Day Four

4th May 2009 Scotland

Can you judge a truck driver by the gravy patterns on his shirt?

I wake up to the sound of bird song; it is four thirty in the morning, you would think they could keep the noise down a little…some of us are trying to sleep… hey I’m only joking what better way to wake up, on a woodland floor, the sky slowly turning orange and with the sound track of the dawn chorus. We are told that birds sing because they are protecting their territory or that they are looking for a mate… I like to think they sing just because they can.

I lay awake watching the night slowly disappearing and thinking about the day ahead. The goal today is to reach Dingwall…that’s if I don’t run out of fuel. A truck driver with the many miles driven will always keep an eye on the fuel and generally knows when and where to fuel up… I start the day with the needle in the red and not really knowing where the next fuel stop is. I decide to top up the best I can by eating the rest of the sandwich I broke in half last night; another few hours it will be to stale to eat, I wash it down with a mouth full of water… hmm lovely. By seven I’m dressed, packed up and teeth brushed. I scramble back down the bank to the road the long grass and low branches are wet from the morning’s dew, running my hands through them I give my face a wash.

Behind me I can see the blue waters of the Dornoch Firth and in front of me a steady climb over low lying hills (hills that in another three to four months will be purple with heather). My arms my legs my body ache… and I’m only four days in… the hope is the body is still adjusting itself to this new routine… in a couple more days maybe the body will be a little less grumpy and a little more happier… still, only another seven to eight hundred miles to go before I reach the south coast and walk into the church that I was baptized in… oh boy. This puts me into a reflective mood… how do we find real happiness within ourselves and in doing so feel as free as the birds in the skies that were singing this morning (…while I was trying to sleep). Each and every one of us has both a mind and a body, for true happiness to be achieved the genuine desires of both of these aspects of who we are needs to be fulfilled. Just in the handful of days that I have been walking I can testify to what the needs of the physical body are (especially when the day is done). The physical body is happy when it has shelter, when it is both warm and dry, when it has a good standard of health and when it has food in its belly, which is why my body is grumbling a little, the legs are still feeling the walk and the belly is close to being empty.

What of the internal aspect of who we are… what is it that makes the mind or for want of a better word our spirit happy, these things are different to the desires of the body. The inner most part of who we are desires such things as love, truth and beauty. The embrace of a loved one, the laughter of a friend, the smile of a stranger, an understanding of the world around us and who we are and where it is we come from, a beautiful sun set, the nature that is all around us or a piece of music that make the hairs on the back of our neck stand up. These are the kind of things that bring happiness to the inner most part of who we are. There is nothing wrong in wanting to have a nice house a good car, to eat well, go on holidays and enjoy the things the material world can offer, but if we neglect the internal aspect of who we are, we will never find real happiness. A rumble from my stomach while walking over a stone bridge brings me out of my thoughts and back to the walk. I take out the map to see what river it is I’m crossing, a small square chewy sweet falls out of a fold in the map…wow… the paper is stuck to the sweet; it takes a while to separate the sweet from the paper. I bite it in half (one sweet becomes two), I decide to keep half for later; an idea comes to me if I keep breaking the sweet in half I will end up with a bag of sweets… hmm.. No that’s not going to work is it… The river I have just crossed is called the Strathrory. The landscape around me has a sense of managed wilderness, rounded hills of heather moorland, conifer plantations, closer to the road on the lower slopes there are fields of I’m guessing barley and of course still plenty of sheep knocking around.

Another three hours pass by. The road seems in no rush to reach its destination, slowly winding its way through the landscape doing its best to avoid going over the top of low lying hills or dropping down too much into the gentle valleys, to help the road maintain its level there are a handful of stone bridges that carry the road over a number of small rivers and gorges. It is a beautiful landscape of rolling hills, woodlands, fields of both arable and grass for livestock… but with my second sweet gone, what I need now is a garage, a village or a small town… a place to refuel…In front of me I can see the waters of the Cromarty Firth and the small town of Alness, just up the road from Alness is Skiach Services, a popular place for truck drivers. I have stopped here over night as a truck driver a number of times in the past. I remember after a long day behind the wheel the food and the noise of the place being both good and welcoming, Skiach was also a place I used to grab a shower and a bite to eat before climbing back into the truck and on to the bunk for a good night sleep. This is the place that I would head for now.

It is a little before three when I push the door open and step into Skiach services. I look for who I think maybe in charge and again explain myself, he looks me up and down, I think my appearance fits with the story I have just told him. He calls to one of the girls behind the food counter, "Get this guy a bowl of soup, a bread roll and a pot of tea with a full jug of milk." … I nod my head… my eyes close for a moment I don’t know why… I say, "Thank you." Five minutes later I am sat in the corner of the café, a bread roll in hand that has just been dunked into a hot bowl of potato and leek soup (soup has never tasted so good). I look up at the other customers, a young family sits at a table close by… I catch the eye of the little boy and pull a funny face, he pulls one back, we both smile.

I again look around the room, most of the other customs look to be truck drivers. There is a truck driver sat in the far corner reading a book, and out of the blue I am taken back in time to another truck stop and to another truck driver… from twenty-five years passed. The place was down south near a town called Rugby, the truck stop sat alongside the A5 (an old Roman road… maybe once upon a time the truck stop used to be where chariot drivers pulled up for a hot dinner and a place to stay the night)… the truck driver I had just recalled was everything people who are not truck drivers think of when imagining what a truck driver is like. He was big and loud, every second word was a swear word, the jokes he told the girls behind the food counter were both crude and out of order… crumbs I remember sitting in that truck stop as if it was yesterday eating a late supper, I looked up and saw this loud truck driver that I had seen many times before, sitting quietly in a corner by himself reading a novel. I had never seen him reading before and then something even more unexpected happened; he pushed up his glasses with finger and thumb. and wiped away tears… he was oblivious to all around him… in a world far more real than any café at the side of an old Roman road… the words printed on a page saw beyond the gravy stained shirt, the crude jokes, the big belly… and beyond what I had seen…this big gruff of a man had a heart… but more than this he had a heart that could be moved. The phrase "don’t judge a book by its cover" comes to mind… hmm… nor a truck driver by the gravy stains on his shirt.

Suddenly I’m taken out of my thoughts and out of the truck stop down south in Rugby, by the waitress that had served me earlier with the soup and bread roll. "You look a million miles away," she says as she drops another bread roll on to my plate… I hear myself say, "closer to five hundred miles". The waitress looks at me. "What…?" I explain myself: "I’m guessing its closer to five hundred miles from here to Rugby… sorry you're right I was a million miles away…" Again she looks at me. "The driver on the table next to you left his bread roll I thought you might appreciate it. My boss told me about you walking without money… you must be a little crazy." "A little maybe… thank you for the roll." "That’s ok," she says as she walks off to clear another table. She turns around. "Crazy but amazing." She makes me smile. I finish the last of the milk, turn to the table with the young family to pull one last face at the little boy only to find while I was far away in another truck stop down south they had already finished their dinner and had gone. I put all my dishes on to the tray, wipe the table with a napkin and say thank you to the shift manager and head out.

Dingwall is still a good two hours away. Once there the plan is to see if I can find a place to stay the night, if not I will walk a few miles out of town and find a quiet corner in a field or woodland. The walk is so much easier with some food inside me; it is pleasant walk along quiet country roads and woodland tracks. I arrive in Dingwall at about five thirty, I walk into the grounds of the first church I come across, it is an Episcopal church. The door is unlocked I step inside and sit for a moment. I find out that the minister of the church lives across the road from the church. Ten minutes later I am walking up the small walkway to his front door… feeling a little awkward… not sure how best to explain myself. I knock on the door, a young lady answers. I ask whether the minister is in. "My mum and dad are out for the day, walking on the hills. I’m not sure when they’ll be back. Can I help?" "No, it’s ok… thank you anyway." I turn around. A car pulls up a man and a woman climb out with walking gear and boots still on. While taking the bags out of the back of the car, he is asking how he can be of help. I explain myself; they turn me around and back up the path to the house. Sat in the kitchen with a coffee in hand the different stories of the day are shared. The Reverend declares we have all earned a meal out tonight. I am shown a room, told to grab a shower, his wife tells me to bring all my dirty clothes down and she would have them washed and dried for tomorrow.

An hour and half later the four of us are sat in a restaurant with a hot meal in front of us and sharing more stories. Later back at their home I find myself sat in an armchair with a hot chocolate and a cat curled up on my lap. I am introduced to the rest of the family, two other cats, a hamster and an eleven stone dog (I think it’s a bear but didn’t like to say, not after they had shown such kindness).This morning I woke up on a woodland floor hungry. Tonight, I lay in a bed with crisp white sheets and a full belly… today I felt I was given a glimpse of a better world. I saw it behind the tears of truck driver from twenty and more years ago, in the kindness of a waitress who dropped an extra bread roll on to my plate and the immense generosity of the Rev Ian Pallett’s family … The invisible aspect of this world… love, truth and beauty will not give up on mankind not without a fight.