All rather uncertain…

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Go to the Limits of your Longing’, trans. Joanna Macy

My last two walks have taken me from home walking first east to Cambridge and then west to the sea at Aberdovey. For a while I have been thinking about walking south down to Bristol, and seeing as I have tickets for a concert there next week, and seeing that there just might be a break in the rain and hail that has been a seemingly-incessant meteorological feature of the last six months, I had planned a 6.5-day route that takes me 108km wiggling down to the River Severn at Gloucester, and then follows the river to the great Prince of Wales crossing at Severn Beach, before turning in to head for the city of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

I haven’t walked what I would call ‘properly’ since eating my well-earned ice cream with my feet in Cardigan Bay last September, and it seems to have been a long, cold, dark winter during which I felt my muscles start to waste and my horizons close in. I have been champing at the bit since February, in fact, since by this time last year I had walked both the River Teifi and from Weybridge to Salisbury… a whole month of walking! 2024 so far has been the Year of the Long Hibernation. But over the last two weeks spring seems really to have gotten going, hedgerows greening and thickening up, the early spring flowers providing nectar for the bees, buds cracking open at the end of every twig to show a cluster of crumpled leaves unfurling in the early morning light that gets stronger and sweeter each day.

I had got so far as to have the route locked down all my accommodation booked and my Compeed bought in bulk (although, dear reader, I am hopefully confident that blisters are a thing of the past, having had replacements made for the expensive custom footbeds that had been built a whole size too small and had caused my feet such martyrdom last year).

But there are other commitments besides those to oneself. Family illness has thrown the walk in doubt. Having cancelled my accommodation, and decided against the walk, it now looks as though I might manage at least the first few days where I will be close enough to home to stay here or make it back if I am needed.

At present the plan is to start, and see what happens.

All rather uncertain.