Most commented posts
- Day 2 – Gone with the Wind — 7 comments
- Day 15 – Blenheim — 6 comments
- Day 6 – Rollright Stones — 5 comments
- Day 23 – Walking with the End in Sight — 5 comments
- Day 3: Brockenhurst to Lyndhurst — 4 comments
Author's posts
Sep 09
The Day After
From Our Weaknesses… Sometimes, it’s not a whole poem that gets me – a mere line can be enough. I was reading “She Teaches Lear” by Iain Crichton Smith. It’s not a poem that touches me particularly, but then the third line of the last verse smacked me right in the guts: “From our weaknesses …
Sep 08
Day 14: Northwick to Stoke Gifford
Vets In 2017 I met a veteran in Bulawayo who was more or less destitute. He was living on a meal a day yet had served the UK and Empire all his military career. And he was dying of prostate cancer, and he couldn’t afford treatment. The services charities were more or less skint. So …
Sep 07
Day 13: Shepperdine to Northwick
A watery few days in beautiful scenery. Some of those who have hosted or walked with us (and they will, of course, remain anonymous) have related tragic stories of the conduct of their children or in-laws behaving cruelly towards them. Our friends are elderly and vulnerable and, in the main, widows. In two cases, the …
Sep 06
Day 12: Sharpness to Shepperdine
A friend tells me he is about to tell me a funny story. I want to tell him, “Just tell me the story…I ‘ll tell you if I find it funny or not,” but I haven’t the heart to do so. Victimhood Politicians of all stripes treat the electorate as babies. Social security benefits are …
Sep 05
Day 11: Fretherne to Sharpness
Boris Johnson’s book about his premiership is published in October. Whatever he writes in his own defence, one thing is clear: he clearly didn’t have the self-awareness to be alert to his own failings. He should have known he was incapable of staff control. If he had been aware, he would have authorised a tough cabinet …
Sep 04
Day 10:Upper Framilode to Fretherne
Last Meal We have been hosted by wonderfully kind and generous hosts, and we have enjoyed excellent, wide-ranging debates on, you name it, we have discussed it. Last evening, we chose what we would select as our last meal before we were to be shot! Here’s mine. First, a well-made Bloody Mary. It’s a sad …
Sep 03
Day 9: Weir Green to Upper Framilode
Fortunately in the UK On July 4, something remarkable happened that we in the UK take for granted: power changed hands from one party to another. No one died, no one even argued about the process, and control changed peacefully…it just happened. What astonishes me is that at least one-third of the country just shrugged …
Sep 02
Day 8: Sandhurst to Weir Green
Today’s walk was the worst by far: a boring landscape, overgrown paths, and we often walked beside the river that stank like a monkey’s latrine. The management of those responsible for this disaster should be made to pay for the damage they have done and the disposal of the sewage they have poured in the …
Sep 01
Day 7: Tewkesbury to Sandhurst
We are standing on the shoulders of giants. Requiem for an Admiral We passed a memorial to Admiral Hopwood. No one has ever heard of him but now you know that he risked his life for his country through all the naval engagements of WW1. He is one of the twelve million servicemen who ran …
Aug 31
Day 6: Rest Day
A couple of years ago and on a walk I banged on about the hordes of miserable looking couples who sit in total silence simply staring at the floor. Most are vast in bulk and potential incubators of diabetes, heart conditions, cancers and worse. Some are smoking and look as fit as a diesel dumper …