Day twenty

 20th May 2009 NORTHERN IRELAND / IRELAND

A world of impossible dreams

Went to sleep in the open last night with some heavy skies above… I was sure that it would rain… waking up this morning… I’m thinking maybe it’s just the morning dew… the bivvy bag, bin bags and the long grass are wet, but the ground itself is pretty dry… if I’m honest I think a thunderstorm could of past me by last night and I would not have noticed… last night I was out for the count.

I look at the time, it’s just after seven… I get up and get dressed…shake the dew from my bivvy bag and repack… I sit on my bag; grab a handful of wet grass and wash my face… pull out the map from my side pocket and brush my teeth. Today I head for a place called Dunleer (it’s a little over a thumbprint away… so much for the idea I had yesterday of knocking a few miles off today’s walk). I sit on my bag longer than I needed… looking up I see a mix of blue and grey skies… there is no breakfast this morning… I’m a little hungry but that’s ok… the hope is ten miles down the road at a town called Dundalk I’ll get the chance of a bite to eat or at least a mug of tea (I should say sixteen kilometres not ten miles, in about half an hour I step over the border into Europe… the Republic of Ireland… miles will turn into kilometres for a day or two).

Best I make a move… looking at the map a few miles on the dual carriageway and then I will be back walking on country roads… as I push myself up from my bag, I groan, interlock my fingers and stretch my arms high above my head… and groan again… my body feels older than the trees, a little younger than the mountains... hey country roads, take me to the place that I belong… to the place I was baptised… a church in the New Forest… next to the blue waters on the southern coast… take me home country roads… yeah, still a lot of miles to go before that happens. A thought crosses my mind… when the walking is done and I step back out of that church on the south coast (…keeping in mind my pockets are empty), how do I get back to where it is I am living now… Scotland… hmm… I didn’t think that through very well… not sure I’m wanting to walk back.

Walking off the heath back down to the dual carriageway (I say walking, most days start with a hobble… not sure why but my right shin is a little painful… give it an hour and I’ll be back to walking to something close to normal)… as I get closer to the main road, I see people looking out of their cars trying to figure out who this scruffy guy is stumbling out of the moors… I smile to myself, that’s probably not helping the image… the half mad fictional character of Heathcliff from Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights comes to mind… I’m pretty sure I see the cars speed up a little.

Less than an hour of walking I am on a slip road heading off the dual carriageway… it’s good to get off the main road… just as I reach the roundabout at the top of the slip road, a car pulls up on the side of the road and asks me which way I am heading and if I’m needing a lift. I explain a little of what it is I’m doing and why that stops me from taking up his offer of a lift… but thank you I appreciate the offer. The guy’s name is Owen (a law student). “You’re telling me you have walked from the top of Scotland and that you don’t have any money in your pocket and that you’re going to keep on walking and till you hit the south coast of England… that’s just crazy”. “Put like that I guess it does sound a little daft”. “You had any breakfast yet”. “No not yet”. Owen tells me to get in the car, he reaches over to the back seats and grabs a lunch box and flask … We sit in a car by the side of the road sharing sandwiches, tea and stories… ten minutes go by… we shake hands, I again say thank you… we both head of in the same direction, one behind the wheel of a car and the other walking… It was good to have met Owen… with a breakfast inside me I feel a little less like Heathcliff and a little more like the truck driver walking that I am.

The road I’m walking on takes pretty much the same route as the main road, that is and till we get close to Dundalk, the road that I’m on heads into town, the major road skirts round. The town has a long history, from Neolithic times, to being a Norman stronghold, to heavy industries, a hub for railway and shipping… today a place of financial services, pharmaceuticals, technologies and racing horses. The town sits pretty much halfway between Belfast in the north and Dublin in the south.

I stumble into Dundalk close to ten… find a café and again given a pot of tea… “thank you”. I sit at a window table, watching people come and go, men in suits, others in hi-vis jackets, mums with buggies, teenagers out shopping, a man walking his dog… the hustle and the bustle of everyday life, people bumping into each other … and he painted matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs… the noise of the café fades and I find myself between two worlds… the world I see from behind glass and the world of a thousand possibilities… a world of what if’s… Maybe that world I spoke of yesterday…the world of truth, beauty and love is just an impossible dream… A captain once told me, if we don’t have a dream… how are we going to have a dream come true… the hard part is how do you drag an invisible dream into the physical world… a good starting point I guess is to wake up and get dressed. We are different to other creatures… we have a freedom… an ability to respond to what is in front of us… if a dog sees a cat, it will chase it… if we see a cat, we have a choice… we can pick it up and stroke it, give it a kick or I guess just ignore it… It is we who decide the line of thought we bring into this world… and we do that a dozen times and more everyday… When it’s our turn at a supermarket checkout after standing in line for longer than we wanted to, we have a choice… we can grumble at the girl behind the till, at how long we have had to wait’ or let her know, that you can see she is having a busy day, share a few kind words and throw in a thank you… we choose… is it not better to give than to take… to see the good in others and not the rubbish… is it not better to pick up an empty drinks can and drop it into a bin than to kick it further down the street… to have a heart of gratitude and not one that is quick to complain… to hold out a hand to somebody who is struggling or to push them away… to offer a smile, a hello, to a stranger in the street or to walk past them as if they don’t exist… is not love better than hate. We are the co-creators of this world… We… you and I decide if we create hell on earth or build a world made up of impossible dreams.

The noise and the bustle of the café slowly returns, and the matchstick men and matchstick mums and teenage kids turn back into real people… I use both arms to push this body that aches, away from the table, and again say thank you to the owner. I head back out on to the streets… I tell my boots they need to keep walking… they grumble a little… something about, one of these days… at the door of the café, I nearly fall over a stray cat… I give it a kick… I’m joking there was no cat.

I head out of Dundalk on quieter roads, the sky still a mix of blue and grey… I don’t think it’s going to rain today. An hour passes… the legs are working again… a steady pace, one boot in front of the other… sometimes when walking it feels as if the whole world moves around the sun just that little bit slower… no radio… no TV…no newspapers… no idea of what’s going on in the wider world… I guess a big part of this adventure was to do just that… step to one side and let the world carry on without me for a while. To take a little time out, ask a few questions… maybe pick up a few answers. It was close to three weeks ago that I was standing on the top of mainland Scotland looking down at the south coast of England… metaphorically speaking I closed my eyes and jumped… not really knowing what would happen… in the back of my head I had this image, an image of crashing, tumbling, falling through a beautiful landscape and hitting the ground (…the south coast) with a bone-breaking thud… and then struggling to get back up onto my feet… pride broken, a thousand cuts and bruises… and having to pick up the remaining pieces of what was once my faith… Only that didn’t happen (not yet anyway). I jumped and I was caught… and for these past twenty days I have been handed down from one pair of safe hands to the next… I have been fed every day… given a bed most nights… I don’t know how many cups of tea (…and cake)… my clothes have been washed… and many mornings sent on my way with a packed lunch. I wish I was better with words… in order to express better than what I am doing, what it is that feels like… yeah of course I was somehow hoping there would be people out there that would make this walk a little easier… but what I have experienced in these past weeks has been extraordinary … far beyond what I could have imagined… To be given so much… I wonder at what it is I'll have to give back.

It is mid-afternoon when I walk into the village of Castlebellingham… the sky above is a now a little more grey than blue and, in the west, I think not blue at all… I’m thinking maybe I was wrong about it not raining today… something is brewing.

Suddenly I realise that I’m a squidge hungry… I had a sandwich by the side of the road this morning with Owen and later a pot of tea at the café in Dundalk… would be good to find a place to grab a bite to eat… I come across a little thatched café on the corner of a street called Foleys… I step inside… I still don’t find it easy, when explaining what it is I’m doing in the hope of gaining a cup of tea and maybe a sandwich… and yet again I am welcomed into the café with two big smiles… a mother and a daughter… I am told to sit down; the young girl sets the table and brings a mug of tea over… chatting and smiling all the while… five minutes later there is a plate in front of me… pie and chips… I know it sounds daft, maybe a little arrogant… but it almost felt they had been waiting for me to arrive… the heart (and smiles) behind the welcome was real… With the dinner finished and tabled cleared, another tea is brought over… the young girl and an older chap, I think it was the girl’s granddad, sit down with me at the table and we talk, again about this and that and nothing at all… before leaving I ask if it would be ok to take a picture… not sure the young girl wanted her picture taken… it made me think… sometimes the taking of a photograph can spoil a moment… don’t ask me to explain why… not sure that I could. I say a big thank you, throw my bag on to my shoulder and head south… I turn around and wave… have no idea what it was but something special happened there.

Back on the road, with a full tank of bread butter, pie and chips inside of me. I still have a good few hours in front of me before I reach the town of Dunleer. With each step taken the sky turns both a little greyer and heavier… and like yesterday I’m pretty sure the rain is coming… yeah it would be good to have a roof over my head tonight…

I pass a small woodland… maybe a cluster is a better word… most of the trees being Silver Birch, their leaves shimmer, even though the air is still… I once read the reason for this is that the wood used to crucify Jesus was made from the tree of a Birch… I’m not sure if that’s true or just a story… but again, it got me thinking about the choices we make… not just as individuals but collectively… I don’t care what culture we come from, whether we have a faith or not, or what the colour of our skin is … in all of our histories we have made mistakes… and like the Silver Birch we should all have a sense of collective responsibility for what it is that has been done… and in the knowing that we have done wrong… we have a choice… to point the finger (blame the other) or to hold out a hand… and together build a better world… if we really wanted to we could make possible that impossible world of dreams come real.

… sorry I rattle on sometimes. I reach the town of Dunleer just after five… and again I have no luck in finding a place to stay… and again decide to head out of town… and yes, again the sky is heavy with rain. A few miles out of town I see a farm sitting back from the road… I figure there is no harm in asking. I walk up the farm track and knock on the door, a mum with a little one in her arms answers the door, and at the same time the farmer walks across the farmyard to the house… and again I explain myself. Ten minutes later straw bales have been pushed together at the back of a barn… I have a bed and a roof… my very own palace. Mark and Emer (the farmers) tell me once I’m sorted to head back to the house for dinner. An hour and a hot meal later we are still sat around the kitchen table sharing stories… the kettle never off the stove… the day had been special… it had started up on the moors and ended in a palace… Thank you… I am told by Emer to stop saying thank you.

The day is done… outside it is raining… walking back to the barn I look up, it is not yet proper dark… it's funny when on the open road I saw the sky as a little grim, now that I have both a roof and a bed, I see the sky as beautiful… I guess that’s what they call relativity… sat on the bales, I kick off my boots and call it a day… and quietly (I don’t want Emer to hear) I say Thank you.