Curate’s Egg

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so

Hamlet, William Shakespeare

I woke this morning at about 4.30, surprised to find that I felt wide awake and energised. A peek through the tent flap showed that the sun was not quite up, and smoky humidity was rising up from the wet grass. The sky was all dove greys and pale oranges and pinks.

As I lay there, thinking about the logistics of packing up a soaking tent in as dry a fashion as possible, a cuckoo started calling, followed by the whirring sound of a curlew. I wanted to get out there, amongst it all: I went methodically through the packing up process, removing all the slugs from the flysheet, and was up and out walking by 6.45, damp tent securely packed away.

There was no wind to speak of, and the reflections on the river were near-perfect.

On my skin the sun felt warm, even so early in the day, but the grass was soaking wet — and long, bowed down by the weight of the overnight rain, and covering the narrow path. And to think that yesterday I had wished I could cool my feet in the river! Today it wasn’t long before my too-porous footwear had soaked up as much water as it was possible to do. I needn’t have bothered putting on dry socks!

The riverbank was an enchantment.

Cuckoos called each other from opposite sides of the bank; I watched one fly away downstream. There were many small birds of prey patrolling up and down, hunting tiny mammals. Also patrolling were dragonflies and damselflies: plenty of the azure and blue banded demoiselles I had seen yesterday, a male Scarce Chaser dragonfly with a striking white tail, and Beautiful Demoiselles everywhere I turned.

I did a good job of ignoring my sodden feet, (reasoning that the shoes were designed to run around on the Fells, and that running people seem to pay no attention to the weather. Certainly my running expert comes back soaked to the skin and perfectly happy with it), and focused on the view from Eckington Old Bridge.

I played a not-very-amusing game of Hunt the Footpath before cutting my losses and hacking along the Worcester—Pershore A-road for a while. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, but the early morning Sunday drivers gave me a wide enough berth.

When the path ducked off the road it took me straight down to the river on the Millennium Way. My arrival disturbed the peace of a coot resting on a fishing platform, and a heron flapped away downriver.

I liked the going here: the grass was mown short, and the hard, cracked earth of yesterday had been pleasantly softened by the rain. Rain which was going to help the farmers cultivate their potatoes in this noticeably different alluvial soil on the outskirts of Pershore.

The soil here really is most extraordinary. At one point the path deteriorated into an impenetrable bank of nettles and goosegrass, so I tracked up the furrow between two potato rows. I was fascinated to see that there was a lighter patch of pebbly soil, chock full of shells. Many if not all of them were fossils, and I had to force myself to stride on and not stop to pick over the ground and burden myself yet further with interesting specimens!

I tried to keep in mind the staggering beauty of the early part of the river walk this morning, and not feel too salty that the river view was, in this long section, completely obscured by nettles, rapeseed plants escaped from the fields, and thick banks of reeds. There was some interest on my other side, though: I scoured the teasel-filled waste ground for goldfinches, where, although I didn’t see any, I did spot a reed bunting clinging to the Phragmites amongst the tangle.

A lady walking her dog came up to me as I stared into the leaves of a willow tree, watching what I thought might be a willow warbler, and asked me whether I knew why they weren’t cutting back the nettles on the path further along. We got talking, as is the way of things, and Sue invited me back to her house for coffee. I was grateful to accept, and once I had got my shoes off and (literally) wrung the water out of my socks, we sat at her kitchen table and talked of shoes and ships and sealingwax and cabbages and kings, for a very long time. The whole interlude was absolutely delightful and we felt that we had not scratched the surface of all the interesting conversations we might have had. I am sure we will meet again. Thank you Sue, for being so welcoming and kind.

Pershore, like all the little towns and villages I have walked through, had got its bunting out. Refreshed by my wonderful visit to Sue and her hospitality, I felt rather the same.

I stopped briefly to pick up some food in Asda, and then headed off through the recreation ground back down to the river. Here in this relative metropolis people were enjoying the river on this sunny Sunday. Stand-up paddle boarding is the conveyance of choice.

It did not take me long to get to the village of Wyre Piddle, where one side of the street was filled with pleasant but essentially uninspiring modern houses, and the other was one beautiful black and white building after another.

On beyond the village some erstwhile gravel pits had been turned into a watersports centre and mobile home park, beautifully tended with ponds and lakes stocked for fishing.

The largest of these had a terrific vista out towards Bredon Hill, the view uninterrupted by mobile home roofs intentionally designed to sit low in the landscape.

There was an enormous resident population of Canada geese. The goose poo, my dear, I just can’t tell you. But the grass was also studded with tiny alpine versions of medic, wild thyme, and a minute cranesbill.

I had almost forgotten I was nearing Evesham. But the next field reminded me inescapably of the fact…

The rain had turned all the grasses by the sides of the paths into wet hay, and the wonderful smell travelled with me all day, redolent of childhood summers; in fact all the scents were enhanced by rain and the humidity. As I came into Fladbury, I was delighted that some generous gardener had planted pink jasmine, honeysuckle and Philadelphus to droop over the wall and create an olfactory treat for passers-by.

After this promising beginning, Fladbury disappointed. It was hard to see that there was another alternative for finding lunch in the village on a Sunday, so I contented myself with corned beef and chutney rolls. They sat heavy in my stomach as I set off on what turned out to be the most difficult part of the route of all.

I needed to come off the Shakespeare way here. I say Shakespeare Way, but over the whole day I saw a grand total of two signposts for the walk. One was so faded as to be almost unrecognisable. There are no campsites in Evesham, so to go to the nearest one I needed to take a detour. I was to discover that to leave the named path and strike out on a route of one’s own devising is to immerse oneself not only in a timeloop game of Hunt the Footpath, but also in some nightmarish parody of I’m a Celebrity.

It started with the fairway of a golf course. Was it a fairway? It certainly was very fair, with a rolling view across immaculate turf down to the river.

But golfists, I have observed, despise walkers. In many ways this is understandable, since they are engaged in launching projectiles into the air and do not want to risk a lawsuit. On the other hand, a right of way is a right of way, and surely it is in everyone’s interest to allow the walkers, once on the course, to cross quickly and easily and make a swift exit. I had to ask a player where the footpath led out onto the A-road, and even he was initially baffled, although found it for me in the end.

Having battled my way out onto the road, I had to walk along it for quite some way being honked at by a succession of waggish men in cars with comedy horn tunes. Once on the road, as with the golf course, it was difficult to identify the path leading off it. I managed only because I could use geolocation to precisely pinpoint on the map where I was in relation to the supposed gap in the hedge.

Battling through a field up to my waist with June growth, I struggled to find the path into a little wood, clearly shown on the map. A barbed wire fence ran its full length. I tracked back and forth trying to find a way through, and eventually settled on the least worst option, running parallel to the road behind the scrappy, overgrown hedge. A road gate led back out onto the A-road and with hindsight I should just have scaled it, ignoring the unfriendly notice stating that the gate with the road beyond was not a public right-of-way, and simply slogged the kilometres, risking the traffic. The gate obviously gave access to the little fenced-off wood in the middle of which I could see one of those scary caravans which is lived in by potentially violent misanthropes.

Also with hindsight, I should have recognised the horsefly bite as an omen. But I didn’t. I waded into the wet and overgrown meadow on the other side of the wood, seeing that I could make my way down to the lower set of fields which run alongside the river, through which there was a dead straight path clearly marked on the map.

Then ensued a solid hour and a half to traverse a couple of kilometres. Acres and acres of these meadows with no visible path, just overgrown grasses, and wildflowers laden with yesterday’s rain. It was exhausting. Right of way there clearly was because at each field boundary there was a stile or a gate, but I could not tell you when the last time any of them had been used.

It was desperately hot and I was just a soup of sweat, mindlessly struggling on with the jungle warfare. One single bright point was the sight of another hare, very close to me, who loped easily into a thicket at my approach.

I decided to cut my losses and make for the road again, but was stymied by another gate: a tall, spiked metal affair. The footpath on the map leading through a little water treatment plant was non existent on the ground; a promising mown section led me round the river side, only to bend sharply down to the river itself, which was no use to me. It got hotter and hotter and more and more humid and I was making no headway at all.

Back up to the field again, then, where there was nothing for it but to take my pack off, hydrate, cram some food into my mouth in an effort to do something about the dizziness and the shaking, change into my waterproof and long trousers, and simply forge through the long section of osier beds, overgrown with nettles.

Sue, I can never thank you enough for pressing me to eat the second chocolate digestive ‘for later’. It is not an exaggeration to say that it might have saved my life!

One final gate to negotiate, chained shut. I hoisted my pack over it first, then clambered over myself. Never has a road walk been so appreciated. I stopped at the first house I passed to beg some water, and kind Vikki invited me in to sit on her sofa and chat while I drank a huge, cool glassful. You are a kind human being, Vikki.

On with my wet socks and shoes again, but I was so close to the campsite now, and felt refreshed enough and newly determined. From Vikki’s it was only a couple of kilometres to Bredon-Vale campsite, an eco-friendly, family-run site where Jacqui and Jim are living their dream. The place is restful and welcoming and indescribably beautiful, and was only enhanced by the ordeal I had come through.

It was the matter of a few moments to dry out my ground sheet and fly sheet, and lay out my sleeping bag and mat to air in the hot sun and scirocco breeze. I had the most wonderful shower. And I simply sat, now completely drained. I ate the hummus and guacamole I had bought in Asda six hours earlier, and slowly gathered my strength.

But the day had not finished with me yet. Yesterday I had managed to pitch about half an hour before the rain began. I was more than lucky that today too the colossal thunderstorm and torrential downpours did not begin until I was safely in camp and set up. I have never been in a tent in a thunderstorm before. It was a pretty elemental experience!