Chewing gum with Taylor Swift

still standing

Day 23: Taynuilt to Oban

Distance: 13 miles (452.3 total)

Time: 4 hours 36 mins

Tomorrow: the ferry to Mull.

Fear of embarrassment would normally dissuade me from sharing what follows, but given that the most popular post on this blog is the one where I confessed to having walked past The Giant's Causeway it's probably a bit late in the day for me to start worrying about embarrassment. In a sense today's gentle walk felt like the end of the main body of the pilgrimage; tomorrow I take the ferry to Mull and on Monday night I start my walk to Fionnphort and the ferry to Iona. After three quite difficult days and some challenging weather, today's leg could not have been easier. As I walked I was very conscious that the final part of this pilgrimage would bring challenges I'd never faced before. I've walked thirty-seven miles and more, but I've never walked through the night. I'm trying to figure out how to re-jig my body clock over the next forty-eight hours to minimise the shock to the system, and also to ensure that I don't spend most of my limited time on Iona in a sleep-deprived stupor.

Which brings me to the image that popped into my head and for which I will no doubt rightly be ridiculed! You know that bit before a big rugby or football match, where they show the players getting off the team bus and walking to the changing room? They're all silent, plugged into their ear buds, chewing gum, barely acknowledging the eager crowds or even each other... well, that's how it felt today. All the preparations that could be made, have been made. I'm as fit as I can be. Today I was just chewing my Wrigley's Spearmint Gum in time to a bit of Taylor Swift as I disappeared down the tunnel to the changing room; you're probably thinking that I'm at risk of disappearing up something at the moment. Trust me, however much you're squirming as you read this, I'm squirming even more as I write it! It's just how it felt.

Sometimes when I ask my boys how their day has been, they'll reply, 'Mid'. So far as I can tell it means fairly average. Well, today's walking was 'Mid'. The countryside was beautiful enough. I was blessed with the sound of birdsong again and there hasn't been much of that over the past couple of days. The weather was a gentle contest between sunshine and rain, and neither particularly prevailed. At times it became warm enough for me to contemplate shedding a mid-layer, and then the sky would sweep slate-grey and the rain would fall in a hurry; by the time I'd retreated into my hood and was all zipped up, the rain would have moved on to other roads, other walkers. I was back in Oban in time for a bit of lunch at the Hinba coffee shop...  Stuart Owen (@pilgrimscairn) • Instagram photos and videos

Time to shower and change, and find a suitable venue to watch the Calcutta Cup match. Do you think that people will think I'm English?

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Thanksgiving: for the hymns of birdsong.

Many rivers to cross

Wayfinders

Day 22: Lochawe to Taynuilt

Distance: 14.6 miles (439.3 total)

Time: 7 hrs 34 mins

Tomorrow: Taynuilt to Oban (est 12.1 miles)

When I walked the Borders Abbeys Way with Barnaby in 2023, he introduced 'Song of the Day' to this blog. There weren't too many surprises; it was usually something by his beloved Bruce Springsteen. If I had to pick a 'Song of the Day' for today's leg it would have to be Joe Cocker singing 'Many Rivers to Cross' (Joe Cocker - Many Rivers To Cross (LIVE in Dortmund) HD). When I'd set out this morning, I'd anticipated that the first part of the walk would be the tricky bit and the rest would be relatively plain sailing; as is so often the case, I was wrong.

The weather forecast for today wasn't great, with gusts of around 50mph predicted and a day full of rain. Yesterday I gave thanks for the fact that it had been either been windy or rainy, but rarely both at the same time. Today it was both at the same time, most of the time; there was a bit of variety mid-afternoon when it was windy and sleety. 

The first four and a half miles were a slow but steady climb along track, away from Lochawe, followed by a steeper climb off the track and up to a ridge looking down on Glen Noe; the name should have been a clue. Those first five miles took about two and a half hours. In the next two and a half hours I managed just three miles. A lot of rain had fallen and was falling. A lot of snow had melted. A map of the Glen shows it laced and interlaced throughout with pencil-thin blue lines feeding into the River Noe. Today every one of those pencil-thin lines of blue was running fast, high and fierce-white. The track of my journey along the Glen looks like the meanderings of someone who'd had far too much to drink trying to find a kebab shop on their way home; repeatedly I had to double-back or climb higher up the hillsides in my search for safe places to cross.

Eventually I came to a fast-running stream which left me with no options. There was a deer fence just thirty metres or so further up the hillside, so I couldn't climb to a point where the stream was narrower. For a moment I had that feeling of not knowing how to go forwards, not wanting to go back, and knowing that I couldn't just stay where I was. Looking for the narrowest, shallowest-looking point that I could find, I plunged my walking poles into the dark water and followed them across; I could feel the stream pulling the poles away from me and it was tricky going. There were three or four further such adventures. I've missed Barnaby very much at times, but I was so glad that he wasn't with me today. Mind you, he'd probably have just pushed me in face-down and used me as a human bridge!

Face-down was about the only position I didn't find myself in on this leg. A remarkable amount of today's travelling was done on my backside as my legs slid away from under me. At other points I was down on all fours just trying to resist the howling wind; I'm not exactly the most aerodynamic shape at the best of times, and definitely not when I've got my rucksack on. Towards the end of the trudge along Glen Noe I was standing surveying yet another section of river, looking for the safest place to cross. I was so pleased when I spotted one, and not too far off my course, that I shouted out, 'Thank you God!' At that exact moment the mud under my left foot collapsed away and I went tumbling down hard onto my side. It's a hard day when you feel that even The Almighty is taking the mickey out of you.

At the bottom of the Glen was a farm and paved road from there to Taynuilt. In Taynuilt I got the train to Oban and I've got the luxury of two nights in the same bedroom; something that hasn't happened since I was in Letterkenny, right at the start of this journey.

The most heartening bit of a hard day was when I came to the end of the paved track which I needed to leave to climb over to Glen Noe. I'm no great climber or navigator and I wasn't sure how I'd get on, finding my way over the top in the right place in these heavy winds and hard rains. Then I turned a corner and saw tall, dark, wooden wayfinders guiding my way to the summit! There's something very heartening about those guides. They remind me that you don't have to know how your entire journey will unfold, you just need to know enough to enable you to take the next steps.

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Thanksgiving: the people who erect and maintain wayfinders. The people in our lives who have been and are our wayfinders.

All Together Now: when I made my pilgrimage in 2010 I invited readers of 'A Pilgrim's Cairn' to join in the pilgrimage by making a walk of their own and sharing on the blog how it had gone (A Pilgrim's Cairn: How Was Your Walk?). I'd like to try the same again this time around. Next weekend I've got another of my non-walking ferry days. I'd love it if you'd join me on this journey by making a walk of your own that weekend. It doesn't matter if it's one mile or forty, just walk. If you'd then write in using the comments section at the bottom of each post, just saying something about where you walked, why you chose that walk and any reflections you have on it, I'd be SO grateful.

The Good Pilgrim

Day 21: The Drover's Inn to Lochawe

Distance: 17.8 miles (424.7 total)

Time: 8 hrs and 2 mins

Tomorrow: Loch Awe to Taynuilt (est 13.3 miles)

Let's begin with a big thank you to all those people who have sent so many messages of support and encouragement over the past few days. I've truly been overwhelmed by the number of positive messages I've been receiving. Yep, Barnaby taking over the Pilgrim's Cairn certainly appears to have been hugely popular with most of you.

And rightly so. The pattern over the past couple of nights has been for me to get sent away for a shower, shortly after we've eaten supper. While I've been abluting, Barnaby has been dictating his post to Neil. On my return I get to read the blog, and both times I've been so impressed. Barnaby's descriptions of the journey have been vivid and true. I feel like I write in a kind of monochrome: either I need to share that something hurts, or that some bit of the landscape was 'lovely'. Barnaby writes in colour!

Having Neil and Barnaby here for the past couple of days has been, well, lovely. Just not eating every meal on my own has been a most welcome transformation! Barnaby has been a fantastic companion as we walk, and he's really maturing as a walker. Terrains which in the past would have daunted him and led him to complain about a sore tummy/leg/head/foot, he has entirely taken in his stride. Indeed, he's been keeping me going at times when I've been flagging! It's been great too that we've been together with Neil at the beginning and end of each leg. Having someone there at 'the end of the day' makes such a difference. I am so incredibly lucky in my friends. There has been a lot of laughter.

It was beginning to rain quite hard when the three of us left The Drover's last night and scuttled to our rooms. It rained and didn't stop overnight. It rained and didn't stop until mid-afternoon today. Of course, the rain had to turn up on the day when I had some of the most exposed walking across some of the boggiest terrain. Now and then my boys like to play again of 'would you rather'. The conundrum is posed, 'Would you rather be chased by a herd of marauding elephants or a swarm of angry bees?'. The variations on this theme can sometimes seem endless, regrettably. Today I found myself asking, 'Would I rather have a bit of rain every day over the course of a four week pilgrimage, or four weeks' rain in one day on a four week pilgrimage?'

After about a mile from The Drover's I left the road and followed track up into the hills. It rained heavily. About seven miles in the track rather dissolved into boggy, stumbling, puddled hillside. Here and there, there were indications that someone might have driven a Land Rover through, and for a while I'd try to follow those tracks, but repeatedly those traces would disappear and I'd find myself splurging and stuttering forwards. Thankfully, all I had to do was to stick between two hills and find my way down to a forest below. Visibility stayed good, so that wasn't really a problem, and in some miracle of providence it was either pouring down or blowing a gale, but rarely both at the same time. Once I'd reached the trees it was just another couple of miles before I hit forestry roads and then it was various kinds of paved surface all the way to Lochawe. and the rather marvellous Ben Cruachan Inn.

On Monday, walking the West Highland Way from Milngavie to Drymen, I met a guy who was walking the whole route. I asked where he was staying that night and he said that he wasn't sure. I was in awe. I couldn't imagine setting out on that sort of hike at this time of year and not knowing where I'd be laying my head down at day's end. On Tuesday, walking with Barnaby, I saw a young couple walk past us clearly all set up to be camping along the route. I began to feel like a bit of a lightweight. Why couldn't I do the sort of really tough travelling that they were doing?

But we all have our own journeys to make and our own challenges to overcome. I know that there will be people suffering from appalling depression, who overcame far more of a challenge than I did today, just to get themselves out of bed and dressed. There will be people struggling with chronic pain, who achieved far more than I did, just by putting the kettle on and making themselves a cup of tea. We all have our own pilgrimages to make, our own hills to climb and heavy weather to endure. 

The good pilgrim doesn't compare their journey to anyone else's. The good pilgrim knows that in the love of God we're all just making the one journey. The good pilgrim simply tries to do what they can to help others make their way along the road that they have to travel. Just like Barnaby and Neil have done for me over the past few days.

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Thanksgiving: For all the Good Pilgrims who have genuine hearts.

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All Together Now: when I made my pilgrimage in 2010 I invited readers of 'A Pilgrim's Cairn' to join in the pilgrimage by making a walk of their own and sharing on the blog how it had gone (A Pilgrim's Cairn: How Was Your Walk?). I'd like to try the same again this time around. Next weekend I've got another of my non-walking ferry days. I'd love it if you'd join me on this journey by making a walk of your own that weekend. It doesn't matter if it's one mile or forty, just walk. If you'd then write in using the comments section at the bottom of each post, just saying something about where you walked, why you chose that walk and any reflections you have on it, I'd be SO grateful.

Barnaby continues to undulate (Neil talks some sense)

Day 20: Rowardennan to The Drovers Inn

Distance: 15.2 miles (406.5 total)

Time: 8 hrs 25 mines

Tomorrow: The Drovers' Inn to Dalmally (est 17.4 miles)

Barnaby writes:

When Neil dropped us off at Rowardennan, I was raring to go and a little bit nervous as the walk I was about to embark upon was said to be one of the hardest legs of the West Highland Way. As the snow held off, the day began with a catastrophe when my bladder was leaking (not that bladder, my water bottle). Finally underway, we had an undulating path around the Loch, we had already made acquaintance with a little robin that seemed to show its face every time we stopped for a snack and a drink. Our assumption was that it was the spirit of Granny coming to guide us to the infamous Drovers Inn, as we felt she had been watching over us during this walk.

 The majority of the day was filled with some tough-going ground - there were lots of roots and rocky terrain. Just to add to our burden, the path was constantly going up and down…undulating! To top it off, Daddy was whining the whole way about his ‘sore’ shoulders and arthritic knee. It was then that I felt that it would be better if I stepped up and was encouraging instead of being the one constantly saying “How long to go? How long to go?” Maybe I’m growing up!

 After a few hours of this challenging terrain we came face to face with a ‘wee’ family of Scottish mountain goats, including a bairn that can’t have been more than a few months old. Heroically, I stepped up to the plate and shielded Daddy and as we cautiously made our way past the goats (I may have been cowering behind Daddy the whole time!) luckily the kid had run off earlier and weren’t viciously charged down by the feral mountain goats – what a way to go that would have been.  There was one goat with quite the pair of horns that was unfazed by us and seemed to be staring at us and saying ‘are you going past or are you going to carry on hiding behind the rock’.

 After that intense encounter with the goats, the route continued similarly along the banks of Loch Lomond for a couple of hours. Finally reaching the tip of Loch Lomond we were on the home stretch and we were BOTH looking forward to a nice pint of Guinness and possibly some good company with Neil (Neil’s note: who was patiently waiting and had ordered the drinks already) and several bottles of J2O.

 Finally reaching the Drovers Inn we were glad to finally have found somewhere to settle down, eat Halloumi fries with NO SALAD. I’m sad to say that today will be the last day walking with Daddy for this half-term but I’ll keep on thinking of him as I head back to England and we have promised to top up his miles to 500 when it gets back so I can serenade you with the Proclaimers! In the meantime, Neil has come up with the brilliant idea (Neil’s note: that was Barnaby’s words, honest) of singing ‘Bring Me Sunshine’ on our flight back to Luton at full voice! I’m sure you’ll be sad to hear that it will be back to Daddy’s boring blog from tomorrow, farewell followers…

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Neil writes:

This morning began with a recitation of Psalm 96 together and I was very moved by the experience of verse 11 ‘Let the earth exult’ as I drove around the Loch in the opposite direction to Stuart and Barnaby (they headed North and I went South from Rowardennan). I was really struck by the permanence of the rock formations and how they would have been the closest the ancient world could get to a sense of permanence and eternity. Not for nothing was this landscape an inspiration to finding a sense of God’s steadfastness – our Guardian who will not let our foot give way and who neither slumbers nor sleeps. May the Lord guard your going and coming from now and evermore.

Barnaby's undulating ways

Day 19: Drymen to Rowardennan

Distance: 14.9 miles (391.3
total)

Time: 7 hrs 26 mins

Barnaby writes:

After stepping outside the Winnock Hotel, I was filled with a sense of happiness that I was finally able to join Daddy on this phenomenal walk. The day started with a gradual ascent along a road and after about a mile we hooked a left into a lovely forest where the temperature obviously increased. Daddy and I took off our hats as the inescapable Conic Hill loomed over us and the mild February breeze wafted past us. Walking for a while, we emerged into an open wild green Scottish moorland.

As Conic Hill came closer and closer we prepared ourself for the inevitable climb we were about to face. For those of you who don't know, Conic Hill is a steep incline which marks an important point in the West Highland Way. As we climbed, we noticed that snow patches were becoming more and more frequent until it came to the point where we were trudging through neck high snow drifts (joke) - the snow was about 2 inches deep. We had lovely views over Loch Lomond and across the Loch we could see snowy glens and our cameras couldn't do justice to the view - next time you'll have to come with us.

Looking out we could see there was an obvious snow line circling each of the hills that surrounded us. Half-way up Conic Hill, Daddy took off his hat... he immediately regretted it as the closer we got to the summit the icier the air became. For those of you who are new to this blog, let me tell you we have a tradition that whenever I join Daddy on the walk, we have one point in the day when we record 'Bring Me Sunshine'. For every walk we have done, in the sleeting rain and in the glorious sunshine, we have always done this. Today, was no different as we reached the summit of our walk, Daddy joined me in a glorious chorus (if I say so myself) of 'Bring Me Sunshine'. The social media algorithms deleted his singing as it was an insult to Morecambe and Wise.

After a lot of persuading we had a nice lunch in a cafe, just outside of the hotel we are staying in. But we still had six miles to walk across the bonny banks of Loch Lomond before returning here to for a pint of Ossian - the Scottish equivalent of Guinness!

Weirdly the ascents during the last six miles were harder than the 360 metre ascent up the side of Conic Hill. They may not have been 160 ft giants but they were constant undulating paths. I thought they would never end, as at some points in the last five miles we got quite low and that every incline thought the route was levelling out, but no it was just another hill. We checked how far it was to get to our destination and it seemed to endlessly be stuck on 2.5 miles. Every time we checked Daddy would angrily exclaim, "It was 2.5 bleeding miles, 2.5 miles ago."

Finally we reached our destination and filled up on pizza and J20 (and for some people a pint or two of Ossian). Tomorrow we have what is said to be the toughest part of the West Highland Way from Rowardennan to Inverarnan. Wish me luck!

I have to say, a highlight of today was seeing the beautiful views as a prize for the tough climb up Conic Hill. But more than anything, was spending time with Daddy after a long two and half weeks building up to today. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, for my second leg of the journey.

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Thanksgiving: Neil the Driver.

Thin places

My eyes were closed in prayer...

Day 18: Milngavie to Drymen

Distance: 13.1 miles (376.4 total)

Time: 5 hrs 15 mins

Tomorrow: Drymen to Rowardennan (est 14.2 miles)... with Barnaby!!!

Iona is often described as a 'thin place', a place where heaven and earth draw close; a place where we know that angels walk with us. We can also have thin places, or objects, or sounds, or even smells, where the past and present draw close to one another; I touched on this in an earlier post (A Pilgrim's Cairn: Hauntings). I discovered this morning that the West Highland Way is one of my 'thin places'. In truth, I'd had some sense that this might be the case when I posted yesterday's blog. I wanted to find a photo which included all the people I'd walked some or all of the WHW with. Looking at it this morning, the photo of Paul, Dad, Uncle Jimmy and I at the end of the Way, I was conscious of all that each one of them have meant and mean to me and all that has changed in our lives since that photo was taken. There was barely a mile of today's walk which didn't stir some memory, all of them happy, many of them ridiculous, some of them ribald (a big thank you to the Guide Map we used in 2007, which described Ben Goyne as a 'shapely mound'), and moments which were sublime.

After yesterday's machine-like approach to the twenty miles from Greenock to Milngavie, today's was the gentlest of gentle strolls. With only twelve miles or so ahead of me I had a lie-in (nearly half-seven!), pottered about, went out to a nearby cafe for a roll and coffee. It was after eleven when I finally set out; on most days of the pilgrimage I'd already been walking for three hours by that time. There's a kind of obelisk in the centre of Milngavie which marks the official start of the West Highland Way; I've got photos of me standing there with Paul in 2007 and Uncle Jimmy in 2008. I managed to collar three older guys who were leaving the Costa next to it and ask if one of them would take my photo. They asked if I was starting the WHW: I told them all about my walk from Letterkenny and one of them started looking quite pointedly at his watch! Although an occasional snowflake meandered through the air, the weather was mild and the walking was easy. I took my time on the road to Drymen.

I'm delighted to say that Neil and Barnaby will be landing at Glasgow Airport in sixteen minutes and I can't wait to see them both. Last night I had dinner with my Aunty Heather; the first time I'd sat down to eat with another person in three weeks and it was just such a joy.

Thin places. Pilgrimages. 

Journeys can described in lots of different ways, but perhaps principally in terms of whether we think of ourselves mostly as leaving somewhere, or as going somewhere. Somebody leaving a painful place behind will tend to define their journey principally in terms of what or who they're leaving behind. Somebody moving to make some sort of hopeful new beginning or making a pilgrimage, might principally define their journey in terms of where they're going. I'm conscious that my own story of this pilgrimage has changed over the past few recent days. When I was beginning my journey and I was unfit and wearing unyielding new shoes which left many of my toes hidden behind blister plasters, I would tell myself on hard days, 'You're a pilgrim. You're going to Iona.' And that seemed to do the trick. As my destination grows rapidly closer, I've noticed that I'm spending more time revisiting the paths I've walked to get here, the people I've met, the pints I've sunk, the landscapes I've been held by.

How do you define where you are in your various pilgrimages of life at this time? In the pilgrimages of family, of career, of relationships, of aging?

When the present seems uncertain and the future even more so, I think that there can be great value in retracing our steps. Looking back on the journey that brought us to this moment and looking for the 'thin places', the places where we were reminded of all that there is to be thankful for in life; the places where we knew, just knew in our hearts that life was meaningful and good; the places where we knew for a moment that angels walked with us and the love of God enfolded us. 

When we can recognise those 'thin places' in our past, then no matter how difficult life might be in the present, we can walk towards our future with confidence and hope.

All Together Now: when I made my pilgrimage in 2010 I invited readers of 'A Pilgrim's Cairn' to join in the pilgrimage by making a walk of their own and sharing on the blog how it had gone (A Pilgrim's Cairn: How Was Your Walk?). I'd like to try the same again this time around. Next weekend I've got another of my non-walking ferry days. I'd love it if you'd join me on this journey by making a walk of your own that weekend. It doesn't matter if it's one mile or forty, just walk. If you'd then write in using the comments section at the bottom of each post, just saying something about where you walked, why you chose that walk and any reflections you have on it, I'd be SO grateful. Go find your 'thin places'.

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Thanksgiving: that easyJet flight EZY285L has safely landed at Glasgow Airport. I'd better go and brush my hair, I've got friends coming.

Will we make stories too?

Me, Dad, Paul and Uncle Jimmy - 2007

Day 17: Greenock to Milngavie

Distance: 20.1 miles (363.3 total)

Time: 6 hours 34 minutes

Tomorrow: Milngavie to Drymen (est 11.8 miles)

This feels like the beginning of the final chapter. The first chapter took me from St Columba's birthplace at Gartan Lough to Derry, via Stroove Beach where Columba had left Ireland to go into exile. The second chapter was every mile from Derry through to today; there have been no major 'Columban' sites en route, it's just been about covering the ground. This third chapter will take me up along the first part of the West Highland Way to Inverarnan and then across to Oban. From Oban it's the ferry to Mull and then an overnight walk across the island from Craignure to Fionphort and on to Iona. I feel a very ordinary combination of a growing sense of achievement, alongside a sense of impending loss when the journey ends. I'm not good with endings.

This final chapter is beautiful and warm with connections. I like connections.

It's very fitting that this final chapter commences at the start of the West Highland Way, because it was making this walk in 2007 that really inspired me to take up long-distance hiking. That year I walked the WHW with my great friend Paul, who'd introduced me to hiking in the first place. His 'gentle' introduction was the Lyke Wake Walk, forty-two miles across the North Yorkshire Moors, all in one day (Lyke Wake Walk The Offical Website of the Lyke Wake Walk Hambleton Hobble Shepherd's Round North York Moors). I was his meek and obedient Curate at the time and just did whatever I was told.

When we'd walked the WHW in 2007, we'd been joined by my dad and my Uncle Jimmy for the final leg from Kinlochleven to Fort William. The following year Uncle Jimmy wanted to walk the whole thing, so we did. For several years it became an annual event for my uncle and I to do one of Scotland's many long-distance walks during the October half-term.

Over the course of those walks we accumulated a wealth of stories about people we'd met, things we'd seen, times we'd fallen out with each other, and that time we accidentally got quite drunk in The Climbers Bar of the Kingshouse Hotel on Rannoch Moor. Invariably, whenever we all met up as family those stories would be told, and a little boy called Barnaby became fascinated by them. Without ever having been on a hike, he'd become hooked on the idea of hiking. In 2022 we did a small local walk, forty-five miles in three days. The following year we walked The Borders Abbey Way in Scotland. Last year we walked The Paul Taylor Way (c) from Berkhamsted to Redditch. Why does Barnaby like hiking? Here's why: before we did that first walk three years ago he asked me, "Daddy, will we make stories too?"

My most recent walking companion is Rabbi Neil with whom I did a three and a half day sponsored pilgrimage last year. Apart from forgetting to warn him that he needed to bring a packed lunch on the first day, it all went very well; especially the visit to Tring Brewery.

Across some eighteen years and several really precious friendships this final chapter begins with a 'coming together' of so many stories, as my friend Neil brings Barnaby up to Scotland tomorrow to walk a couple of legs of The West Highland Way.

You've probably noticed that I haven't said a great deal about today's walk. It was all good. Look on Google Maps and trace Greenock to Milngavie; there's not a huge amount to say. I was pleased with my time and was really driving myself along a bit. At one point I felt just so totally in tune that I suddenly found myself saying, out loud, "You're a ----ing machine." I realised that perhaps I had drifted a bit from the spirit of St Columba, Patron of this pilgrimage. Men, eh?

All Together Now: when I made my pilgrimage in 2010 I invited readers of 'A Pilgrim's Cairn' to join in the pilgrimage by making a walk of their own and sharing on the blog how it had gone (A Pilgrim's Cairn: How Was Your Walk?). I'd like to try the same again this time around. Next weekend I've got another of my non-walking ferry days. I'd love it if you'd join me on this journey by making a walk of your own that weekend. It doesn't matter if it's one mile or forty, just walk. If you'd then write in using the comments section at the bottom of each post, just saying something about where you walked, why you chose that walk and any reflections you have on it, I'd be SO grateful. Will we make stories too?

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Thanksgiving: Barnaby's mum for getting him organised to come to Scotland to walk with me for two days. (Do you think I should tell him that there are some forecasts of snow?)

Broken chairs

The Old Largs Road

Day 16: Largs to Greenock

Distance: 13.3 miles (343.2 total)

Total Ascent: shall we just pack it in with the whole ascent thing? I'm not exactly in the Highlands and so far as I can tell, the altitude function on my watch is no better than a random number generator, so who knows what the figure is actually worth. Enough.

Time: 5 hrs 10 mins

Tomorrow: Greenock to Milngavie (est  21.1 miles)

Yesterday evening I discovered that the B&B I was staying in was just around the corner from a Benedictine Monastery which is home to a community of Tyburn Sisters; the Tyburn Sisters are devoted to keeping a continual vigil of prayer every minute, of every hour, of every year. With a short day's walking ahead I decided to have a lie-in (well, I managed 7.30) and then go and pray in the Monastery for half an hour before finding somewhere for breakfast. It was an interesting experience. There was already one lady praying quietly when I arrived in the Chapel, so I tried to put my rucksack and walking poles down as quietly as possible before going to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament; I didn't want to disturb her. Having not been in a church since the very start of this pilgrimage, when I went to pray in Letterkenny Cathedral, this felt like a special moment. It felt like a very special moment for two or three minutes, and then the banging started in the entrance hall; I'm not sure exactly how they did it, but the cleaner who'd been there when I arrived was making one hell of a racket with her dustpan and brush. Then there was some quiet and I returned to my prayers, until another chap arrived in the Chapel and started a long and fairly loud conversation with the woman behind me about which chairs in the Chapel were broken and which were safe to sit on. Then there was some quiet and I returned to my prayers, except the man who'd just arrived clearly had a bad cold and snuffled, sneezed and coughed with remarkable vigour. Then there was some quiet and I returned to my prayers, and remained suitably reverent even as the Chapel door opened and closed again and the three of us became four as another man joined in prayer. The newcomer didn't have a cold, however he had clearly had a good breakfast and began to burp, regularly, freely, considerably. I thought about prayer.

You already know me to be a grumpy and fractious type and yes I felt some irritation at the dissolution of my time of peace, perfect peace. My Confessor for twenty years, the late Fr Bill Scott, often used to say to me, "Sometimes we need to not take ourselves too seriously and to see how ridiculous we can be, and just laugh at it." I've always had plenty to laugh about on that count. These noises were the sounds of life, and God didn't come amongst us in Christ to live in sepulchral silence; in Christ, God comes amongst us in a world which has noisy cleaners, and chatty friends fretting over broken chairs, and a world in which people catch colds and break wind. Praise God for that!

God is the God of life, and where there is life there is sound. Even in your moments of deepest meditation, still you breathe in, and you breathe out, and your heart beats in your blood, and those sounds say 'I am'. I've spent large parts of the past three weeks in some quite isolated and remote spots, and none of them have ever been silent: there has been the sound of the wind, of water chuckling down streams and roaring onto the rocks at Tremone Bay, the grass has stirred and rustled, I could hear the rabbits run from me in the fields outside Ballantrae, and so many hymns sung by the birds. The sounds of life. The sounds of God's Creation. The many songs and whispers of the One God. Yes, there is a great value in quiet sometimes, but too often we fetishise it to our own detriment: we'll find silence enough in the grave. Instead of seeking silence, perhaps we would be better off asking ourselves what we can hear of God in the sounds around us, even in the sneezes and indeed burps.

Anyway. Pilgrimages. Walking. Yes. It was rather good to have a shorter day. In addition to prayer at the monastery I was able to treat myself to a coffee and a bacon roll at Scotland's Best Cafe (2016). Instead of keeping one eye on the clock as well as the miles, I was able to meander a bit, take a few photos, and still arrive in Greenock by three, with time for a couple of coffees and a spicy chicken panini (instead of collapsing on a stool in the first bar I come to and barely whispering those magical words, "Guinness please, and two packets of dry roasted nuts.")

Today's leg came in one part and that part is called the Old Largs Road. It wove easily up into the hills and strung me along above glens and past lochs. Apart from a little rain that was barely rain at all for the first half hour or so of the day the weather continued to be brighter and milder than it has any right to be in February. The drop down into Greenock was a bit steeper than my knees would have liked and I'm trying to make sure that I take good care of them; they're definitely the part of this clapped out old sod that could most easily derail this adventure and I do not want that to happen. I'm going to Iona.

In the monastery Chapel my sense of failure and guilt were acute again. And then I remembered the kindness and generosity of my friend Rabbi Neil. It seems an odd combination of thoughts, I know. But I was reminded that life is lived best when it is lived as gift, as grace. My hero, Revd Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy (BBC - The Rev. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy or Woodbine Willie) wrote a poem which ended:

To give and give, and give again,

What God hath given thee;

To spend thyself nor count the cost;

To serve right gloriously

The God who gave all worlds that are,

And all that are to be.

I heard the poem set to music once.

The God Who gave all sound-sodden worlds that are. The God Who speaks in all the musics of Creation.

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Thanksgiving: Musics.

In my garden a fern grew tall

Day 15: Irvine to Largs

Distance: 22.8 miles (329.9 total)

Total ascent: 374ft (21,786 total)

Time: 8 hrs 10 mins

Tomorrow: Largs to Greenock (est 13.4 miles)

At my home in Edmonton I planted a fern in the garden that I loved very much. I'd found it growing in the roof of the parish church when it was still just a tiny curlicue of green. Who knows what breeze blew it up there or what bird dropped it down there, but spores had landed on that roof and found enough light and water to grow. That sort of thing just amazes me endlessly. Whenever I watch a David Attenborough documentary or some other programme about the natural world, I'm always in awe of the capacity of life to persist, to endure: life always finds a way through.

Today's leg did not have best start ever. It's a sad truth that some people have their hearts broken on Valentine's Day; I discovered that my bladder had split. I'd always been slightly suspicious of putting what amounted to a bag full of water in my rucksack and now all my fears found themselves founded. As I left the bed and breakfast I'd been staying in, I'd noticed that a little corner of the rucksack was damp. Within a mile or so the problem had spread and was definitely tending more towards the wet than the damp. Taking the bladder out of the rucksack and giving it a squeeze, I discovered that it had indeed failed the one job it had to do and was leaking.

Things got worse a couple of miles later when I discovered that I'd made my first mistake in the mapping of this walk (missing the Giant's Causeway was not a mapping failure - A Pilgrim's Cairn: nowhere near Giant enough). I came up against an insurmountable obstacle in the shape of the A77 dual carriageway. Thankfully a bit of exploring led me to the National Cycle Route 7 (or 73, it was never entirely clear) which would take me into Ardrossan, from where I could rejoin the Ayrshire Coastal Path all the way here to Largs.

One of the bits of 'growing back to myself' that's been happening on this pilgrimage is rediscovering my capacity to find a way through. There have been all sorts of obstacles along the way, from collapsed roads, irritated farmers, tree trunk strewn footpaths and more, which have been hard at times to get around, over or through, but I've always found a way. Come to think of it, there were all sorts of obstacles before I even got on the plane to Derry, in the shape of leaking hiking boots, injured ankles, insufficient training. Over the past five years or so I think I'd lost faith in my ability to find that way through. Too often I felt lost and couldn't see a way forwards and so didn't dare to take the next step. Too often I began to listen to the voices which told me I wasn't capable of finding a way through even if I tried. And I lost a lot of belief in myself. This is quite hard to write. The boys deserved better than that.

So, without quite as much water as I'd hoped to take with me and in spite of the A77, I had just a great day's walking here to Largs. The oddest part of the day was when I reached a sign on a footpath just north of Portencross which said something like, 'Our armed patrols may be here at any moment.' This isn't what you expect in a farmer's field in Ayrshire. Passing through a kissing-gate I found myself in the canyon of barbed wire, CCTV cameras, concrete and towering white buildings which is the Hunterston Nuclear Power Station; it all felt slightly surreal. I upped my pace a little.

In my garden in Edmonton a fern grew tall.

Because God, life finds a way through, and so does love.

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Thanksgiving: that although we don't always get things right the first time, that's not the only time we have.

Valentine's Pizzas

Day 14: Maybole to Irvine

Distance: 21.1 miles (307.1 total)

Total ascent: 469ft (21,412 total)

Time: 7hrs 48mins

Tomorrow: Irvine to Largs (est 22.3 miles)

Staring at an enormous statue of a mouse in Alloway, I found myself remembering a wedding rehearsal I'd taken when I was at All Saints in Edmonton. As with many of the weddings I took then, both the bride and groom were from Nigerian families. During the rehearsal I noticed that the best man kept nudging the groom and whispering something to him and that the groom just kept shaking his head. Finally the best man broke silence and very gently and very patiently told me that I wasn't pronouncing the groom's name correctly. I was cross with myself for my mispronunciation, but these things can happen sometimes. What I was most upset by was the fact that the groom had not felt that he could correct me. I was the figure of power in all sorts of different ways; mine was the dominant voice and if that's how I was going to pronounce his name then that's just how the world turns.

This remembrance in an Alloway park was stirred because the mouse statue was a celebration of Rabbie Burns' beautiful poem, 'Ode to a Mouse' (Robert Burns Poem -"To a Mouse"). Of course, Burns is celebrated not just for his poetic vision and profound humanity, but because he wrote the words that his people spoke. He took the speech, the thoughts, the lives of his people and turned them into literature. He gave a voice to those whose voices were rarely heard.

What is our true voice? We adopt all sorts of different 'voices' during our lifetimes. Our family background gives us a certain voice in terms of our vocabulary (I'm delighted that scunner, wheesht and eejit are part of my voice!), but it can also instill in us a sense of things that cannot be said, things that mustn't be talked about. At school and college we might 'try on' different voices. I went to the same school as Jamie Oliver and like him we all talked as if we'd been born within earshot of Bow Bells, even though most of us were growing up in comfortable Essex commuter belt villages. In our professional lives and in all sorts of other contexts, we learn ways of speaking and ways of not speaking and thinking. But where in all this do we find our true voice? Which patterns of speech and thought are authentically ours?

Arran on a blue day

Today should have been such a simple and enjoyable day's walking. The first few miles took me downhill along country roads from Maybole to Ayr. When I reached the beach at Ayr all I had to do was hook a right and keep going along coastal paths and beaches until I reached Irvine. Weatherwise it was one of the best days of the pilgrimage so far, and for most of the day my beloved Isle of Arran was never far from sight. It should have been such a lovely day's walking but unfortunately The Noonday Demon (A Pilgrim's Cairn: The Noonday Demon calls me Billy) wasn't willing to wait until noon. Within an hour of setting out, all sorts of angry thoughts started bubbling; anger at myself, anger at others. It all rather took me by surprise. The most insidious voice was the one that whispered, "You know that even if you get to Iona, nothing will have changed." At several points the desire to chuck it in was bafflingly intense: I've done most of the hard bits. I know that change is happening.

For most of the past week I've shared in saying Afternoon Prayer with my friend Paul. We video call and I hold the phone up so that he can see the same view that I can as we pray together. Today, before we turned to our prayers he remarked that this leg must be really easy going after yesterday's twenty-seven miles. I hesitated. There was a great deal of temptation to agree and to point out how lovely and blue the sky was, and how long and empty the beach was. However I decided to tell my friend the truth, that in fact today was being weirdly difficult. After I'd spoken to him in my true voice, things began to feel so much better.

The lowest moment came when my phone pinged while I was walking through Ayr. At once I felt rather uplifted that one of my friends was sending me a message. In fact, it was an advert from a well-known pizza delivery company, telling me about the special offer they had on for Valentine's Day. That was so many different kinds of unhelpful.

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Thanksgiving: for the people who help us to speak in our true voice.

Going the long way around

Ailsa Craig

Day 13: Ballantrae to Maybole

Distance: 27 miles (286 total)

Total ascent: 1,420ft (20,943 total)

Time: 9hrs 45 mins

Tomorrow: Maybole to Irvine (est 21.7 miles)

If most of yesterday's leg most definitely felt like I was in Scotland, most of today's felt like I could have been in just about any rural part of the UK. The day began and ended on the A77, but from Girvan pretty much to Maybole itself I followed quiet country lanes that knotted in and out of one another as they rose and fell with the farmland. Here and there a quiet copse of February-bare trees and I was never far from the sound of rivers and burns, bubbling out of sight.

It was the sound of the sea that accompanied the first dozen miles or so of the walk as I made my way along the A77 to Girvan. I hadn't much been looking forward to that part of the day, but there was far less traffic than I'd been anticipating and most of the drivers seemed happy to share the road with a hiker and often waved a cheerful greeting.

For several years in the early 2000s, Mum and I would take a week's holiday in Scotland and the first of those holidays was in Girvan. It had felt very sad and run down at the time; a one-time resort that nobody really wanted to resort to anymore. Walking through the town today it felt much brighter and much more upbeat. Once again the amnesia of the present moment struck and I so nearly tried to phone Mum, because I knew that she'd be so pleased to know how much the town had changed.

Leaving Ballantrae I walked along the beach at first, and then I had a choice. The route I'd plotted for myself took me away from the A77 and along a coastal path around a headland. But the A77 route was slightly shorter and, you know, twenty-seven miles is a long way, so what's the harm in taking the short-cut? I went the long way around. It was beautiful scenery and an easy track to follow, apart from all the gates I had to cross over, which the farmer had made rather more challenging with the judicious placement of masses of rusty barbed wire. I'm not a pretty sight clambering over gates at the best of times, but when there are just a few inches between the aforementioned barbed wire and my... well, central parts, it can become quite a performance. Still, I'm glad I took the long way around.

We're not often inclined, or encouraged, to take the long way around. How often are we encouraged to buy something on the basis that it will save us time? This cooks quicker. That cleans faster. Learn a new language in four weeks. There are times when I need to make meals quickly, but how much better it is to cook the long way around; put on some Chet Baker, open a bottle of Rioja, invest time in something you love.

One of the things that religions offer us is time to go the long way around. Honestly, if we stepped back from our rituals and services and looked at them in the cold light of day, well a lot of them would seem really weird, and a weird way to spend time. You do what with a candle? You drink wine at what time in the morning? But these rituals take us into space which is sacred because it is not ruled by the laws of efficiency and utilitarianism; there's something gratuitous about practices of worship across faiths. 

We all need to take time in our lives to take the long way around. A spirit of efficiency never inspired anyone to write a poem worth reading. The laws of utilitarianism are put to one side when children become absorbed in their play. And someone once said, that unless we become like little children we can never enter the kingdom of heaven. Children know a lot about going the long way around. If we will have the humility and wisdom to learn from them, children can teach us a lot about going the long way around.

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Thanksgiving: giving thanks for the financial support of The Diocese of St Albans, The Clergy Support Trust and Ecclesiastical Insurance, without which this pilgrimage just would not have been possible at all.

A Rabbi made me cry on the ferry to Stranraer

Day 12: Stranraer to Ballantrae

Distance: 19.9 miles (259.8 total)

Total ascent: 1,801ft (19,523 total)

Tomorrow: Ballantrae to Maybole

Without a shadow of a doubt, today's was the best day's walking of the pilgrimage so far. A little over three miles from my B&B in Stranraer I was walking away from the main roads and onto a beautifully quiet single-track lane that climbed away from the sea and up into the hills. I wouldn't need two hands to count the number of vehicles I saw as I walked. After a mile or two's climbing the road stayed fairly level for the next eight miles or so, curling out past Penwhim Reservoir. Leaving the lane I followed a track up to a summit called Beneraird, after which I was led gently, lazily, peacefully down into Ballantrae with the sun breaking through more fully with every step. This is probably a good time to say something about how lucky I've been with the weather. Almost the entirety of today's walk was on exposed moorland and hillside; in different weather it could have been a miserable day. Today it was perfection. For fifteen miles I neither saw nor spoke to a soul. For some personality types, there's some perfection in that too.

Anyway, you want to know about the Rabbi who made me cry, don't you? Well, before we get to him we need to rewind a bit.

My youngest son, Barnaby, loves long-distance walks; who knows how that happened! When I realized that my pilgrimage took in the February half-term I tried to see if there was any way to get him up to Scotland to join me. One of my longest-standing and kindest of friends, who also happens to be Barnaby's Godfather (and who also happens to be about the only person I know who is as garrulous as Barnaby... did I say that?) kindly agreed to drive Barnaby up to Scotland and to drive 'back up' for him as he joined me for five days walking from Milngaive to Taynuilt. Unfortunately, last week it became clear that this just wasn't going to be possible, and my friend felt so awful about not being able to help. I feel so awful for all that he's going through. There was also a selfish part of me that felt really low that Barnaby wouldn't be joining me on this adventure; I know that it's highly unlikely that I'll ever get an opportunity to do something like this again and I was so delighted that he was going to be a part of it with me. I wanted us to make stories which we could keep for the rest of my days; stories that maybe he'd get to share one day with his children. At first we tried to figure out alternative ways to get Barnaby up to Scotland to join me, but quite quickly I realized that even if we could figure that out, it still wouldn't be the solution we needed; there was no way that my lovely eleven year-old could carry all that he needed for a week and do the walking we were planning to do. We didn't just need to get Barnaby to Scotland, we needed that back up driver too.

It was in Ballycastle, as I was brushing my teeth and getting ready to start another day's walking, that I realised that we just couldn't solve this problem; my reflection in the bathroom mirror had tears on his face. 

Which brings me to my new friend, the Rabbi. Well, he's actually called Neil, and if he wrote something in which he repeatedly referred to me as 'the Vicar' I'd probably send him a sweary WhatsApp message telling him to knock it off. Yesterday morning, having breakfast in Belfast, I knew that this was the day that I'd have to email half a dozen B&Bs and cancel the bookings for Barnaby and his Godfather, and I just really didn't want to do it; coming to terms with life's harsher realities has never been one of my strongpoints. I decided to put it off until later in the day when I was in Stranraer. And then an hour or two later, while I was on the ferry, I received a message from the Rabbi Neil, that made me cry: 'Do you have time for a call? Was thinking about if I can help. Thinking if I fly up with Barnaby to Glasgow and hire a car and then fly back with him... Wouldn't be the whole time but would be some of it and I'd be able to be back up driver for you as well then.' I didn't have any words then and I don't really have any words now either.

For a bit of context, Neil and I have known each other for less than five years. Across that time a really special friendship has begun to grow; but all the same, I never expected anything like this. Ironically, he was one of the very few people I had told about Barnaby not being able to join me, because I knew that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. There's something about the asymmetry of his generosity and kindness that speaks of the truth of true friendship. If I could ever do anything to reciprocate then of course I would, but it's hard to imagine a similar situation arising. It's hard to imagine that I'll ever be able to truly 'repay' my friend Neil. But that's what the best friendships, the best relationships are about; there's no 'keeping score', there's just generosity, there's gift, it's grace. I'll probably get him a pint when he arrives in Drymen with my son; it's the least I can do.

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Thanksgiving: I'm guessing that you can figure that out for yourselves.

Fellow Pilgrims

Tomorrow: Stranraer to Ballantrae (est 19.8 miles)

from Pilgrim Michael

My thoughts, on this your rest day on the ferry, are of admiration for your journey and the daily distances walked . The number of miles seems to be similar to the number of kilometres that we covered each day en route to Santiago de Compostela. You do though have a 10 year age advantage over me when I started, and 20 years when I finished! But also, walking solo must be infinitely harder than in a group. You've covered half the distance now - I'm sure you'll manage the other half!

from Pilgrim Cath

I've been reflecting on the concept of both place and memory, and the connection between them, because this is a subject close to my heart. In June 2014 I took my own pilgrimage (I've looked up the definition in Chambers and have decided this still counts!) to the remote island of St Kilda with a lady called Claire who has a very dense amnesia following a brain infection many years before. 

Coincidentally, I was reminded of this last week because Claire called me to say there was a programme on the BBC about "our island", but it was already very much on my mind because of some of the points made in your blog. Claire has no memories for most of her life. She doesn't remember meeting her husband, or of any of her 4 children being born, or indeed anything of them growing up. In fact, she remembers almost nothing at all of any of her life. She’s also unable to make any new memories. This means that she has to rely on whatever concrete evidence she can get her hands on and when this fails (which is often), she has to rely on other people’s accounts. She finds this very difficult. It makes her vulnerable because she has no measure of what is true or not true, but more importantly it feels to her that other people have more ownership of her memories and identity than she herself has. 

This takes us to the relevance of St Kilda. This remote island off of the Outer Hebrides (you will remember I spoke about it to your mum at length) had been inhabited since prehistoric times but was evacuated suddenly in June 1930. There are various accounts explaining why this happened and whose decision it was. The history of that island has been told by many people and there are over 200 books written about it, but here’s the thing: only two of these are written by former inhabitants. The artist I was working with knew the island well and saw parallels with Claire. As with Claire, the stories that are told are based on other people’s interpretations of the evidence they see and this in turn is shaped by the context and knowledge of their own life. Neither Claire, nor the St Kildans, have much in the way of their own records which means that their history – and thus in my opinion, their very identity - is dependent on what others tell them to be true. 

Those of us without memory loss are in a much better position, in that we do have access to our own autobiographical memories – the ability to recollect many different moments in our life, all of which make us who we are and shape our relationships. But the science is also quite clear in showing that we all massage our histories to some extent. Experiments that have been replicated many times show that adults are entirely able to “remember” something that demonstrably never happened. No one wants to believe that their memories are fallible, because that would make us feel like Claire – scared, vulnerable, uncertain. Our histories are so much part of who we are. But the gentle reframing of the past that every one of us does is mostly seen by psychologists as a positive and adaptive response. We fair better when the story we tell of our lives is in keeping with the values we hold and with our sense of self. 

To return to the subject of “place”, this is one of the most powerful ways we can both stimulate and scaffold those memories that tell us who we are. Moving about in new places activates the hippocampus where memories are stored (again this is an adaptive response – if you leave a safe place, the brain generally turns on the memory centres so that you can find your way home again, though not necessarily to the Giant’s Causeway). Anyone who walks a lot knows that you can often remember exactly what you were thinking at certain points in the journey, particularly landmarks or turnings, which is because the hippocampus is at its most alert when a navigational decision is being made. And using similar mechanisms, returning to familiar places from the past can also bring older memories back to life. Sometimes these are good memories, sometimes less so, which brings me to my very last point (I promise!) – that the light and dark in our remembered experiences are a crucial part of how we navigate the world. Claire would give anything to be able to access her past – not just the happy stuff, but the difficult stuff that made her who she is. In our research, we find that even the happiest people (maybe even, especially the happiest people) choose “redemption memories” as the ones they would least like to lose. These are recollections of really horrible difficult times that we have come out of the other side of. They give us strength and remind us that we can cope and that we will survive.

My very very final point (and this time I really do promise) is that my mum – who now has a very sparse memory of most of her life – is very clear about one thing, and that is that she is a survivor. For example, she remembers hating school but she also remembers that she came out the other side. Those difficult memories are what give her the most strength now when life has thrown her the biggest challenge of all. Her language is failing but the other day when I was worrying about something, she said to me, “I always work on the basis that there is an answer to every problem, even if it doesn’t come exactly when you want it to.” By mentally rehearsing some of those difficult experiences from her childhood as well as her ability to cope with them, she made those memories strong enough to withstand the ravages of dementia. And because of this she will frequently say to me, “I am a survivor”.

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Thanksgiving: for Michael and Cath.

silly, sublime, sacred

Grafitti, Belfast

Day 11: Larne to Belfast

Distance: 23.4 miles (239.9 total)

Total ascent: 1,716ft (17,722 total)

Tomorrow: Ferry to Stranraer

Mum and Dad told me all about the vagaries of dating in Glasgow in the fifties and sixties. If someone caught your eye, early on you'd ask them which school they'd gone to. If that didn't give you the information you needed, then you'd ask which football team they supported. In most cases, one or other question would let you know if you were trying to make love's great dream with a Catholic or Protestant co-religionist, or if you were trying to chat up someone who belonged to 'the other side'. They left Scotland together when they were in their twenties, but they never forgot that sense of segregation and neither of them wanted any more to do with it. Dad ran a joinery company, and I remember his great pride and delight when some Roman Catholic friends in the Essex village we grew up in asked if he would make a Cross to sit atop the Chapel; they were just asking someone who had a set of woodworking tools to do a bit of joinery for them, but it meant so much more to Dad.

In that same village Mum made friends with 'Aunty Rene'. Aunty Rene had grown up in Belfast and was a Roman Catholic. I think it was because they both understood how deep the divisions between Catholic and Protestant could run that they valued their friendship so much. They were also both, in their different ways, absolute forces of nature. When I was in the Cubs there used to be this annual fundraising event, 'Bob a Job' week. We were supposed to do various jobs for friends and neighbours to raise money for the Cubs (or was it for some charity we were supporting? I can't remember). One year Aunty Rene asked me to clean the silver for her church. I remember Mum telling me that it was a really good thing I was going, but it would probably be best if I didn't mention this to my grandpa; I didn't really understand, but I did I was told.

The people we love best are the ones we can turn to when life is at its toughest, but they're also the ones we most want to share our best days with. When we're looking at a beautiful landscape, or seeing something funny or beautiful, or doing something ridiculous (I'll never be able to share the story about that coffee shop in Coleraine), then that small pocket of people who are absolutely closest to us are the ones we most want to share those moments with. 

Mum only visited Ireland once but it was with her great friend Aunty Rene, and in one week they managed to create more stories than most of us can conjure in a month. I can see them now, tears running down their cheeks as they laughed so freely at something that none of the rest of us could even begin to fathom. And because of that one week and who Mummy spent it with, I know she'd be so happy that I've spent time here too. I'd love to tell her, several times each day, how its been and all that's been silly, and all that's been sublime, and all that's been sacred. I believe that she's seen every step, but I'd love to hear her laugh again just one time and tell me I'm doing okay.

Although today's wasn't amongst the most scenic legs of the walk it was one of the best in terms of pure walking. I was soon out of Larne and on Sunday morning quiet country lanes. The road rose up quite steeply onto a plateau, which I walked for most of the day before it lowered me gently down into Belfast. A large part of the walk took me through forestry land where the recent storms had felled lots of trees across the paths; clambering over or under them (can you clamber under?) was not easy, but gave me frequent reasons to giggle to myself at how clumbersome (neologism...) I must have looked trying to get through.

When I left Berkhamsted I was far from confident that I'd get this far. I'd have backed myself at better than 50/50, but not much better. I wasn't as fit as I wanted to be, I'd got a few niggles, I'd had to stop running a couple of years earlier because my knees were knackered, and I was heading off with walking shoes which I'd had for little over a week. I'm not in Iona yet, but walking down into this city I did feel such a flush of pride and it really felt good to feel good about myself.

What do you think? In the original 2010 'Pilgrim's Cairn', on one of the rest days, I invited people to share their thoughts, reflections, questions about this pilgrimage. Tomorrow I've got a ferry day, from Belfast to Stranraer. If you'd like to post any thoughts, reflections and/or questions, then that will save me having to write anything! Plus, I'd really like to hear what you, my fellow pilgrims, are thinking.

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Thanksgiving: Mum and Aunty Rene, and for all the 'Mums and Aunty Renes' who are making friendships today which...

The Noonday Demon calls me Billy

First sight of Scotland - Kintyre Peninsula

Day 10: Cushendall to Larne

Distance: 27.3 miles (216.5 total)

Total ascent: 2,037 ft (16,006 total)

Time: 10 hrs 37 mins

Today: Larne to Belfast (est 25.1 miles)

(A note on yesterday, today and tomorrow. Usually I write these posts at the end of each leg. At the end of this leg to Larne I was just flat out tired and sore. I went out, got a bit of supper and went to bed. What this means is that usually when I talk about 'today' I'm talking about the leg I've just done and when I talk about 'tomorrow' it's about the next day's leg. In this post the completed Day 10 leg is 'yesterday' and the upcoming leg to Belfast is 'today'. Actually, I think I might just have added to the confusion. Imagine that!)

The monks had a name for it, they called it acedia. Its been described as a form of listlessness, restlessness, a kind of depression even. When it stalks me, my acedia usually creeps in any time between eleven and two, depending on the length of the leg and what the walking's like. One of the tell-tale signs that it's creeping in is the amount of fidgeting about I start doing with the straps on my rucksack. I tighten up my waist strap, then I loosen it again. I do up my chest strap, then I undo it again. The fidgeting begins to become almost compulsive. Even as it's happening I know that I'm beginning to lose focus on the walk.

Acedia is also known as the Noonday Demon. I can't remember the Noonday Demon's name, but I know where she works.

The night before I started this pilgrimage proper, I decided I'd treat myself to a good meal. That afternoon I popped into a restaurant in Letterkenny to see if I could book a table. The waitress asked me what time I'd like the table for and then how many of us would be dining. I replied that I just needed a table for one, and joked that I was 'Billy-no-mates'. "That's grand", said the waitress, "I'll pop your name down as 'Billy'". Sure enough, when I walked into the restaurant that evening she called across to me, "Billy, come here, I've got your table ready for you!" The waitress was a lot of fun and the food was great, but at one point she asked what I was doing in Letterkenny and so I told her about my pilgrimage and how far I was walking. She looked at me incredulously and exclaimed, "Sure, but what would you want to be doing a thing like that for?"

This is what the Noonday Demon asks me when the moments of acedia strike: what are you doing this for? Carnlough has a pretty little harbour and the sun was just about shining through. Having started yesterday morning at half-seven, it was now half-eleven and there was still a lot walking to do; what's more, my rucksack straps were seeing a lot of action. I stopped and bought a chocolate bar and a drink from the Spar and stood looking at the boats in the harbour. Quite suddenly, I just wanted to stop. I wanted to spend the day by that harbour, go and get lunch in the coffee shop across the road, enjoy the day, get a bus to Larne. I don't suppose it was a completely remarkable feeling; I was on one of the longest legs of the pilgrimage, there'd been a few ups and downs over the past week or so, at times it had felt like I was carrying a lot more than a rucksack.

I pulled that pack back on, fiddled with the straps and set off again. Some of the walking that followed (off-road!) was the best of the pilgrimage so far. Following The Ulster Way up amongst the North Antrim hills and with relatively little bogginess to contend with. Dinner was good. I'd recommend 'Carriages' if you're visiting Larne. Oh, and the 'Yellow Pepper' in Letterkenny is a great place too.

What do you think? In the original 2010 'Pilgrim's Cairn', on one of the rest days, I invited people to share their thoughts, reflections, questions about this pilgrimage. Tomorrow, Monday, I've got a ferry day, from Belfast to Stranraer. If you'd like to post any thoughts, reflections and/or questions, then that will save me having to write anything! Plus, I'd really like to hear what you, my fellow pilgrims, are thinking.

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Thanksgiving: for Orli's Bat Mitzvah yesterday. Really sorry to have missed it, but glad that this important step in her pilgrimage went so well.

Don't shoot! I'm a pilgrim.

St Columba told me to do it

Day 9: Ballycastle to Cushendall

Distance: 18 miles (189.2 total)

Total ascent: 1,591ft (13,969 total)

Time: 7 hrs 1 min

Tomorrow: Cushendall to Larne (est 26.6 miles)

"See, where you're from you have this thing called right of way, but round here we call that sh*te." I can't remember if the sheep farmer told me this before or after he'd let me know that farmers have a right to shoot trespassers. Thankfully the nature of the conversation was much more amiable than the content might suggest. The OS mapping app had definitely indicated that this was a footpath, but the farmer was keen to make sure that I knew that although he'd permit me passage across a mile or so of his land, he could just as easily choose not to. I made sure that I made frequent mention of 'pilgrimage' and 'St Columba' in the hopes of appealing to his possible religious sensibilities, and I was tireless in exclaiming what a beautiful country Ireland is.

The morning had already offered some obstacles. Perhaps three miles or so along the quiet country road out of Ballycastle, I'd come across a load of Heras fencing blocking the road, a big red and white 'Road Closed' sign, and a variety of notices instructing me that absolutely nobody was to enter this area without the permission of the site foreman. I couldn't see a site or a foreman. Inspired by St Columba's disregard for the norms and customs of his day (which, of course, was to get him exiled from Ireland), I carefully moved a section of fencing aside and proceeded on my saintly way. It turns out that one half of the road had collapsed into the Glen below, but I felt confident that even with the combined weight of my rucksack and belly I was unlikely to cause any further damage. However, before I even reached the original cause of the road closure, I had to clamber over two or three trees that had come down in the recent storm. I am not a pretty sight crawling about on my hands and knees at the best of time, but with the tortoise like addition of a rucksack I am the very image of ungainliness.

Once again the day fell more or less into three sections. I'll be brief: quiet country lanes (with collapsed road, collapsed trees and almost collapsed pilgrim) - off-track farmland and forest - more quiet country lanes. Once again the weather was idyllic, except for a hint of rain to come when my friend the farmer was telling me about his shooting rights vis a vis trespassers.

Its been a difficult couple of days and at times the sense of loneliness has felt quite acute; it accumulates slowly like the feeling of tiredness. However, it was another sheep farmer who gave me a really beautiful gift as I came down the Glenaan Road towards Cushendall. She was inspecting fencing that needed to be replaced, but it seems few people in Ireland are ever so busy that they can't share some time for a blether. A conversation about where I'd come from that day and where I was heading, led to my explaining the whole route I was taking from Gartan Lough to Iona. The farmer told me that she'd walked some sections of the Camino de Santiago and was hoping to do some more later that year to celebrate her sixtieth birthday. As we parted ways she called after me, "Good luck for now."

I really loved that 'for now'. It spoke to me of a sense of the present moment being all we have to live in. The passage of Scripture I read at the end of every day as part of my Night Prayer (from Matthew 6) includes the line, 'Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.' I know that really positive change is happening on this pilgrimage; some of it I can feel, and some of it will be going on in ways that I can't yet perceive. But for all that, I also know that a lot of the things that have made the past five years so tough aren't about to suddenly disappear. But that's okay. I just need good luck for now. God's gift to us today, is today.

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Thanksgiving: the farmer who wished me 'Good luck for now'...

...oh, and the farmer who didn't shoot me, I guess.