Zen, and Poole Receding: South West Coast Path – Day 31

Plymouth to Wembury

25,000 steps

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen”

– Lenin

I leave the house at 6.15. The powder blue sky is flecked with pink and gold cloud. The streets are empty. At the station, I rub sanitizer on my hands, put on my mask, and join a few other similarly disguised passengers. In the carriage, it’s as if we’re strangers wondering if we’re going to the same fancy-dress party, but too shy to ask.

Paddington Station is as empty at 7.30 on a workday as it was the Sunday night I got the sleeper to Penzance; the staff in their high-vis jackets outnumber passengers. When the train boards, I go through the barriers with one other person, and take a seat in an empty carriage. The train manager comes on the intercom with an instruction to sit only in window seats, and not to sit directly in front of or behind anyone else.

This is how we live now, in this strange plague summer.

On the train to Plymouth, I reflect on what has happened since I stepped off the Cremyll ferry to end the previous leg of the Path, in April last year. A year of political turmoil, and then – just as I was planning to return to the Path this spring – the world turned upside down by Covid-19: the whole country locked in our houses for months, appearing on our doorsteps once a week to clap for hospital staff; schools closed; exams cancelled, the economy shut down with businesses going bust daily; tens of thousands of people dead before their time.

And a bizarre new ‘normality’, in which keeping our distance from one another, avoiding touching things in public, have become instinctive.

Plymouth – Naval War Monument

Here’s my simple hope: that whatever upheavals the wider world faces, the Coast Path abides. I will be able to pick up where I left off 16 months ago, and slip back into a simpler mode. The weather forecast certainly offers a return to classical values, especially tomorrow, with the prospect of high winds and heavy rain.

In Plymouth, I walk through the city centre to the Barbican, and straight on to the ferry to Mount Batten. There’s a pleasing symmetry to leaving Plymouth on a ferry just as I arrived from Cornwall last year.

Off the ferry, I am at last reunited with the Path, which shows how much it’s missed me: after a dry summer of remorseless heat, I am on the Path two minutes when the rain begins, and in five minutes more I am soaked.

I traverse a wide grassy path towards Jennycliff, and plunge into coastal woods, lush, green and dripping. As I get comprehensively wet, I comfort myself with the thought that you only get to live in a green and pleasant land if you can stand a little rain.

In and around Plymouth, military history is everywhere. The Tower at Mount Batten was apparently built by a William Batten, in the 17th century, preparing for possible war with the Dutch.

Mount Batten Tower – Still Unconquered by the Dutch

More reminders of Plymouth’s heritage follow, as the Path winds past Staddon Heights fortifications, and on over Bovisand Fort. In the harbour, there’s a small naval ship. Above the Path, a radar boom rotates on top of a coastguard station.

East of Mount Batten, someone has gone to town with the waymarkers – monolithic Coast Path signs appear on large on blocks of stone. A sign shows 175 miles to Poole, which feels faintly depressing.

Through gaps in the trees, sumptuous views of Plymouth Sound open up, and across to Plymouth itself. Further away, the eastern edge of Cornwall reminds me it’s taken me over a year to walk from there to here. At this rate, those 175 miles to Poole might outlast me.

The rain dies away, and the day warms up. The sun draws steam from the muddy path. The air is thick and humid. Sub-tropical vegetation crowds the Path, so that I have to crouch in places to get through.

At Bovisand Bay, I eat the sandwich I’ve carried from Plymouth. I lie down for a few minutes, the early start catching up with me. I close my eyes and enjoy the sound of waves, and children playing, and seabirds..

Great Mew Stone
(Not Gull Rock, amazingly)

Onward, into the afternoon, and the Path draws my attention to the impact of Covid-enforced idleness on my tiring leg muscles, even though the route is gentle.

I settle into the old rhythm: it’s notable how quickly everything slips away. We kid ourselves that the world is frantic and crowded and noisy, and we need to run to keep up. But you don’t need to walk far out on the Coast Path to find yourself alone with the wind and the waves, with no phone signal. The things you worried about yesterday are suddenly less important.

My newly-rediscovered Zen is not even punctured when I see another sign, telling me that Poole is now 206 miles away. While I’ve been walking four miles, Poole has moved eleven miles firther on. In 2020, everything is normal.

It’s still only mid-afternoon when I round Wembury Point and see the village church a mile distant. This last mile is a gentle stroll along the grassy track that follows the curve of the bay. At Wembury Beach, I enjoy a cup of tea, sitting on the sand.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is vile. So I go for a swim to round off today.

Fleet on Foot

I haven’t made any new year resolutions, but if I had, one of them would be to make more time for walking. It almost doesn’t matter where. Rebecca Solnit, in her fascinating book ‘Wanderlust’, talks about the sense of place that can only be gained on foot:

‘…people nowadays live in a series of interiors – home, car, gym, office, shops – disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected, for while walking one…lives in the whole world rather than in the interiors built up against it.’

Whenever I can, I love to be out of London with mud on my boots. But that obviously requires time and organisation. And you can enjoy the freedom and ease of a good walk without even leaving London.

So, with a free morning early in the new year, I took the train up to Hampstead and walked back into central London.

Music and Words: 2013 – Ten Things, numbers 5, 6 and 7

Continuing reflections on what I learned from 2013….

5. Wisdom’s a gift, but you’d trade it for youth

…is one of numerous lapidary phrases that spring from the best song on my favourite record of the year: Modern Vampires of the City, by Vampire Weekend.

Until now, I haven’t really got Vampire Weekend. I could tell they were talented. But they sounded just a bit too cluttered to me, a little too pleased with their own eclecticism and proficiency. But on this, their third album, they sound like they have clicked into the zone, relaxed a bit.

The song, Step, also demonstrates yet again that iron law of pop – that if you get the drums and the voice (including the words) right, you’ve pretty much cracked it.

Discovering a new favourite band also leads me on to my next lesson. It’s good to…

At Last. Spring.

As I get older, I notice a couple of things.

The change of seasons feels more important to me than it used to. The world turns, the leaves fall, and I notice it in a way that I never did when I was younger.

And another thing: you get older and you understand more of the bigger picture, but oddly the smaller and more personal things give you greater pleasure.

I’ve noticed both these things in recent weeks, as winter finally gave up its grip on Britain.

There have been plenty of reasons to be miserable.

Of course, winter’s always cold, but this has been beyond a joke.

And I was wrong in my post early in January – it did get wetter.

British “Summer Time” arrived as long ago as March. Feeling even more of a cruel joke than usual.

The country, and much of Europe and the world, has continued to be stuck in an economic downturn that still shows little sign of easing. Tough decisions have – surprise – turned a tough screw on poor and vulnerable people.

At work, some people I’ve known for years are leaving by choice. Others face losing their jobs unwillingly.

Over the winter, people I know and love have been ill and unhappy. Some have died. Too young, too soon.

After months of worry, the woman I love most went under the surgeon’s knife in February and for a few hours I wandered muddy fields in Kent, waiting for her to recover consciousness.

My beloved Reading Football Club have been relegated from the Premier League.

And yet.

And yet we have a fantastic capacity for optimism. The sun has reappeared in recent days and leaves are back on the trees. Parks are carpeted with flowers.

A friend at work gave me some daffodils, and I put them in a my favourite blue vase.

And just that small thing made me feel absurdly cheerful, despite everything.

So, spring is here, and looking forward feels worth doing again.

B RSONBL – Mrgncy Covr with no A and E mks no sns

My gorgeous wife Laura marched in support of Lewisham Hospital in her own unique way. As she does in all things. Max, who is with her in the photo, was gorgeous too.

I won’t go into the details of the campaign to save services at Lewisham Hospital. You can read about it at the campaign’s website here. Just two comments.

My Writing Life

Chris lives in and writes about south London.

We all live a collection of interlocking lives, don’t we? Parent, brother, employee, customer. Bloke who comes in for coffee every morning, says hello and leaves. We juggle these lives usually without thinking, but how often do we fully inhabit them all? And how common it is that we find ourselves spending too long in the lives that interest us least? Usually because someone pays us to be there.

I’m no different; I live the same nested portfolio of more and (usually) less interesting lives that you do. They include many years working for the government, inventing and promoting policies I sometimes agree with. And more recently the more enjoyable task of setting up my own business, trying to work only on those policies I support.

And a lot of time spent doing the same kind of domestic stuff that every home and family demands, as well as probably too much time (and money) spent following the fortunes of a relatively unsuccessful English football team. You won’t read much about those things here.

What you’ll get here is a window into the life I have to fight to make space for among everything else. A world where I work harder than anywhere else, because I want to, not because I have to. A place that I can’t claim is limitless in its possibilities, but where no one else places constraints upon me; where the only limits are those I impose myself through the poverty of my imagination and the naivety of my craft. This is about my writing life.

How interesting is that? You’ll have to judge for yourself and maybe we can find out together. No spoilers, no vain promises. I know that I can offer you scary tales of London life and sad tales of people who lose their way and can’t get home again. I can offer you tasty recipes and meditations on popular music, made-up stories of the future and stories from history (some true, some also made-up). There will be free fiction, which I hope you enjoy and which I would love to know your views on. And sometime – probably more often now I’m not working for the government anymore – I can offer thoughts on how the world is and maybe could be.

Let me know what you think.