The Wild Rover_ A Blistering Journey Along Britain_s Footpaths - Mike Parker [50]
One of my favourite photos of my dear departed dog Patsy was taken as we walked this bit of the Ridgeway on a similarly bright spring day in 1999. As I passed the spot where I had taken the photo, a little vortex of wind suddenly whipped up on the path just in front of me. Chalk dust and a couple of leaves spun round and round in a perfect circle about 18 inches high, and I just knew it was her. She spent hours of her life spinning in circles, chasing her tail; virtually anything would set her off. ‘Hello Pats,’ I whispered, my eyes prickling. The vortex vanished, a solitary leaf floating out of it and off up the path. I followed it up into Wayland’s Smithy, settled against the trunk of a massive beech tree, and fell into a deep, contented sleep.
Prior to doing the Ridgeway, people had warned me that the most knackering part of it was dropping down to your overnight stop in the villages below, and climbing back up again the next morning. The same is said of the South Downs Way, a similar chalk ridge route. I found it a wonderful aspect of the walk, a kind of daily decompression and chance to contextualise the high way within its wider geography, to head off the bone dry tops down to the welcome springs, brooks and streams below. Watering was very much the theme, for there are some marvellous pubs in those villages too; a world away, thankfully, from the overbaked fakes of the Chilterns.
These were journeys between seasons too. The vale is only 300–400 feet beneath the ridge, yet it was weeks ahead in its spring plumage. Up on the Ridgeway, hawthorn blossom was tight and tentative, budding leaves looked delicate enough to be blown away with one gust, excitable daffodils waved in the breeze. Down below, cherry and apple blossom frothed lustily, magnolias swung in pendulous bloom, the leaves on the trees danced full and crunchy, tulips and bluebells lit up gardens and verges. I never tired of walking slowly up and down through this progression, one of English nature’s finest shows, and I couldn’t quite believe how many B&B owners told me they usually had to drive their Ridgeway walkers back up on to the trail in the morning. Being a puritan at heart, I was keen not to get into a car for the duration of the walk, not to break the spell and bring myself crashing back to normality. That could wait.
Loveliest of all the ascents from the vale back up to the Ridgeway came one sunny Sunday morning. I left the village in which I’d stayed just as the four-bell peal of the medieval church was repeating its call, over and over, to morning service. The only other sound was the excitable twittering of birds in the blossom-heavy trees. Sunday mornings have always been my favourite time of the week, their atmosphere like no other. Time hangs more languidly, and there is an indefinable sense of freedom and possibility stretching far into the distance. It was there in my childhood when my dad would drive us through empty streets to be the first at the doors of the swimming baths. It thrilled me in my Brum dancing years, catching the first bus of the morning back from some city-centre club or squat party, the bizarre mix of passengers – us hollow-eyed ravers and a gaggle of Jamaican ladies in fabulous hats on their way to church – only making it more special. Nor is the sensation confined to still-slumbering urban streets. Even in my tiny Welsh village, where, to the untrained eye, a Sunday morning looks much the same as any other, there is something sweeter and less hurried in the