A walk of many beginnings and one end?

Day 5: Lochgoilhead to Carrick Castle

Distance: 5.2 miles (64.3 total)

Time: 1 hour 48 minutes

Today had many beginnings. It began with my friend Paul getting me into long distance walking in 2001. It began with being brought up with a love for Scotland which is both nostalgic and true. It began with a phone call to my brother at half-time in Watford's last home game of the season (1-1 versus Sheffield Wednesday, although it felt less exciting than 1-1) to check that he was okay with my last minute plans. It began with me sitting outside a pub in Lochgoilhead with my Uncle Jimmy as we walked The Cowal Way together, and me seeing a little bus bearing the destination 'Carrick Castle'. It began with the happiness and laughter that used to pour out of my mum whenever she would tell stories of her childhood holidays in Carrick Castle. Parking in a farmer's field in Whistlefield near Garelochead, and then loading up a rowing boat with everything that was needed for a family holiday; she would laugh describing all the pots and pans that her mum would fill the boat with. They would row across the lochs and spend the holiday in not much more than a hut, which was fed by water running off the hills; when the water stopped flowing they would have to head upstream to find where leaves had blocked the flow. Her favourite story involved a time when she had been standing in Loch Goil, gutting fish which her dad and brothers had caught; flinging the guts over her shoulders, she got the fright of her life when her mum shouted at her to get out of the water, as a shark was swimming up behind her, drawn by all those tasty fish innards. Yes, perhaps today's truest beginning was in my mum's happiness and laughter.  

The day began with us sitting on bar stools waiting for the rest of the family to join us for this last walk to where Granny had spent so many of her childhood holidays, and what would be her final resting place. In a loch, nestled between the mountain. The walk today was unlike the other days in three ways. First of all, we've been up in the hills and glens whereas today we walked on a road along the lochside. The distance today was a mere five miles, whereas the other days it has been ten to eighteen miles walking. The people we were with today really made a difference as we walked with three of Granny's nieces, a great-nephew and we were joined by her younger brother, Uncle Jimmy, and one of her sisters-in-law, Aunty Maureen at Carrick Castle itself; it just felt right that we were together, it's what Granny would have wanted. However, there is one thing that did not change. Midges. Today's Midge-Day Prayer was at a whole new level, and for the first time in mine and Dad's history, we had to skip the second half of the prayers and go straight on to the Our Father as we were getting eaten alive.

If today's walk had many beginnings it had just one end. As the week had gone on I'd become increasingly focused on (I say 'focused', I mean 'worried about') the 'how' of returning Mum's ashes to Scotland. This morning I just knew in my heart that what I most wanted to do was to find a strong stream running into the loch, so that she would be drawn away into the deeper waters. Just below an old stone bridge, we gathered together at the edge of a stream; I could hear Mum telling me to stop and listen to the beautiful sound of the water. James, Barnaby and I had all carried a part of Mum's ashes across the sixty miles of our pilgrimage. The boys and I took off our walking boots and socks and walked into the stream and together we poured the light grey ash into the clear flowing water. My cousin Jacqueline played a verse of 'Amazing Grace' on her bagpipes, the last piece of music we'd heard at Mum's funeral. Nothing had been planned. Everything was right. We dried our feet and put our boots back on. Today's walk was inspired by one of the most beautiful and loving (and funny!) souls I have ever known, and for as long as we share the stories she shared with us through tears of laughter, and seek to show others the love and compassion that she showed us, and for as long as we try to live out that love in simple acts of practical kindness, then this walk of many beginnings will not end for a very long time to come. Oh. And for as long as we smile when we hear a bit of Cliff Richard on the radio, then she's still walking with us wherever we go and whatever we face.

Today was a good walk it was definitely a 9/10 also it was really cool for everybody to come and join us and it was very fun yea. The only thing is there were so many midges but it wasn't that bad because i didnt get bitten so it was fine. OH and the bagpipes were fantabulous.

THIS WILL BE ALL THE END.

 

Land of Hope and Dreams (Going Home)

If you were with me as I walked from Gartan Lough to Iona, you've probably heard this story before. My youngest son, Barnaby, walked with me for two days from Drymen to The Drover's Inn (look it up). One of the themes I was reflecting on as I made my pilgrimage was exile, and the related idea of home. Talking to Barnaby about the sense of 'homelessness' I felt, the sense of exile, I made the mistake of reflecting on my mortality. "The problem is", I told him, "when I die, I have no idea where I'd want you to scatter my ashes." He's a quick lad, my Barnaby, and without a moment's hesitation he chirped up, "Wetherspoons?"

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure that he was joking.

Mum would never have had a second's doubt about where she would have wanted her mortal remains to return; for the longest time she always wanted to go back home to Scotland. But she never left Essex. Scotland was always in Mum's heart and hopes, but an ever greater part of her heart was invested in her sons and her daughters-in-law, and her most beloved grandsons. Those loves were home too, and ultimately those loves had a stronger pull on her than the road North. Family meant everything to Mum.

For five years she's been in my bedroom cupboard and while she rested in peace everything I knew to be home fell apart outside her closed door; everything that mattered most to me was denigrated and destroyed. At the last, even the little sense of 'home' that I could hold on to, my own sense of the past and a history of love and family, was painstakingly deconstructed. There wasn't much left. So in January I went for a long walk and Mum stayed shut behind the door.

A pilgrimage can be a powerful thing. When I came back to Berkhamsted everything was whole, and happy and renewed...

...well, I made that bit up. When I came back from my pilgrimage everything that had been destroyed remained destroyed, and almost everything that had been lost remained lost. Almost everything that had been lost, remained lost, except for myself; somewhere between Letterkenny and St Columba's Bay I found myself again.

I found myself again and so at last I can take Mum home. It's time for her to go home. To be honest, I could have driven over the border and scattered her ashes in the first layby I found and I'd have done all that needed to be done, she just wanted to be in Scotland; and to be honest some more, part of her would have found the idea of being scattered about amongst the fast food wrappers and empty drinks cans of an A Road layby ridiculously funny. Anyway, it's not going to be like that. My two boys and I are going to make a pilgrimage from Bishopbriggs where she grew up, to the loch where she spent so many happy childhood holidays. By that loch we celebrated her seventieth birthday with her twin brother, her wee brother, and a lot of family. 

By that loch we'll say thank you to the God and the country who gave her to us, and then we'll give her back.

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In a few weeks' time my boys and I are going to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Anfield. The tour is called 'The Land of Hope and Dreams Tour'.

I remember one of the last Sundays when we went to visit my diminishing Mum. We came home and put the boys to bed. I got very drunk. I sat outside and looked at the garden and drank and drank and drank. And as I drank, I listened over and again to a song by Bruce Springsteen: 'Leave behind your sorrows, Let this day be the last, Tomorrow there'll be sunshine, And all this darkness past.'

Land of hope and dreams. We're going home.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Taylor Swift and Jesus

A couple of days ago a friend got in touch to ask me what the experience of having my head shaved had been like. (A Pilgrim's Cairn: Bruce Springsteen and Barbershops)

The jumping out of my skin bit is no exaggeration. I remember walking into the loos at Heathrow Airport before my flight to Derry, and of course the place was full of mirrors. Looking up I found a stranger standing in the place where I should have been and there really was a palpable jump in my heart to discover myself replaced. That feeling of estrangement remained for several days. The other thing I discovered was that I clearly run my fingers through my hair (which has never exactly been long and lustrous) a lot more than I was aware of; in the absence of hair I'd find myself wincing as I repeatedly scratched my poor bare scalp.

Anyway, my friend was right to call it a ritual. I was shaving my head as a symbol of penitence for mistakes I've made, and it was very much the right thing to do at the start of the pilgrimage; it had an important role in making the journey into something other than just a long walk. I did become strange to myself and week by week as my hair has been growing back I've been returning to the person I was.

Except, that's not actually what's happening, because it can't. 

Almost as soon as I'd written about 'returning' I knew that I was mischaracterising what is happening. There's no question of returning to the person who once I was, because it's simply not possible. What's more, to 'return' would require a massively unhelpful attempt at amnesia; an erasure of the things I've done wrong would also be an erasure of the ways in which I've grown and the ways in which growth lies before me. The person I was might not have the failures I have, but the person I was hasn't learnt the things I've learnt either.

As I've been thinking about the mysterious Celts I've been reminded of how compelling a good story can be; how much we can be drawn to believing something not because it's factually true, but because it resonates, inspires and moves us (A Pilgrim's Cairn: Fighting and drinking their way across Europe. Or not.). One such story that resonates with many of us is the story of the Return to Eden/Return to Innocence; the idea that we can 'go back' to a time when life was better, when we were better. It's such a pervasive vision, from the Enlightenment story of 'the noble savage' through to Taylor Swift singing, 'Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it. I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it'.

There's another well-known story which provides a counterpoint to the dream of returning to a perfect past. I'm always struck by the stories of the Resurrected Jesus still carrying the wounds which He suffered at the Crucifixion. Surely if God could raise Jesus from the dead, then God could have healed His wounds too? But that's not the story. The story is that the Risen Jesus was still the wounded Jesus, still the scarred Jesus.

There were no wounds in Eden, but then there wasn't much wisdom in Eden either.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

Bruce Springsteen and Barbershops

Sometimes words alone aren't enough.

Exploring this theme of penitence, I wanted to find some way of giving outward expression to what I've been feeling. 

The Bible has three main forms of expressing penitence. The first is wearing sackcloth and ashes. Maybe if I'd been walking in May or June that could have been an option, but in February I'm sticking to Gore-tex and lots of layers. The second is fasting. Again, on a pilgrimage which should see me averaging around twenty miles a day for nearly a month, foregoing a cooked breakfast and a hearty dinner would seem to be setting myself up for failure. And then there's shaving your head.

I'm going to the barber's in an hour or so.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been reflecting on the connection between penitence and shaving your head. What follows is not a scholarly treatise on the practice but simply how I feel about it at this moment in time.

Firstly, there is some sense of humiliation, of self-humbling. In truth, I'm not feeling all that worried about my hair going; that's been happening for years! In fact, I'm curious to see how I'll look. What I'm not looking forward to is it gradually re-growing; how odd I'll look as I go through various stages of skinheadedness. I'm worried about what strangers will think of me when they see me for the first time. There's an anticipatory sense of embarrassment about how people will look at me at the end of a day's walking, when I walk into a bar or hotel and take my hat off. I don't think I'm going to enjoy that at all; certainly not to begin with.

Stuart, 18 - by Rosemary Holmes

Secondly, there's something about becoming strange to ourselves. I've got no idea how I'm going to be looking by lunchtime. There's a great line in Bruce Springsteen's 'Streets of Philadelphia', where he sings, 'I was bruised and battered, I didn't know how I felt, I was unrecognizable to myself. Saw my reflection in a window and didn't know my own face...' That resonates with part of how I feel about doing this. Have you ever done something you shouldn't have done, something you're ashamed of, and found yourself saying something like, "I don't know what came over me. I've never done anything like that before. That's just not me." Sometimes our failures make us unrecognizable to ourselves. Having my head shaved is a making manifest of that feeling. But it's also about going through that experience of self-estrangement so that you might come to know yourself again, know yourself more truly.

Yesterday, I was having coffee with a friend who suggested a third dimension to this ritual. In some traditions having your head shaved is about stepping away from the past and making a new beginning. There's something very beautiful in that idea. When my friend shared that with me, I found myself thinking again of that same Springsteen song, which combines that sense of new beginning with the idea of pilgrimage, of journey.

'I walked a thousand miles just to slip this skin.' 

Penitence

What could be more appropriate than to reflect on penitence the day after Donald Trump's inauguration as President? Trump's mentor, Roy Cohn, taught him, 'Attack, counter-attack, never apologize'. It's a mantra which Mr Trump has become the living embodiment of. On the campaign trail in 2015 he told an audience at a Christian conference, 'Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness if I am not making mistakes?' Why indeed.

Penitence, true sorrow for the things we do wrong, isn't easy; I know it isn't easy. Sir Elton John wrote: 'What do I say when it's all over? Sorry seems to be the hardest word.' Much as I hate to disagree with a fellow Watford FC fan, actually sorry isn't a very hard word to say at all. But being sorry, true penitence, that can be tough.

One of the things that can make it so tough is that just as exile presupposes a sense of home, so too penitence presupposes a sense of shame or regret. However, we've become people whose regrets are few, too few to mention. And shame? Well shame itself has become shameful, something to be rejected. I know that there are good reasons why we've reached this place. Shame has been horribly misused for generations, not least by the Church, but I'm not sure that tossing it out altogether is a very clever thing to attempt. We have no shame, but we're very into shaming and 'cancelling' others; ideally from the comfortable distance of our social media accounts. But if we don't feel a sense of regret, shame even, when we do things wrong and hurt others or ourselves, then we're unlikely to feel penitent. If we don't feel a sense of penitence, then we're unlikely to feel the need to repent. Without repentance we become trapped in our weaknesses and failings.

The other thing that makes penitence hard is anger. To truly face and acknowledge our failures can be at best uncomfortable and at worst deeply painful. None of us likes to feel pain, so it's all too easy for us to turn those feelings outwards; the step from shame to blame can be a small one. So many times I've heard people take five minutes to tell me about something they regret doing, and then twenty-five minutes telling me how it's someone else's fault. In case I appear to be staking a claim to the moral high ground, I'd have to acknowledge that that's something I've found myself doing. I start to explore my own sense of failure and so easily that exploration mutates into ugly blame and sometimes anger. Anger at the time I'm apart from my boys. Anger at the petty spitefulness of some people. Anger at the loss of friendship. Anger at being treated as worth very little; indifference. Anger at my need for forgiveness and anger at being unforgiven. Anger at myself, which brings me full circle to that sense of penitence. 

I hope this resonates with some of you: I hope it's not just me! I've got a lot of work to do on this pilgrimage.

It was two years before Columba was exiled from his homeland for inciting the Battle of Cúl Dreimhe. To me, that suggests that he continued to believe that he had been in the right in his dispute with St Finnian of Moville. He was angry when the High King of Ireland ruled against him and in favour of St Finnian, and his anger set conflict ablaze. He must surely have felt anger when he was excommunicated and sent into exile. However, he clearly came to feel penitence for what he'd done. The tradition that he made it his life's mission to 'win as many souls for Christ' as had been lost in the battle, speaks of someone who recognizes that he's done wrong and wants a new beginning.