Miles to Go - Day Two

Friday 2^nd July

Today PDB11 and I spent the day walking to Kilmersdon and back (see map).  PDB11 had suggested this as a walk he’d like to do together, having lunch at the Jolliffe Arms.  As I had seen on the previous day’s walk that there was due to be a coffee morning in Coleford, we planned to call in there on the way, unless we arrived in Coleford much too early.

We started by walking through Harridge Woods, and then out through meadows of wildflowers.  PDB11 commented that areas like this, unsuitable for growing crops but rich in flowers and insects, with a bit of scrub, and edged by woodland which might in time expand into them, were a prime candidate for rewilding.  I thought that they were well on the way to doing this already, even without being designated as nature reserves – and that they were being allowed to exist as uncultivated land at least partly because they are useful as pasture for sheep or cows.

PDB11 agreed, since, as he said, grazing animals are part of the ecosystem, and Britain no longer has much in the way of wild ones to perform that role.  The problem is not so much that cows and sheep exist as that we keep too many cows, more than the landscape would naturally support, and therefore have to grow crops to feed them.  So, while I am trying to cut down on meat, and while I’m glad to see trees planted, I’m not going to campaign for everyone to go vegan, nor for all grasslands to be converted to forest.

As we walked on, we had quite a cheerful conversation about ecosystems and conservation, about fantasy fiction (we don’t often have conversations that don’t involve science fiction and fantasy), and about politics and attitudes to class.  And then, as we were walking through the little patch of woodland after Ham Bridge, one of my despondent, paranoid moods came upon me.

I knew this was a risk from exercising more than usual, and wished it hadn’t happened on a day when PDB11 and I were together.  On the one hand, it was helpful to have his perspective to remind me that no, the way I was thinking wasn’t the only or obvious way of seeing things.  But equally, he knows what my moods can be like, and the thought of having to cope with me all day when I was worrying about things was a lot to bear.

Before we’d even reached Coleford, PDB11 said, ‘I want to go home.  I can’t cope with having this conversation and walking.’  He looked on the verge of bursting into tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.  ‘Can we go on, if I promise not to talk about it any more?’

‘No, because you’ve already said enough that I know you’re worrying about it.’

‘Will you be okay to go on, if I promise to try not to worry about it?’

‘No, because I don’t know what “try not to worry about it” means in this case.’

I fell back on a completely specious argument.  ‘I’d really prefer it if you came with me, because I need to go to Kilmersdon anyway, and I can’t justify eating out if I’m on my own, and I haven’t brought a packed lunch.  Please, can you try to make it as far as Coleford, just to see how things go?’

‘I don’t know how to help,’ said PDB11 despairingly.

‘You are helping,’ I assured him.  ‘It’s just that it’s slow progress because…’

‘You’ve got forty years of thinking strange thoughts to overcome.’

‘Exactly.  Now, shall we see if we can get to this coffee morning?’

‘Uh, Temple – can I ask you not to talk about the things we’ve been discussing when we’re in the church?’

‘I won’t.  I promise.’

 So we set off, and found a new topic of conversation, and tried to work out our path allowing for the footpaths having changed since the map was printed, and by the time we reached Coleford, I had cheered up.  I recover from my moods (at least temporarily) faster than PDB11 recovers from having to deal with me when I’m in a weird mood – but then, I have decades more experience of being me than he has of living with me.

But I’m glad we did get to the coffee morning (which turned out to be in the church hall, not in the church itself).  Sheila was running the bric-a-brac stall in the entrance, and another woman was running a raffle. 

It all looked an encouraging return to normal church life.  While I went and found somewhere to sit down, PDB11 even bought some raffle tickets.  I hoped we didn’t win anything.  My bag was full enough just with bottles of water, our jackets, and Bookcrossing books for release.

An assistant offered to show me to the one unoccupied table, but it felt a bit pointless to come to my first coffee morning in over a year and then not talk to anyone.  So I asked two women at a table big enough for four if I could join them, and they cheerfully agreed.  Their names were Melanie (in the pink top) and Heather (in the stripy top). 

They asked me where I had come from, and I said Nettlebridge and explained about the sponsored walk, and they kindly gave me some sponsorship money.  They didn’t say which charity they wanted to donate to, but I allocated their money to the Big Issue Foundation, as this has had less money so far.

I’m not always sure how to start conversations with strangers, but I asked Melanie, ‘Have you always lived round here?’ and Melanie explained that she had been born in Somerset, had gone to Portsmouth to study psychology and had come back to this area, and the conversation went on from there.  I felt a bit mean at not having got round to asking Heather about herself, but by the time PDB11 came to join us, the four of us were happily settled into a conversation about education, and particularly language education.

We set off at 12, as the coffee morning finished (we didn’t win anything on the raffle, but Heather won several prizes), and arrived at the Joliffe Arms at 2, only just in time to order lunch.  PDB11 had omelette with new potatoes and baked beans (the restaurant was very obliging about substituting beans for the menu’s choice of salad or peas).  I had lasagne with chips and salad, which was delicious but a massive portion, to the point where I had to ask PDB11 help me finish off my chips.

After donating a book to a phone-box-turned-book-exchange in Kilmersdon, we set off home via Holcombe.  We were brisker on the homeward journey, as more of it was along roads, but by the time we reached Holcombe, PDB11 was footsore from trying to break in new boots on a long walk, and I was starting to get depressed again.  Still, we were both glad that we’d done the walk, and I wasn’t too exhausted to set out again in the morning.

Miles walked today: 11.

Total miles so far: 24.