IF MY fiftieth coast walk had been a milestone by virtue of being a nice round number, my fifty-first was also significant as it encompassed my eight hundredth mile since Gravesend. It also passed Tintagel, which was as much as an important goalpost to my mind as Plymouth and Land’s End had been. As a child, I was always bewitched by Tintagel and its association with Arthurian legend.
Tag: castle
XLIV – Mullion to Newlyn
DAY six of my week in Cornwall saw me rise bright and early and open my curtains to the sight of a wall of dense, white fog. It was, I decided, a faerie fog.
XLI – Boswinger to Falmouth
PERHAPS because of my mad rush to beat the sunset on the previous day, or perhaps because a shower is just not as restorative after a day’s walking as a nice, long soak in the bath, I awoke on the Monday of my week-long Cornish adventure with my legs feeling like lead. Or possibly something heavier. I’d say perhaps uranium, but they really weren’t being that reactive.
‘This bodes well,’ I thought.
Continue reading “XLI – Boswinger to Falmouth”XXXIX – Looe to Par
The weekend before last saw me back in Cornwall, taking a week out to walk the coast from Looe to Land’s End. Because I thought it would be fun.
The first day’s walk was from Looe to Par where, having failed to find any accommodation near Par that wouldn’t require a second mortgage or major gold robbery to pay for, I would be jumping on a train back to Plymouth to stay in one of that city’s fine hotels.
Continue reading “XXXIX – Looe to Par”XXXIII – Dartmouth to Torcross
HAVING taken the previous weekend off from walking in order to give my knees a chance to rest, I decided to ease myself back into my perambulatory pastime with a leisurely walk of moderate distance, preceded by a short stint of being an unashamed grockle.
XXVII – The Isle of Portland
SUNDAY’S walk began and ended at Ferry Bridge, being a circular walk around the Isle of Portland.
I awoke not so much with the lark as with a surfeit of alarms, my phone being joined by the alarm clock in my room, which the B&B owners had thoughtfully set for me. I was too early for a cooked breakfast but they laid on cereal, which I declined, and toast, which I munched upon merrily. They then scored highly on the Helpful Mammal Scale of B&B Excellence by asking if, since I wasn’t eating the cereal, I wanted some extra toast instead.
Continue reading “XXVII – The Isle of Portland”XXII – Lymington to Bournemouth
WEDNESDAY’S walk began with an almost traditional start insofar as, having set off to catch the last night bus at just before four am, I got to the bus stop just in time to watch its rear lights disappear down the road. While this did throw my timings into disarray, it also felt reassuringly familiar. Also, In the end, it made just an hour’s difference.
XXI – Southampton to Lymington
MONDAY’S walk is perhaps best characterised by ‘fun and failure’, which, if it wasn’t a phrase before, might well become my walking motto.
Failure number one was on the part of South West Trains, whose service over the bank holiday weekend was looking to be less than Sterling.
Continue reading “XXI – Southampton to Lymington”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.