Miles to Go - Day Nine
Friday 9th July
For once, I
actually set out for an all-day walk.
Unfortunately, in practice allocating twice as many hours to going for a
walk does not guarantee covering twice the distance.
A couple of
weeks ago, when PDB11 and I had visited Cranmore and had lunch
at the Strode Arms, it had occurred to me that it had been over a year since we had been for a
walk to Cranmore Tower.
Also, I had
finally finished re-reading The Wave Theory of Angels and was looking for somewhere suitable to send it travelling. While I could simply donate it to a charity
shop or to one of the many converted phone-box libraries, it seemed to me that
as the plot of the novel involves high places (a mediaeval cathedral and a
high-rise laboratory), the ideal place to leave it would be at the top of
Cranmore Tower.
As I had been
doing a lot of road-based walking lately, I decided to follow the East Mendip Way from Asham Wood and west across farmland
to Great Gains Wood (where Cranmore Tower is located), and then have a cup of
tea and a cake before continuing as far as the Fosse Way, and following this
home.
Some parts of the East Mendip Way are more clearly marked than others. Often, however, the clearly marked parts are the ones with barriers seeming to exclude fat people,
It was well past
lunchtime when I arrived at Great Gains Wood, partly because walking through
muddy woods and fields is noticeably slower than walking on roads. I was hungry, looking forward to a cup of
tea, and (even though I hadn’t drunk much water so far) looking forward even
more to having access to a loo and somewhere to wash my hands.
If I had
bothered to look at Cranmore Tower’s website before going, I would have realised that both the tower and the tea-room are
still closed as a precaution against Covid-19.
Incidentally, Farhad has been accused on TripAdvisor of being rude and discriminatory towards autistic adults. I suspect that it was nothing to do with
prejudice against autistic people, and everything to do with Farhad being wary
of visitors in general.
There was no sign of habitation, but I noticed an outhouse next to the tower, labelled ‘Open to all humanity – female.’
I decided I
could hang on for a while, as I could always call in at the Poacher’s Pocket at
Chelynch for relief and refreshment. In
the meantime, I really did want lunch, so I dribbled water from my drinks
bottle over my hands and dried them on my shirt before eating my
sandwiches. Then I set off briskly for
Chelynch – so briskly that I went the wrong way through the woods and had to
turn back.
Having put the
woods behind me, I then managed to follow the East Mendip Way until I reached
Temple House Farm, and then I got really, really lost, to the point where I
felt like crying. I was trying to find
my way out along a farm track to a public road – any road – when a woman in a
car, obviously one of the farmers, stopped me and tried to give me directions,
explaining that I couldn’t get out that way because the gate was her gate and
it was locked.
I didn’t follow what
she was saying about where the footpaths were, because she seemed to be telling
me that I needed one that went in the other direction from the one I wanted to
go in. In retrospect, I was starting to
panic and was confused about which way I was facing, and therefore which
direction I actually did need to go in.
Still, I didn’t
think I’d have any trouble with a locked gate – I’d climbed plenty in the past,
often where they blocked what was supposed to be a public right of way. I realised she didn’t want me trespassing,
but if I was only climbing her gate in order to get off her property as soon as possible, surely it couldn’t do any
harm?
I waited until
she had driven on, then went down to the gate – and saw what she meant. It wasn’t the sort of barred gate you find
between fields, but an entrance-to-property gate with spikes on the top. I climbed a barbed wire fence instead, to get
out into the lane. Then I realised I
still didn’t know where I was.
A man still on
the farm – perhaps the husband of the woman I had spoken to a minute ago – saw my
distress and offered to show me where I was on the map, if I passed it back
through the gate. He established for me
that I was not standing on King’s Road, but on a lane running across the farm,
but that if I followed it just a little way south, I would pick up the track
taking me across a maize-field to the actual King’s Road, and thence to the
Poacher’s Pocket.
By now, it was
nearly five o’clock, which meant that the Poacher’s Pocket had closed after
lunch and not yet opened for the evening.
By now, I was fed up with my walk and decided to head home, past the
Waggon and Horses on Old Frome Road (also still closed, at twenty to six) and
through Oakhill. By now it was past six
and the Oakhill Inn was open, but I was nearly home anyway.
Instead of the
ten or eleven miles that I might manage in an afternoon walk, I walked fifteen
miles (counting getting lost) in nine hours.
I wasn’t impressed with my distance coverage or map-reading ability –
but very glad that my bladder control was up to a challenge.
I still haven’t
found somewhere suitable to donate The Wave
Theory of Angels, either.
Considering the characters’ prickly relationship with religion, a church
doesn’t seem quite appropriate.
Total miles: 94
Comments
Post a Comment