i think about darkness a lot lately. about the paradigm that says light is good and dark is bad. about why humans, myself included, are more often than not afraid of the dark. and why we use darkness as a metaphor for fear, uncertainty and evil. is it something primal? there are some easy answers …
2pm, march 12, deep hampshire and nearing the end of 16 kilometres. i set out to walk a portion of the pilgrims way, something i've been slowly and in pieces trying to complete for a couple of years. something in me knew this would be the last walk for awhile, i'd been headachy for a …
rain. the kind that feels like it will never let up, except it does and then starts again in another bucketing shower that sounds like someone put their thumb over the end of the garden hose and pointed it at at the roof. it's been raining, mostly, since i arrived back from the desert a …
walking along a portion of the north downs way, unexplainable experiences. i've never walked here before. otherwise known as the pilgrims way in reference to the fact that pilgrims have come here to walk along the route that st augustine (of canterbury) trod from lyons and rome to canterbury in the late 500s. the sun …
slurp. that sound. there is nothing quite as unsettling as the sound of mud. boots struggling through it. slop slop slopping. a momentary stuckedness, then the unsuctioning of a boot bottom and, with it, the noise. there is nothing that a desert flower detests more than mud. i can assure you, being one. i'm not saying …
i did a lot of preparation for the 84-mile (it turned out to be 97 all-in) trek across england along hadrian's wall national trail. one of them was to make a playlist, which i titled 'england, coast-to-coast'. in fact, i never listened to it once during the whole nine-day excursion. but the songs looking back …
Continue reading out here hope remains (on england, coast-to-coast)
the top of ivinghoe beacon. all of england is in view, it feels like. a chill wind bristles from the south somewhere. maybe it passed cornwall or the north downs before causing a wave of horripilation under my pink-shell jacket. i climbed a chalky escarpment. boot in front of boot, carefully. then, a directional stone offers some idea of …
the saturday gone, i embarked on my first solo stroll across the english countryside. previous jaunts have always involved a companion, which is of course a wondrous way to enjoy the british landscape. but mental preparation is surely as important as muscle-building when doing something like walking across an entire country, and so solo excursions were happily added …
