The Cotswold Way - Day 9 - Old Sodbury to Pennsylvania

This old tree makes for great shelter in Doddington Park.

There are amber weather warnings issued for the day that I am due to walk Day 9 of my route but the plan is for completion on the last Friday/Saturday of my sabbatical, so there's no wriggle room.  My game of chicken with the weather is well and truly lost and I must carry on regardless.  My sister, under no such constraint bails out of walking with me but I don't blame her, and actually, it turns out for the best.

The original plan was to walk to Cold Ashton but the B&B is booked up and so I will be finishing a little earlier in Pennsylvania.  It makes for a short walk.   I could now complain about the conditions and research the rainfall but if you're living in Britain in 2012 you know what sort of a summer we're having.  Suffice to say that it was wetter under foot here on Leg 9 than when I was walking back in April.  I finished soaked through. 

A couple of shots taken in light drizzle rather than steady rain.  Both in Doddington Park.

 

The church building in Tormorton was a good place to repack my bag and eat an energy bar, say a prayer and resolve to move on and keep walking.  They had a lovely carpet and I already have wet muddy boots so no chance to explore.   

This is the last shot I took today, note the car headlights, windscreen wipers on, plenty of spray and gloom.  All at lunchtime in July.

There is, however, a definate highlight that will stick with me long into the future.  Shortly after walking over the bridge crossing the M4 motorway and walking the width of a field from it's traffic, I look up from the path to see a deer standing watching me not more than 25 or 30 yards away.  We meet each others gaze for a few moments before he bounds off ahead of me and then crosses my path and takes off towards the motorway.  It is a magical moment.  I have no prove of this encounter, my camera deep in my dry rucksack but it was a magnificent sight.

The B&B is reached quite early in the day as the weather encouraged just putting your head down and stepping up the pace.  There was no-one to talk to all day except a woman cutting the grass outside Dryham Park, and in that wonderfully English way of ours we joke about the weather and move on.  I finally give in to the iPod for the first time on my walk and remember a "Rain" playlist that I'd put together for a recent family barbeque.  It does the trick and raises my spirirts.   

There is no pub in Pennsylvania anymore.  There is no pub in Cold Ashton anymore either.  But there is a wonderful woman in Cold Ashton called Sarah who does meals for walkers in the evening if they pre-book.  When I get there I discover that I am the only one to have prebooked and so I feel like royalty as I dine on wonderful garlic mushrooms and chicken curry, all washed down with selections of Bath Ales afterwards.  It really is a terrific meal and she's a great host.  All this and photography magazines to read as well.  I feel very local signing her visitors book amongst the Norwegians, Dutch and Americans - sometimes it feels like the rest of the world are more interested than the Brits in the Cotswold Way.

I feel ready for the last day of the walk tomorrow, where I am to be walking with Andy again and we'll be meeting our wives in Bath for a meal to celebrate.

The B&B that I almost stay in, is an oddity.  Very friendly people but I am a little troubled that virtually the first thing I notice is the UKIP tea-towel, something I've never seen anywhere before (I do lead a very sheltered life).  My discomfort is heightened further when I check out and ask them to order me a taxi, which they do in super quick time, but they tell me they have ordered me an English driver rather than all the Poles that are working round here at the moment.  It's odd - to say the very least - to be saying such things when your business relies on entertaining so many walkers from overseas. 

I've had to check out though because I've had a phone call.  My Dad has suddenly been taken ill and I am in that taxi to get to his hospital bedside late at night.  For a few days it all looks touch and go but mercifully he seems on the road to recovery now four weeks later; out of hospital and just beginning to get out and about.  This is why I've not blogged a lot or updated my Cotswold Way progress.  It's also why I have yet to complete the walk.  In the last month we've had some glorious weather and sometime soon I will complete the leg from Pennsylvania to Bath.  But in the meantime some things are a lot more important.   

On my last legs

And in a couple of days time I probably will be because tomorrow I start the final two days of my Cotswold Way walk.  I walk from Old Sodbury to Pennsylvania tomorrow and then on into Bath on Saturday.  My walking companion has dropped out for tomorrow and I wouldn't blame them if my finalist decided against it for Saturday either. 

Why?  Well, the BBC weather forecasts on TV tonight (both local and national) show a great deal of rain due in the next 48 hours, with some areas (north of here) due to get a month's worth of rain in a morning.  The forecast is for a lot of heavy rain in the region I am walking.

Until you check the Met Office report online as I did less than an hour later.  It forecasts cloud all day.  And the BBC website shows rain at around 2pm but for it to be cloudy and nothing worse for the rest of the day.  As a precaution I have decided not to pack sun cream but I will pack a raincoat, just in case.   Saturday, on the other hand, is a different story.  All four reports are currently for heavy rain from early afternoon onwards. 

I am resolved to continue, as these are my last two walking days before the end of sabbatical.  My three month wait for better weather is over, I've run out of options.  I may be gone for some time...

The Cotswold Way - Day 8 - Wotton under Edge to Old Sodbury

Today's adventure starts early in the hope that I can get back in time for the glamour tie of Holland v Germany in the Euros and so I catch a bus from Chipping Sodbury (where I have parked) to the start point of Wotton under Edge.  The bus goes all round the houses to get there but it gives me the chance to survey the general landscape and it's pretty apparent that it's a lot flatter than I am used to on the Cotswold Way so far.  It's isn't the sort of thing that I would normally pay much attention to but here on the walk this sort of thing takes on a greater significance!  The bus terminates yards from where I need to start walking and, after a brief detour to see the almshouses that were locked for the night when I finished here last time, I am on my way. 

The route through Wotton is easy enough and pretty clearly marked.  In fact they have bright blue signs which boldly and proudly proclaim the route and it's the best signage I've come across so far.  Through the church yard at Wotton and then along a path beside a stream and it makes for a very gentle start to the day before heading steeply uphill though a narrow path lined with tall stinging nettles.  Time to retreat and zip the bottom half of my trousers on. 

This hill, which becomes less severe once I hit the road, is the worst of it today and while it's hard work, it's also the start of a stage, which makes a difference.  It's here that I meet a great Canadian couple who have started from Wotton and are aiming to get to Little Sodbury.  Ken and Karen are walking the section from Painswick to Bath and are even newer to this walking game than I am.  I have to smile at Karen's distress at having to walk through mud and her glee at finding a puddle to wash her boots off a little.  With about ten miles still to walk it seems a little early to worry about such things.  I walk with them a little of the way and then they head off as I stop to take yet more photographs.  The views at the top are excellent and the sun is out and I've taken off a layer and just wearing two tee-shirts, which is how it stays for the rest of the day. 

Further proof of their inexperience follows as they miss a sign about a hundred yards from where I am taking pictures and they end up walking down a hill that they then have to walk back up again.  I manage to wave them back to where they need to be and they are following me at a distance.  They are probably the only two walkers I have encountered who walk more slowly than me (though I do feel that I am quicker than when I started this) and so I fgure I won't be seeing them again. 

There is a long, steep descent through woodland after this, which makes me glad that I am walking south rather than north but it is still very beautiful.  Then over open fields and looking back there is a great view of Wortley Hill and even more impressively, given the summer we have had, glorious blue sky. 

By the time I reach Hawkesbury Upton I am ready for a brief detour to the local hostelry having eaten my sandwiches up near the Somerset Memorial.  The Beaufort Arms serves a good pint and I end up on a table next to an Australian couple who are, rather heroically, doing the whole of the Cotswold Way in seven days.  They leave and their table is taken by Ken and Karen who have loved their walk but are calling it a day.  And why not?  It's all about enjoying the journey.  They are happy to enjoy a couple of drinks and enthuse about the walk and give themselves extra time before they walk again tomorrow.  Or they won't, depending on how they feel.

On hearing their story, I am surprised to find that they booked the walking holiday on a whim, just two weeks ago to the day.  They hadn't done any training for it and they aren't walkers.  She is 58 and he is 72 and they play some golf so figured, how hard can it be?  So they booked plane tickets and joined up with a company that arranges bag transfer along the route and stepped out.  Respect is due.  No wonder I walk a bit faster than them. 

After a couple of pints I know that if I don't get up and walk soon I won't feel like starting again so I wish them well and retrace my steps to where I left the trail.  The walking is very easy at this point and it is the terrain rather than the effects of the very good Spa ale, though beer tastes so much better if you have walked nearly eight miles to get to the pub.  There are poppies poking through, a sight that I always love. 

Past Horton Court and the lovely views from there and I am very soon in Little Sodbury.  It's here that I visit my second church because this is where William Tyndale attended church (although the building was elsewhere in the village then) and decided that he was going to translate the Bible into English.  I wonder if it was because the priest was doing such a good job or a bad one of preaching the Bible?

I promise that I won't go off on another one about Tynedale.  The church is quite pretty and there is a great sentiment on the lectern in the pulpit.  Tynedale is remembered with some strained glass, a little booklet, his figure is carved into the pulpit, there's a page of his translation framed on the wall and there's a great big sign about him outside too.  All well and good.     

However.  Bizarrely, and I promise that I didn't know this when I wrote up day 7, they appear to use the Tynedale translation (with original spellings) in their worship still today, nearly 500 years later.  Why?  I'll leave it at that.  New readers are referred to my previous rant / post about Day 7

A short sharp climb follows, up to Sodbury Camp, which is the site of an old Iron Age fort, covering 10 acres.  High on the hill it is the perfect vantage point for spotting potential enemies as they approached on the A46.  From there it's an easy walk down into Old Sodbury.  There's a moment or two of confusion as I try and follow the instruction about what to do when I reach the tall sycamore, all the time not having a clue what a sycamore looks like.  Just as I am in danger of missing the path by no more than 50 yards, a woman tending to her horses puts me right and I am soon at the point in Old Sodbury where the route crosses the main road.  

Here I must leave the Cotswold Way to turn right and walk another couple of miles into Chipping Sodbury.  I note that the bus into Chipping Sodbury is on this junction and more by accident than design I see that the last bus is due in two minutes.  I wait fifteen before giving up.  It races past three minutes later.  Nevermind.  The terrain is flat and it's still dry.  It doesn't take too long to walk and I manage to get home in time to watch the whole of the Germany v Holland game.  I can now look forward to two more days walking before I reach my goal, Bath Abbey.  They are walks of 9 miles and 10 miles and I plan to do them consecutively in early July.  Can't wait!