The Covid Walks- or what you have to do when a pandemic means you can't walk in Gower

This really is a case of the best laid plans going awry. Actually, if I'm being totally honest with you, the plans were not exactly best laid and we had a few cock ups in the planning but we really wanted them to be best laid. But life and more specifically the Covid pandemic has meant that instead of travelling to walk in Gower with Rhian I find myself self isolating in Lincoln, shoving a swab up my nose every day or so and hoping that none of us test positive.

The plan had been to pick up the path at Loughor and walk to Swansea. This would knit together to sections we had already walked which is a deeply satisfying thing to do. The Gower is a stunning section of the path, traveling as it does through the first designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the UK. To say I was looking forward to this is a bit of an understatement and I know that Rhian felt the same. Hell, Rhian wanted to walk it even more than I did, having spent the year doing an outstanding job of teaching in the middle of the locks downs. I had had a much easier time of it but still, I needed to walk by the sea, to smell the fresh air, to get lost, get found again, moan about my blisters and enjoy a glass of wine at the end of each day. Sadly, not to be. Here I am, in my study, stuck in Lincoln.

Every year we pick a charity to walk for and this year we had selected Refuge. They were sweetly impressed at our offer of walking 54 miles. Truth be known, we have walked further but it was the thought that counted, I guess. Part of my frustration at the self isolation was not being able to walk the distance. I was mulling this over when I thought, 'Sod it. I will walk it in the back garden'. I realise that in this I'm lucky to have a garden to walk in, not everyone does. Hmm, but it is quite a small garden. How many trips around the garden would it be? I headed out to the garden and walked 10 loops of the garden. Out from the sitoutery, round the lawn, down to the garage, back along the house and back to the sitoutery. I logged the distance. Because I was once a science teacher, I did it three times and took an average. I did the sum. 240 circuits of the garden would be 8 miles. That's what I needed to do. Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear, one step, 19,000 steps a day for 6 days. Easy!

Day One- the first outing and some messing about with tents

Thankfully the morning was fine and it wasn't too hot when I set out the next morning. The previous few days had been oppressively hot and I was glad that things had cooled down a bit. I will admit to feeling a bit self conscious as I set out. You can convince yourself of almost anything and I had convinced myself that walking 240 circuits of my garden wasn't an odd thing to do.

'People are going to think you are mad, Mum' commented my daughter. I couldn't really fault her logic on this. I could pass off one or two trips around the garden as gardening. People walk up and down a few times with a lawn mower after all but 240 might be seen as excessive.

'And the tent Mum, the tent confirms it', said my son. Bugger. Couldn't fault him either. I had committed to sleep in the tent if people donated £500 and people had been very generous. Oh what the hell, I was going to stick to my word. I might look mad but I've started so I will finish.

The walking was easy, as easy as walking in your garden could be. One loop, two loops. After a little while I got into my stride. With no hills, nothing to stop and take pictures of, no getting lost, the miles started to fly by. One mile, two miles. After a little while I reversed the path, this time walking counter clockwise. Bizarrely this didn't seem right, I was oddly on edge, so I went back to clockwise and got cocky when disaster struck!

As you can see I dislodged part of the rock edging of the Sitoutery (It is too small to be a Patio, it has aspirations of patio-ness but fails). Taking my life in my hands I replaced that rock and carried on walking.

Before I knew it, it was time to stop. With 4 miles in the bag I could now stop for the morning but I needed to sort out the tent. My plan was to use one of my small pop up tents but I couldn't find them in the mess of the garage. Eventually I gave up and put up the large family tent. The smell inside it, the slightly fusty smell that all tents have took me back to family holidays in France, to times when it often rained all day and we would sing songs and eat soggy French bread. Proust had his madeleines and I have a slightly musty tent but the effect is all the same, instant nostalgia.

I trotted back into the garage and started to look for the bedding, a sleeping mat and a sleeping bag. Bugger. Not only did I find them but I also found the pop up tent. Dismantling the large tent I kidded myself that anyone watching me would have thought that I was just checking the tent for damage or something. The pop up tent popped up in no time. They are excellent tents but you have to watch that you hold on tightly as they have a nasty habit of smacking you in the face.

The tent in all its glory.

The afternoon walk went well with no further incidents. After dinner time I had 8 miles under my belt and half a bottle of wine. By the time I took to my sleeping bag I was smugly tired, too tired to do anything about to long dead spiders nest on the inner above my head. Lulled by the sound of the canvas flapping a little in the evening breeze I dropped off to sleep and woke to the blue light coming into the tent at 6. It was all rather wonderful. I could get to enjoy this.

I have little to add to this highly entertaining and perceptive account (especially about the madness...), other than to say that my friend Helen's redoubtable spirit and determination are impressive and she manages to make something good out of bad in a way that I fear I would fail. If this had happened to me I would probably retire to my bed with a box of hankies, a bottle of wine and a straw and some Lindt chocolate and snivel for the duration.

However, it hasn't happened to me and I am determined to match the old girl's Dunkirk spirit by walking the walk and blogging about it. I will publish my end of the story next week - Rhian x (Soppy old so and so. What she has forgotten is that the bottle of wine and walking are not mutually exclusive things. x)

Day 2 More of the Same

I slept better than I expected on the self inflating mat and woke fairly refreshed. Granted, I had a little of that low back pain that seems to be the curse of the middle aged biped but it soon wore off. I had my breakfast and then strolled back out into the garden to start Day Two of the walk. One of the advantages of being cooped up meant that I could start the walk immediately and I never had to worry about having to have an al fresco pee. This is much harder for we ladies than it is for you gents. Lets face it, the whole world is your pissoir. We have to do artful things with bushes.

I once had to have an alfresco pee on the side of the M180. I was travelling to see CDM ( see earlier articles for an explanation of who this is). I was driving over to Hull to meet him and to go out for dinner with his friends. (Remember large get togethers? Halcyon days!) I wanted to make a good impression as this was the first time I had met his friends so I left in plenty of time. So much time in fact that at stopped to get petrol and treated myself to a bottle of diet coke (other cold drinks are available). I drank that as I drove along and eventually I turned right on to the motor way. Far in the distance I could see a dense plume of smoke and I wondered where it came from. I drove on for a few moments and then found that the whole motor way, all three lanes was at a standstill. After a short time I turned off the engine, there was nothing to worry about, I have given myself masses of time. I waited. I waited some more. Godot came and went and I was still waiting. Five minutes became then and then became twenty. I rang CDM and told him I was late. He reassured me that we still had masses of time but gave me the name of the restaurant 'Just in case'. It was a sunny day and by this time people were walking beside the cars, trying to find out what was happening. Word eventually came back to us that there was a lorry full of tyres that was on fire.

Time passed. I rearranged the glove box. More time passed. I sorted out the receipts in my purse. Some living things became extinct. More time passed and fossils were forming. I became more and more aware that quite a lot of time had passed since I drank the coke. The pressure on my bladder was growing at an alarming rate. More time passed and a fire engine passed down the hard shoulder. I concentrated hard on not thinking about fire hoses and jets of water. Still, I thought, It cant be much longer. Many, many minutes passed and lots of men were wandering off to have an alfresco pee. Time was now passing in epochs and not minutes. I looked around to see if I could see a bush. We were in a bush free zone. Yet more fire engines passed. I was now in a lot of pain.

Eventually I knew that it was time to do something or my bladder was going to explode. It was face embarrassment or have bits of bladder splattered all over the car. I locked the car and walked down the road, trying to look casual and not as if I was looking for a place to pee. I had to walk down the bank at the side of the road, among some ferns, crouched so that no-one could see my arse and took down my trousers. The relief was astonishing. I was producing a competitor to the mighty River Humber. It went on and on and on. Much relived I then found I couldn't get up from my protracted crouch and I had to grasp at tufts of grass further up the slope to get back upright. My walk back was embarrassing but I didn't care. After a little while the road opened up and we went past the lorry, now a smouldering mass of water and foam. I got to the restaurant, kissed CDM and went to the ladies. Having to the needful I spotted a fern that had been sticking out of my backside a memento of my walk of shame. At least walking in the garden means I have a choice of loos.

The walk went well today. No tripping up over pebbles. I had some company from my daughter for part of the walk and I listened to some Radio 4 while pacing. I love Radio 4 it as a mine of information. Today, for example, I learned that the bubble car of the 60s was made in Brighton and Errol Flynn's mother was knocked down by one that was leaving the factory. I'm not sure that these facts are exactly important or in any way useful but on some level I am a happier woman for knowing them.

Rhian was very kind last night in her comments. I'm really doing the walk out of bloody mindedness. And I'm really disappointed at not being able to go on holiday. that said, many of my friends have worked themselves into the ground through the pandemic and if we didn't 'do the right thing' it would be a bit of a shit move on our part. As the great philosopher Mick Jagger once sang, 'You cant always get what you want' but he goes on to sing 'if you try some times, you get what you need'. So, I cant get what I want, the walk in Gower. But I can get what I need, the 54 miles. Its not so much 'spirit' as being so pissed off that I refuse to give up on everything. And I will confess to having monstered some ice cream I had kept hidden from the kids. Needs must.

Night, night all, my palatial tent awaits.

Day 3- Hanging by a thread

By day three things had settled into a somewhat deranged pattern. I would wake at 5 with the sunlight streaming through the roof and sides of the tent. I would go back off to sleep and wake at 7. Breakfast and then I would start to walk and do the first set of 4 miles. Round and round and round the garden. It wasn't exactly exciting at the start and it is even more deadly dull now. That said, I do see things in my garden that I have never taken the time to see before

One of the less attractive parts of the garden is my slow running drain, under the kitchen window. I've attempted to clear it with hot water and bleach but it still mouldering on. Part of the problem is that we all forget that this sink should not be used until it is fixed. Thoughts of the drain occupy me for several loops round the path.

I saw this first thing in the morning, a tiny thread of spiders web joining the string tying the bean poles to the side of the conservatory. How tenacious is that? I wonder how many times it tried. I must say it was thoughts of that that spurred me on through the morning. and then I thought, bit of a daft place for a web really, I wonder if it ever caught anything. Spiders are amazing things they can make the most beautiful webs but for some reason they often do so in pointless places. Guest bedrooms seem favourite. The clever little buggers must starve for lack of insects and their beautiful webs just annoy the householder.

Next of the tour of the garden is Petunia. This is poor old Petunia. CDM and I planted it together and named it. The choice of name was a capricious one and might have confused the poor plant. The more green fingered of you than me (ie everyone) might recognise that this is a gooseberry bush. And it is terribly poorly. Initially it was in a larger pot with no drainage and the heavy rains meant that it ended up sitting in a bog. I tried to rectify this by adding some dry compost. I tripped up the bag and the compost tumbled into the pot, complete with an ants nest. I let poor old Petunia calm down for a little and re-potted her. But I am beginning to think that she is an ex gooseberry bush! I will happily take any advice.

The rest of the afternoon passed with no surprises, I racked up another 8 miles. Thus far I have no blisters and I haven't got lost once!

I was safe in my tent by 10.30 and fast asleep by 11, the end of a dull day. I hope that Rhian had more fun than I did!

Day 4- Rumblings and musing

I went to bed a little bored. My days were all beginning to merge one into the other. I was still grateful for the garden and the easy access to a kitchen and a bathroom, I was also massively relieved each day when the three of us tested negative for the virus. But the walking itself was dull, terribly, terribly dull. So I wasn't really upset when I woke to the sound of rain on the tent, at least this was something different. I lay on my inflatable mattress and enjoyed the sound of the rain pattering and then pelting down on the canvas. It was all rather calming. And then there was a rumble of thunder. At that point I remembered the safely of my kitchen 5 yards away and got inside as the rain got worse and worse.

Sitting at my kitchen table, with a mug of coffee in my hand I started to think about Emma Rowena (Grandma) Gatewood who had been the reason we chose Refuge as this year's charity. We both came across a link to Emma somewhere on social media and she seemed like an interesting women. A little light googling made us both realise that she was an astonishing woman.

She was born in 1887, the same year as one of my grandfathers, and grew up as part of a very large family. Her mother was a strong woman who raised her family with little help from her husband who had alcohol problems. Eventually Emma married and was to have 11 children with the local primary school teacher. He was a violent and abusive man and she experienced a huge amount of abuse from him. There were times when he almost killed her. She educated herself by reading everything she could and would spend time in the local forests to help her mental and physical health. Astonishingly in 1939 he husband had her arrested for assault and it was at this time that the local mayor, seeing her broken teeth and other injuries, gave her a job and found her a safe place to live with her children. Now in a safe place she divorced her husband and even secured child support payments for the three children who were still living at home. This took great courage and persistence.

By 1951 her children has all grown and in 1954 she tried to walk the Appalachian trail for the first time. It ended quite catastrophically, with her breaking her glasses. (I love her for this, not being brilliant at something but giving it good try is such a life enhancing thing to do) The next year she tried again, simply telling her children that she was 'going for a walk'. She started on May 3 and ended on the 25th of September. She waked wearing trainers on her feet and carrying her provisions in a sack. Because she thought there were cabins along the way she didn't take a tent and her only shelter was a shower curtain in case it rained. The Appalachian trial is long, very long. It is 2,200 miles long. This means that she walked an average of 15 miles a day in difficult terrain. When she ran out of food she would forage the forest for what she could eat.

When she did this she was 67 years old.

Emma was so tough and resourceful. I ran indoors from my excellent tent because it was raining. She walked 15 miles a day and slept under a shower curtain. This was one tough woman. She had the strength to take her abusive husband to court at a time when such things were uncommon. And she was able to do all these things because someone gave her a safe place to live.

Emma was being talked about, and written about, by the summer of her first walk (she was to walk the trail three times in total, the first person to do so) and she spoke about 'Trail magic'. The magic was people stepping up to offer her shelter and food; total strangers who where helping her on her way. 'Trail magic'. It's an amazing thing. Rhian and I have seen it every year, when strangers have given us money for charity, not knowing if we were honest or scammers, but simply amused by our incompetence and wanting to help others. And that is why would are asking for support this year for Refuge, an organisation that is helping the Emmas of our time to be safe and start living the lives they were meant to have.

Right, enough pontificating, I need to get up off my fat backside and do my second 4 miles.

Much love and thanks. xxx

2womenwalking Walk Gower fundraising for Refuge on JustGiving