This is a beautiful, beautiful day! I’ve completed a challenge in order to prove that I’ve managed to accomplish something that doesn’t really matter, to a lot of people who I’m sure couldn’t possibly care less. A day of great importance. Had to be done!
It started with me trying to find a new way of excersising and not finding one that felt stimulating enough. I used to go swimming but every time I ended up pushing myself to go just a little further (3km, 3,3km, 3,5km etc) because otherwise – where was the challenge? (I know 3km probably doesn’t sound too extreme, but if you do breast stroke, well, then it takes a while..) And then there was the issue about the scenery. In a swimming pool in the local leisure centre the scenery just doesn’t change that dramatically, no matter how many lengths you do. Unless you really overdo it and end up getting delirious.
Some people suggested jogging. The scenery would change, they meant – I would see different stuff along the way and therefore feel a greater amount of excitement. Oh, please…
Yes, I would see different things, but nothing that I wouldn’t have seen before! In order to jog in new places I would, again, have to jog a bit further every time – and even then 95% of the excersise would have been repetitive. Yes, yes I could have changed my route, but there are no streets that I haven’t seen where I live, no parks I haven’t thoroughly visited already. I was dishearted. Until my old obsession came over me. I rediscovered walking!
But we’re not talking about just any peaceful sunday stroll, I’m talking about proper stuff!
It’s happened to me several times before. A certain urge to get from one point to a distant other, using only my feet. I’ve tried to force people to walk from Malmö to Gothenburg in Sweden and from Paris to various places all painfully far away, not getting much support at all.
This time I had suddenly begun to feel that it would be something of a necessity for me to walk from London to Brighton! Beginning at Trafalgar Square and finishing at Brighton Pier. At first it was just something I thought about for a few minutes now and then while waiting for the tube or bus, but then one night in the pub after several pints it turned into a promise.
For some reason it didn’t sound incredible and astonishing enough to claim that I could just do it in turns, so I ended up promising that it could be done in one go! Well, let’s make one thing clear – it CAN be done in one go! And ‘it’ could be done by me! Its just that noone could be talked into coming with me, and walking in the middle of the night through places like Croydon wasn’t anything that seemed all that alluring, even to me!
Even so, my boyfriend at the time agreed to do it, providing that we started in the middle and went back home well in time for him to have a good night sleep before going to work the next day. (Tsk.) Quite obviously we didn’t make it, but had two lovely (at times) days getting lost among lamas and freezing our asses off in a one man tent. (We broke up shortly afterwards…)
But having made it so far, I just couldn’t let go of the thought that I’d failed unless I completed the rest of the walk. I had to finish it! We had already walked from East Grinstead to Burgess Hill, so I decided it was time to walk the boring part – from Croydon to Trafalgar square. There weren’t really any problems and I could easily have made it if I started a bit earlier and if I wouldn’t have spent hours buying second hand books in the market stalls in Croydon and then reading them over endless coffees. Bad planning – maybe? But it was nice, peaceful. And that’s the effect the countryside (!) has on me. I tend to stall a bit. Look at things. Cuddle stuff. And this time I had the odds against me. When I finally started walking it began to rain, which means I only made it to Clapham! And even that was tricky. I’ve been in showers with less pressure than the rain that day but luckily I met a fantastic irish guy called Poe who insisted on buying me a beer in the garden of a nearby pub. We chatted for hours and he ended up challenging me (you see these things always happen after beer!), claiming he could walk it faster than me since I had ridiculously bad maps he reckoned! (The National Explorer Maps!) Well, Poe still hasn’t made it so I take it he still hasn’t managed to find those better maps. (Just for the record, I did walk the remaining part, Clapham – Trafalgar square a week later.)
Next part was East Grinstead – Croydon. It didn’t rain. It was blazingly hot, but that wasn’t a problem for me because I was determinded. Nothing could stop me I reckoned, until I faced a field full of horses. Honestly, those things are big and even though as I said, I do enjoy a random hug with various parts of nature (trees, flowers, sheep) I prefer to have something of a backup plan in case the cuddle gets out of hand. My logic went as follows. The horses were eating, and they were eating with gusto. Therefore surely they must be hungry! There’s only one thing worse than being stuck in a field full of wild big animals and that is to be stuck in a field full of wild, big, hungry animals! It took me a while to pluck up the courage to continue, a therapeutic chat with two 7 year old girls and their grandpa as well as a change of clothes (I’ve heard it’s dangerous to wear black, since they might think you’re a crow and try to run you down!) But I made it! Not all the way to Croydon, since it was getting dark, but to Caterham and that was enough for me!
Ecstatic as I was, I sent a few text messages to some friends, hoping they would feel appropriately impressed. Apparently my texts were radiating motivation because my friend Joanna offered to come with me on the last bit, from Burgess Hill to Brighton! This was surprising, confusing even, since she had refused flat out the other times I had tried to convince her to join me. She didn’t find the English countryside exciting enough. Too many meadows, she meant. And meadows were boring. Nothing thrilling ever happened when meadows were involved. There had to be mountains and wolves. I felt that even though I hadn’t walked in the area before, I couldn’t promise neither mountains nor wolves, so I had given up on the prospects on her coming with me.
But she did. And even though I couldn’t find a wolf I gave her a mountain (The Ditchling Beacon) and with the promise of a pub and some beer, she seemed to be relatively satisfied. Until after we’d passed the “mountain” and she saw what lied ahead – meadows. Hours and hours of meadows. (Honestly I think she was totally unfair! I hadn’t walked this part before so I couldn’t have known about the meadows. Its not as if I had a map or anything…!)
Either way, we made it. Well, we didn’t have much choice but to go on I guess. But we could have given up and taken a bus when we came to the outskirts of Brighton, but she had exhausted herself whinging by then and so didn’t insist on it. So we had a few drinks in a bar by the beach and then went back to London to join a party in Soho. (Joanna went home…) I was beeming with pride and let everyone know about my achievements! Twice probably. Life was good.
But since then everyone had been quite annoying and kept asking me weather I’d done the “whole” bit yet. All the different parts? All the way to Trafalgar square? Really? NO! No, I had not! There was the small, insignificant rubbish of a walk between Caterham and Croydon left. Annoying, but true. I felt as if I had finished the challenge, and was ready to move on to new things. I had bigger more important fish to fry now. Like the Thames walk! But they refused to leave me in peace, and I agree with them, it had to be done. So that’s why today is such a beautiful, beautiful day – just got back from Caterham/Croydon! Happy days!
Yes, I know, its not an amazingly long walk. But its more satisfying than a stroll in Hyde Park. And more exciting than the gym. And I promise you that Napoleon didn’t go to the gym to excersise. Or Christopher Columbo. Or Vasco Da Gama. Noway! You wouldn’t find people like that tumbling around a giant hall with a load of other random people. You would find them in places like the Sussex Border path, or the Socrates Trail, or The Thames Walk! Trust me, it makes sense.

Just writing SOMETHING so that I can change my wallpaper or settings or whatever to 'tan' instead of 'white'. Its something that feels important.