Day Three

3rd May 2009  Scotland

The wide-open plains of Africa 

A really good sleep last night, I wake up just before five. There is no rush to get out of bed; breakfast is not and till seven thirty. I look up at the window it is dotted with raindrops, I watch for a moment longer to see if any new raindrops appear … they don’t… I try to sleep for a little longer but it’s not happening, the sky is already light, and the head is wide awake but still I lay a little longer the bed is warm. The gratitude I felt yesterday evening is still with me I cannot help but to say thank you again to the Rev. Goskirk for giving me not just a roof over my head but also a bed, the chance of a hot shower, a waiting breakfast and a kettle… a kettle that I cannot quite reach without getting out bed… life is not always easy…

I climb out of bed only to find my legs are not working properly, wasn’t expecting that. I take a hot shower while the kettle is on, hoping this will get the legs working again. By the time I have drank my tea and repacked my bag I am no longer hobbling around the room, the legs are pretty much back to normal. The day again starts with a full breakfast, the second in three days… hmm… I’m not sure if it would look good if at the end of these forty days (…in the wilderness…) I am heavier than what I was when I started.

Walking boots are back on by eight fifteen. I step outside to an incredibly calm morning, not a breeze in the air. I head out of Lairg alongside Little Loch Shin. The loch is as clear as a mirror I see in its reflection a similar sky to that of yesterday blue with white and grey clouds, they don’t look as if they are holding any rain, a dry day ahead. The walking is easy going. The bigger hills seem to get pushed ever further to the west. The landscape is still dominated by open heathland; the conifer plantations grow bigger and the fields look in far better shape the grass is less course, I not only see sheep but also for the first time on this walk I come across some cattle sat in a field, they look up as I pass… I nod my head in recognition… they show little interested in where I have come from or where it is am heading… one or two nod back… before turning their attention back to chewing the cud. 

A little after one o’clock I walk into Bonar Bridge and over the impressive steel and stone bridge that takes you over the Kyle of Sutherland into the small town of Ardgay, it is here I am given a tea and an iced bun from a corner shop ‘Thank you’. It is a pleasant day;a gentle breeze has picked up from this morning but still plenty warm enough to sit outside. I find a bench; I am glad to sit down the muscles in my legs are feeling the walk today. The bench I sit on is wrapped around a boulder of white quartz. 

I read the plaque alongside, it is called the Market Stone in days gone by it was moved from one village to the next to let people know where the next market would be held… the equivalent of an early text message I guess… just took a little longer to send. 

I put the tea on the bench and take out the map from the side pocket of my trousers. Wondering at where it is, I will finish the day. There are no villages to aim for, maybe if I get lucky, I will stumble across a farm, I think probably my bed tonight will be in a field. I sit for a while longer looking at the map.

It is hard to imagine a world with no maps… we would be lost without them… properly lost… There are many kinds of maps, maps for when were on the open road, a different kind again for when walking in amongst the mountains, and for those who are navigating across the sky’s or one of the seven oceans they will again use a different type of map. None of these maps are better than the other… just designed differently to fit the environment they are meant to be used in. What they do have in common is that they all have the same purpose… to guide the user safely to where it is, he or she is wanting to go.

… and in the world of faith just like the physical world... there are many kinds of maps… Holy Scriptures… all a little different, designed to fit the different cultures from around the world but the fundamentals are the same as is the purpose… to live for the sake of the other and to help guide mankind from a place of ignorance to a place of understanding.

… and what is it we do with a map when we have got to where it is we want to be, it goes back into the cupboard … it has served its purpose.

It is hard to imagine that a day should come when war is no more, when another person’s dignity is as important as my own… the end of conflict… a world of peace…one global family… should that not be the day the many different scriptures of the world can be put under a glass cabinet and into a museum…under the label ‘Purpose Served’.

That is not to say such maps and scriptures should be forgotten…I don’t know how many hours I have spent looking at old maps of places that I like to think I know well, only to discover things I had not noticed before… likewise we should never become complacent when re-reading Holy Scriptures there is still an incredible amount of wisdom and insight that can be found within the pages of such books.

Sorry I think I rattle on a little too much sometimes… that’s what happens when I am given a cup of tea, a sticky bun, a bench and a little bit of blue sky… need to remember I’m a truck driver not a theologian… that is a truck driver without a truck… walking.

Best I make a move I finish my tea and cake, fold up the map and push it into my side pocket, grab my bag and push myself up from the bench and soon realise I’m not even a truck driver walking, I’m a truck driver hobbling, my legs don’t want to play any more. I walk out of town looking a little like Charlie Chaplin (just needed a top hat and walking cane), hope nobody was watching it takes a good mile before the legs start to loosen up. I walk / hobble for another couple of hours, the road steadily climbing to higher ground away from the blue waters of Dornoch Firth. I reach a sharp bend in the road, walk another hundred yards and then call it a day. I step off the road and scramble up the bank into some woods and then walk a little deeper into the trees so as to be out of sight of the road. I find a small clearing roll out my sleeping mat and push my sleeping bag into the bivvy bag. I dig out the last of Irina’s sandwiches, it is squashed out of shape and not quite as fresh as it was a few days back, I rummage through my bag to see if there are any chocolates or sweets left from the cyclists… all gone, no desert tonight. Breaking the sandwich in two… hmm…not really sure you can call it a sandwich any more…a lump of bread with maybe cheese or maybe not cheese mixed up with it, I will save half for tomorrows breakfast… that will be something to look forward to.

I am not grumbling… sleeping in the woods, sore legs and an empty belly, this is what I signed up for when I decided to undertake this walk without having money in my pocket. At least it’s not raining and with that thought still in my head a raindrop finds its way through the tree canopy and hits me square between the eyes… at least it’s not snowing…

The rain was just a fleeting shower lasted no more than ten minutes. I lay down on top of my bivvy bag, glad to take the weight of my legs, laying down looking up at the trunks of the trees above, takes me back to childhood memories … laying on my back looking up at a tree I had just fallen out off. I always figured I was the kid that could climb the trees that other kids could not climb…what was closer to the truth is that I was the kid that fell out of the trees that other kids could not climb. I’d get up and brush myself down and let the tree know that I was not done… I’d be back.

Laying down with my arms behind my head I shut my eyes for a wee while and listen to the creaking, rustling sounds of the woods around me, when I reopen my eyes ten minutes later or maybe it was an hour… I look up and watch the daytime sky slowly giving way to the evening sky, I see some of the brighter stars becoming visible, they sneak out not from behind clouds but from behind the gentle swaying branches high above… The stars again get muddled up with my thoughts… Are not these the very same stars our early ancestors from near on ten thousand years ago saw in the night sky, at a time when they were still learning the skills of what it was to be herdsmen… hmm the relationship between man and cow goes back a long way… I think I was right to give the cattle I saw this morning a nod… they deserve our respect.

I wonder if these early cattle owning guys had maps… maybe, but I’m guessing not. What about holy scriptures… for sure not… it would take another four to five thousand years before the engravings and pictures that we have found on cave walls to turn in to writing. And yet they had faith, there is archaeological evidence of these early farmers making animal sacrifices… why did people living on the edge of existence take something so precious to their small community as a new-born calf and burn it as a sacrificial offering…what were they thinking… maybe better to ask what were they believing as they watched the smoke rise up into the star filled heavens… these sacrifices were not about the young calf or the flames… it was deeper than that… it was about believing in something a little outside of what was understood… to make a sacrifice was not a primitive act, it was a sophisticated line of thought… that is unique to mankind… if you have a desire to create or make something better you must first give… that is as true today as it was then…

I push myself up from the ground and walk to the edge of the woods… There are many more stars in the sky now, and for a moment I am that guy from ten thousand years ago. I stand on the edge of this small hill, as my head moves down from looking up at the night sky… I see in front of me the wide-open plains of Africa. I give a nod to our Neolithic ancestors… the odds were very much against them… it was through gritted teeth, determination, faith and eyes of steel (… ok probably closer to bronze or iron) with an almost arrogant… but not quite attitude of ‘Bring it on’, that allows me to stand here today.

Faith and grit…There are those in this modern world who think that people who have a faith are a little unusual / out of step… I would turn that around… not to have a faith makes less sense. Faith is in many ways invisible… not of this world… and yet throw it away and I wonder if mankind would have found the determination to carry on… what makes mankind unique is this… we stand with one foot in the invisible world of faith and the other foot in the physical world of grit… and that is who we are… beings that can see far beyond what is in front of them… to a better world…