Miles to Go - Day Eight

 Thursday 8^th July

This was meant to be an all-day walk and wound up not being, for various reasons, one of which was that I was still writing up the previous days’ walks. 

By lunchtime, however, I had run out of milk, so decided to take my milk bottle for a walk to Maesbury Castle, returning via the village shop and post office at Gurney Slade to buy milk and then calling in on Doom Metal Singer for tea and a chat.

The journey through Ashwick, Oakhill and Little London was uneventful, except that I paused at the top of Ash Lane to see whether I could take a picture of the Westbury White Horse in Wiltshire,

who is usually visible on clear days after mid-morning.  Today, the Horse was out, but the camera was doing bizarre things, flooding images in blue-wash

or sepia-tint,

black-and-white 

or psychedelically bright colours. 

Clearly, the camera had not yet recovered from the ordeal of yesterday’s rain.

It was a pity, because Maesbury Castle was beautiful on this glorious summer afternoon, with crickets chirping, wildflowers growing, and a panoramic view of Somerset stretching away on all sides.  If you don’t know Somerset, Maesbury Castle is not a mediaeval stone building, but an Iron Age hill fort.

As I walked along, I had been starting to feel despondent in a generalised, forty-years-old-and-what-have-I-done-with-my-life way.  Okay, most people seem to feel like this, but considering that I am forty with no job, no children, and a tenuous grip on sanity, I’ve achieved far less than the average competent, functioning person.  This sponsored walk is probably the most useful thing I’ve done in years.

Admittedly, some of my friends are struggling with far worse problems, like trying to overcome drug addiction.  But then (as my mind interprets it when I’m in a gloomy mood), they are heroes for even trying to overcome their problems, while I am a wastrel for having had a fortunate start in life and still being mentally messed-up.

Still, when I’m in a mood like this, it helps to concentrate on something practical like finding my way around.  By the time I was walking along Binegar Bottom, the lane that leads to Binegar and Gurney Slade, I was tired enough that my mind and body had settled into the slow, hypnotic pace of putting one foot in front of the other.

I bought my milk, and went to see Doom Metal Singer.  We didn’t chat much, but sat at opposite ends of her caravan (she may be willing to let me inside now that we’re vaccinated, but she’s being careful about social distancing, all the same), listening to Comus’s second album, To Keep From Crying.  I’d enjoyed being introduced to psychedelic folk music as a genre, through Circulus a few days earlier.  Nonetheless, I thought Comus’s first album, First Utterance (the one with the distorted, grimacing wild man on the front cover) looked a bit darker in themes than I could cope with.

It struck me that a lot of folk bands like Comus and Circulus are keen to establish their Pagan credentials, and I wondered whether there were any Christian folk bands or artists.  The Carnival Band might well be - after all, they have recorded numerous CDs of Christian hymns and Christmas carols – but their sleeve notes don’t boast about their being Christian, the way the sleeve notes on Comus and Circulus boasted about their being Pagan.

Then again, maybe this is just as well.  Advertising a novel as ‘Christian fantasy’, a band as ‘Christian rock music’ or whatever, frequently suggests that the promoters feel they won’t be able to sell it on its credentials as a good story or good music, but have to emphasise that this is one that Christians are allowed to read/listen to.  After all, publishers don’t sell Dante or Milton as ‘Christian poets’ and recording studios don’t sell Handel as ‘Christian classical music’.  They can assume that people will appreciate the work for its artistic merit.

As I was on my way home, a cyclist stopped me to ask, ‘Excuse me, do you live around here?’  I assured him that I did.  ‘Can you tell me how to get to Chilcompton?’

I have never been able to follow spoken directions (or even written directions in a walking guide) myself, so I didn’t feel confident about giving directions to someone else.  Instead, I took my Ordance Survey map out, and pointed out where we were and where Chilcompton was, so that the cyclist could pick a route that looked useful to him.  I tried to indicate with my compass which direction we were facing, but the needle wobbled all over the place so much that it didn’t help much.

Still, the cyclist seemed satisfied, and pedalled off.  He seemed to be pointing in the right direction, but I hoped I hadn’t misled him.  At least, by not saying anything but just holding out a map which he had as good a chance of understanding as I had, I hadn’t said anything wrong.  Just then, when I was too tired to think straight, that was the best I could manage.

Miles today: 10 

Total miles so far: 79