am this morning the cock did what cocks do and doodle-dood with great gusto and persistence right outside my bedroom. I heard later from Rob that Phyllis’ interest had changed rather quickly from an interest in poultry breeding to an interest in recipes!

I suspect that by this morning, Rob and Phyllis were delighted they were seeing the back of me, but, not so fast. By sheer coincidence, I dropped into a random pub for a cup of coffee later in the day, and who should be there, but Nigel, Rob and Phyllis!
 
I bumped into Nigel again a little further on and walked a little with him.  He turned out also to be a very interesting person. He is an extremely good-looking, fit and strong young man, who retired very early from the rigours of the insurance business, and is living very frugally on his means and who enjoys travelling the paths of England. He carries all his equipment, camps at camp-sites and camps rough if necessary, and he reminded me of a young, fit version of John, the fellow I met many blogs ago on the North Downs.

He told me that he doesn’t have a partner, which I found really strange given his obvious assets, but he thinks it would be difficult for the right person to accept his lifestyle. I found him good company. Having passed a few pairs of swans on the canal, we suddenly came upon a single swan, which to Nigel’s amusement, I immediately named “Nigel” and spent some time trying to get it to lift its head out of the water so I could take its picture, much to the real Nigel’s amusement. Our paths may yet cross again, though I doubt it as I am now a little ahead of him on the path.

Despite these encounters, I did spend most of the day on my own, and I had time to think. I reached an important decision. I am fairly sure that a major reason I have been having problems with various parts of my body is that my pack is just too heavy for me, given my circumstances. It seems to me that it is one of the limiting conditions for the continuation of the journey.

I have decided that I will have to go through the entire contents of the pack and exclude every single item that is not absolutely essential or required for emergencies. Anything that is there for entertainment has to go. Out goes my Kindle (sigh, but not essential!), out go various articles of clothing (I may smell a bit more!), and out go various assorted bits of kit that I am just not using enough.  I need to strip it all down to the bare essentials, a return to an existentialist existence!  I need to clear my pack and my mind!

Then there is the netbook! This is hardly essential to the completion of the journey, and it really is about entertainment, isn’t it? The blog is hardly essential, is it? But a few yards further on, I thought again. For a start, this machine does have an important function in terms of bookings, emails, paying bills, ordering drugs, etc. But more important, it is in a way, the means to an increasingly important aspect of this journey. It is my method of recording for myself and perhaps a few others just how I feel and felt along the way, and that, for me is worth preserving. I do not want to be left with just having done the journey. I want to have a record of what it was like to do it, imperfect, facetious at times, glib, probably boring, full of silly anecdotes and questionable connections, but still, mine, and shared with friends and family, in real time, for what it is worth. Optional for most; essential for me. A weak argument, maybe. But the netbook stays. At least for the present!

Tomorrow is my last stage on Offa’s Dyke. The old dyke has become a companion of sorts, almost always there, rising and falling as I walk along. Sometimes it is no more than a minor ridge along the ground, sometimes it rises to impressively dominating heights. I can now truly appreciate what a considerable achievement its construction must have been; the most imposing structure of its antiquity in this country. It must have taken the most dedicated commitment to complete it, and still we don’t know why Offa did it; or how he and all his men and women did it. One would have thought that with such a mammoth undertaking, something would have been recorded about it, but all that is lost in time.

In some ways though, it will be good to get back to my own routes, even if that means braving the B-roads again. Offa’s Dyke has in many ways been the most varied walking of the entire journey so far. Some of it has been very pleasant walking in lovely surroundings, some of it has been murderously difficult and painful.

Either way, tomorrow is the last leg.

Nigel, Rob and Phyllis in the pub

Next to the Severn River, going north. From here, it winds its way all the way round to the east, past Shrewsbury, then turns south and eventually south-west to the estuary, like some giant snail

A couple of lambs for Phyllis, who is very fond of them; more so than cockerels it turns out

A plethora of walking choices! Amazing!

A beautiful stretch of the Montgomery Canal

The Breiden Hills, defaced by a roadstone quarry

A couple of swans and their brood. I was heavily hissed at by Dad as I tried to slink past

The feeling endures

A beautiful Iris by the canal

A lot of beautiful irises by the canal

A butterfly

More pylon NIMBYs

Another beautiful butterfly

Bridge over the Severn

More Nimbys

Meeting Nigel as he was having lunch!!

Nigel, the swan