8.00 Wake up in south London and feel, not surprisingly, disorientated and frightened.
8.30 Eat breakfast with Traybake - coffee and wee buns. Traybake passes off goat’s milk as cow’s milk. Feel slightly sick.
10.05 Catch train to London Bridge. Spirits rise as train crosses over bridge to North London.
10.45 Get on train to Wadhurst. Spirits sink as train passes over bridge to South London.
11.45 Arrive in Wadhurst to start enjoyable 12-mile walk through English countryside. Bask in lovely spring sunshine and admire the jewel-like colours of the celandines, anemones, primroses and violets which are liberally studding the hedgerows.
11.47 Think about becoming a poet.
11.48 Consult walk book. Discover first direction in book tells us to take the path by the pub. There is no pub; instead there is a terrace of brand-new Victorian cottages with uPVC windows and no right of way.
11.49 Realise we are lost.
11.48 Shout at Traybake.
11.55 Realise that TB is not speaking to me.
11.56 Decide I don’t care that TB is not speaking to me.
12.00 Wander round in circles declaring how I hate and loathe the authors of the The Time Out Book of Country Walks volume 2 and, specifically and particularly, the ones who devised the Wadhurst Circular.
12.10 Keep wandering round in circles until we come to house with woman outside. Woman says “Oh God, not another pair. You’ve got that bloody Time Out Book haven’t you? Just go up there straight through the garden and cross the road and you’ll be on the right track”.
12.15 We find the right path and feel a blessed sense of relief. Feeling of relief replaced almost immediately with insane rage. Discover that we are now 100 yards up the road from where we first came out of the station. Realise we have just wasted half an hour when all we needed to do was turn right and walk up the hill for two minutes.
12.20 TB asks if we are nearly there yet and when can we have lunch.
12.45 My feet are beginning to hurt.
1.00 TB asks when we can have lunch.
1.05 TB asks when we can have lunch.
1.10 TB has a pee against a tree.
1.15 TB asks when we can have lunch.
1.20 TB asks when we can have lunch.
1.30 I decide we can have lunch.
1.45 “Ah, this is the life,” says TB, lying at his length on the short, springy sheep-nibbled grass.
1.55 Remove sheep dung from my boots and think some more about becoming a poet.
2.15 Come to crossroads – both real and metaphorical. One path leads to 4 mile short cut to station; one leads to station via longer walk and mediaeval church. We choose the wrong path.
2.45 I think I have a blister.
3.00 TB has a pee against a tree.
3.15 I do have a blister.
3.25 We come to village with beautiful mediaeval church. The book tells us to take a detour if we want to see church. We start climbing steep hill. Twenty minutes later we reach beautiful building which seems to shimmer on the hillside and draws us inside as if we were in a trance. It is a Costcutters. I buy a Magnum and sit outside the church feeling happy for the first time in several hours.
3.30 TB informs me that the Church is very high. I advise him that I do have eyes in my head and can see that the spire is indeed a tall one. “Not that kind of high, ye eegit, high, like Virgin Mary high.” I decide I am not speaking to TB.
3.35 We walk down the hill.
4.00 I need to pee badly.
4.15 I still need to pee but now I am desperate.
4.30 We follow directions in the book to a spot where the authors say it is easy to get lost. We do not get lost. We see the path adjacent to a house. On the gate are two tiny signs; one saying the path has been diverted and the other saying beware of dog. We ignore one of these signs. The wrong one.
4.32 “Feck, that was a close one!” says TB. I am too busy shaking and wiping dog slobber off my trousers to reply.
4.34 We start retracing our steps with heavy hearts and even heavier boots.
4.55 TB informs me that he is never, ever going for a walk with me in his life again.
5.05 I am bursting for a pee.
5.25 We enter a deer park. We know it is a deer park because of the large sign which says “Stags Rutting. Please Keep To Public Footpaths." The sign is affixed to a tall electric deer fence. We have learnt our lesson re signs.
5.30 I feel very low in myself.
5.40 We enter a small copse and I decide I can no longer wait a single second to spend a penny.
5.42 Deleted
5.45 I feel strangely relieved.
5.55 “Wouldn’t it have been dead funny if you had been attacked by a stag just now, and it had pressed you up against that electric fence and I’d had to take you to the hospital with big red criss-cross marks all over your….”
6.10 The smirk is wiped
off TB’s face when we get lost again. We both wonder what time it gets dark. We cannot stick to the path because there is no path marked out anymore.
6.15 We exchange harsh words.
6.25 We get back on track and enter some Blair Witch Project type woods. The book says keep going north. I admire the sun sinking in the east. Something seems amiss.
6.30 We are completely lost. TB starts muttering about hypothermia and then asks me a very odd question. “Which part of yourself, hypothetically speaking like, do you think would be most tasty? Would it be your arm or your leg?"
6.45 We finally reach a village. It is called Wadhurst. It is where we are supposed to be. We are both delighted, despite me now having two blisters. We ask a woman where the station is and she tells us it is only a mile or so down the road. I want to cry.
7.05 It is dark and cold now. TB charges down the road ahead of me and I follow behind, trying not to sob.
7.10 TB reaches the platform for the London train. “Oh great! We only have to wait, umm, 50 minutes for a train!”.
7.15 TB has a pee behind the locked waiting room and I sit down and weep.
Ganching, you are a saint for putting up with TB's antics. I am sure I wouldn't last five minutes with him and his cheek.
Posted by: Mrs B | April 14, 2007 at 04:34 AM
Oh Mrs B. I just do my best.
Posted by: ganching | April 14, 2007 at 09:55 AM
Offer it up. Your reward will come later.
Posted by: jg | April 14, 2007 at 10:10 AM