You Are Not Alone.

Day 9: Balmaha to Drymen.

Distance: 7.6 miles (156.4 total).

Duration: 4 hrs 28 mins.

Lowest Temp: 0ºc.

Weather: A Hosepipe Ban Is Only A Matter of Time.

Highest Alt: 1093 ft

The day began with Dad announcing that he’d had a good idea. Instead of starting walking at 9am, we could start at 10.45am (I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s all to do with buses). I thought that was a bad idea. “No, that’s a bad idea,” I said, “we’re starting at nine”. Breakfast was a quiet affair and slightly tense.

The walk began with a thousand foot climb out of Balmaha, up Conic Hill. We walk hills differently. Dad likes to stoat along for thirty or forty yards, before stopping to blow his nose, fiddle with his hat, adjust his gloves, and get his breath back. I prefer to go more slowly, but just to keep going with fewer breaks. So we weren’t together for much of the first part of our walk together.

Since this pilgrimage began, I’ve spent a little under 51 hours walking on my own. Having to cope with the reality of another person, a person who might want to do things differently from me, came as a bit of a shock to the system. It was also a shock that my system probably needed.

The long-suffering Susie has been following my growing interest in the Celtic Saints, and their forebears in the deserts of Egypt with growing suspicion and concern. I think that she has rightly divined that the idea of going off into the back of beyond to be entirely on your own has a great appeal to me; I’m one of the few people who finds my own company perfectly congenial. Being on my own isn’t hard for me. What’s more, when I’m on my own I can be quite a nice person; I rarely argue or fall out with myself. Left on my own I reckon I could have a fair crack at being a Saint.

If the first part of my pilgrimage has been about learning more about myself, and hopefully growing a little, this second part of the pilgrimage is going to be about learning to be a better self in relation to others, and growing a lot. (A hundred and fifty or so miles with The Archdeacon – I’m going to have to grow a lot!).

Lastly, although previous attempts to get ‘interactive’ with this blog have received a lukewarm response, we’re going to have one last go. On Saturday I get my first rest day, I’m going to be spending it with The Long Suffering, and I’m going to have better things to do with my time than post my nonsense on here. So this weekend, instead of me telling you about my walk, I’d like you to tell me about your walk. Make time to go for a walk. It doesn’t matter if it’s ten miles or ten minutes, the only rule is, you have to go walking just for the sake of walking – a trip to the paper shop doesn’t count. On Saturday morning I’ll simply post, ‘Tell Me About Your Journey’, and I’d like you to comment on a walk you’ve made just for the sake of walking – let’s see if we can’t top our current best of five comments.

Go for a walk.

Go on.

And then tell me about it.