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.