LAST Monday, I awoke bright and early, stretched out in an enormous bed in a rather large room and, for a moment, didn’t feel like getting up at all. But the lure of walking beckoned, so I arose and performed my ablutions before pausing to look out of the bedroom window at a view across the River Torridge.
Tag: bridge
LII – Bude to Hartland Quay
FOR ME, the last day of March began with an overnight coach from London to Plymouth and then, after breakfast, I jumped on the first bus back to Bude. Not entirely coincidentally, it was also the last day on which the 576 Bus from Plymouth to Bude would be running a full service; Cornwall Council would no longer subsidise the route as of the first of April and thereafter there would only be one bus per day, arriving in Bude in late evening.
XLIX – Newquay to Padstow
THE last day of February saw me continue with my walking, such that I had achieved three day’s worth of planned walks in two. Even though it was the twenty-ninth, and therefore a leap day in a leap year, I didn’t do any leaping from any of the cliffs.
XLVIII – Portreath to Newquay
THE penultimate day of February saw me once again arriving in Plymouth at an ungodly hour in order to catch the first train out to Redruth. Having arrived in this old mining town, I immediately tried to leave it again. On the wrong bus.
XXXVII – Plymouth Loop
OCTOBER having brought unseasonal warm weather to southern England, I made doubly sure to have packed sunscreen before catching a train back down to Plymouth. My original plan for the day involved the Cawsand ferry but, so far as I could tell, it had finished for the season and so I settled for a leisurely jaunt within the confines of Plymouth’s city limits.
XXIX – Burton Bradstock to Seaton
MINE was not a lazy Sunday morning, for I found myself up and out of my cheap and cheerful hotel — the main rule of which appeared to be that no two staff members could have the same accent, whether it be foreign or domestic — and awaiting a bus under the gaze of the King’s Statue in Weymouth.
XXVI – Durdle Door to Weymouth
SATURDAY’S walk marked the first occasion on these coastal perambulations on which I have not completed a section purely as a day trip. A friend, whom we shall here call ‘Alice’, has asked me several times when I’ll have to stop day-tripping and start staying over, and the answer is apparently now.
XX – Portsmouth to Southampton
THIS time last week, I thought about going for another walk but only managed to prove to myself that an alarm clock is just a device which incorporates a loud beeping sound into the malleable narrative of one’s dreams.
This week, I reverted to Plan A, which consists of three simple instructions:
Continue reading “XX – Portsmouth to Southampton”XIX – Emsworth to Portsmouth
YESTERDAY saw what I now consider a ‘short’ walk even though not that long ago I would have considered it a sizeable distance, i.e. twelve miles. The length of the walk was determined by a moment of unexpected synchronicity – it just so happened that I would reach a handy station (Portsmouth Harbour) twelve miles on from Emsworth and that twelve miles from Emsworth would, quite coincidentally, also be my three hundredth mile.
XV – Worthing to Bognor Regis
FOR yesterday’s walk, I once again stayed up all night to ensure that I could catch the earliest possible train without having to worry about snoozing through my alarm or anything. And indeed I could have caught that train had I not been distracted by something else in my tired, slightly trancelike state.
Fortunately I am no stranger to starting a walk half an hour behind schedule, my schedules being nominal at best and designed to accommodate an ambling pace. It should perhaps be no surprise then that I eventually finished my walk before sunset and a good forty minutes ahead.
Continue reading “XV – Worthing to Bognor Regis”