Blistering and Bailing

Side by side we lie, the river and I
[…]
Lying here is just a tired man, like you

‘A Tired Man’ Attila József

What a day. Blisteringly hot and blisters on my feet. Pushing up the hill to the shop last night really put pressure on my heel blisters which were just about coping… and when I got to the shop there wasn’t much choice of food that didn’t need cooking. So I was limited in my supper last night, which should provide energy for this morning, and also in my breakfast.

I noticed immediately that I had failing reserves of energy. And also that I was walking gingerly and not striding out, because of the blisters. Never mind, I thought… it’s an easy, flat path.

It was a canal-style reprise of the worst of the Avon days! I struggled on for a while but Alan, carefully painting his narrow boat, warned me that the path was just a bad if not worse, for the next couple of hours’ walking. Forewarned is forearmed: I changed out of my shorts and into long trousers.

I still ended up with scratched arms but at least I could push through the meadowsweet and water parsnip. At times the path had collapsed into the water and collapsed vegetation hid holes in the path. I tried to strike a balance between speed and safety, as I turned my ankle a couple of times. There were sections where I could balance on the bank wall.

Let me get the nature notes out of the way. There was an orchid. The first one I have seen since the Bromyard downs a week ago.

There was a swan. Both this one and two baby coots came up to the bank when they saw me, obviously quite used to being fed treats by canal folk.

And that’s it for nature. Today was more about the people — because I really needed them.

It was a total headgame just to get down to Braunston, the junction where the Oxford Canal splits off.

I would not have got there but for Kenny and Janet. By the time I got to them I was struggling. Janet gave me a glass of iced water and they both really talked me though the wobbly patch. I was — am — so grateful to these kind, understanding people for their care and empathy. They advised me to walk past the pub I was hoping to get lunch at, and stop off at the Gongoozler… a café based in a narrow boat further down the GUC. ‘You’ll be there within the hour!’ was their parting encouragement. Music to my ears.

The path got better after this — it was grassy and had been strimmed recently so that the clippings had turned to hay, soft and silky underfoot. I started to be able to appreciate the scenery and the little details of canal life.

And yes within the hour I had arrived at the junction. A double bridge leads over both canals,

Giving a view back the way I had come from the top.

Ducklings peeled off to Oxford while I stuck to the GUC.

I disdained the pub (‘too expensive!’ said Janet) for the atmospheric and cheering Gongoozler. Gonzoogling is watching narrow boats go by — the perfect name for the perfect café. I have no idea how they managed to produce dish after dish from a narrowboat kitchen, but I sat in the shade on the bank, listened to an old chap on the next bench strumming on his guitar, drank my hot chocolate and my tall glass of water, and ate my fat doorstep tuna sandwich.

I was pretty sure, I was going to have to finish quite soon. It was going to be a 27 km day, and there was absolutely no way that I was going to be able to do that in this heat with my energy levels, seeing how hard it is to find water en route, with the quality of the path, and most, especially with my blisters.

I got talking with Clive and James. I asked about walking through a long tunnel that was coming up ahead, not possible: there is a path that goes over the top, tracking the air shafts from the tunnel, but this has been diverted because of the enormous building work for a new housing estate, and the rerouted path is not signposted. They offered me a lift to the other side of the tunnel, and I jumped at the chance.

We sat together at a table in the shade while they finished their lunch, and we generally put the world to rights.

So, two more people without whom I wouldn’t have got through to the end of the day. Clive and James, you are total gents. We piled into Clive’s banana car, practically held together with Sellotape, and already full of stuff, even before two more people, and the most enormous rucksack in the world, and two precious walking poles were crammed in.

They dropped me off at James’ boat.

I was relieved to see that the path now swapped over to the other side, where I would be walking in the shade down to the next pub, from where I would call a taxi to take me to my campsite.

I spent a relaxing and sociable afternoon, talking to Brenda, living on site while her husband drives heavy machinery on the housing estate project, and been treated to a cup of coffee and some ginger snaps by Lee, and a long, happy chat with Helen sitting on an actual honest-to-goodness luxurious camping chair, while their spaniels exercised off their long car journey by tying themselves in knots with their leads around the legs of the camping table.

Bless all you lovely people today.