Here endeth my Lands End to John OGroats diary. Thanks to all my regular readers and to anyone else who dipped in along the way. Day 2 Home Counties 5th August 1996 We had a terrible night. The partying went on until gone three, although on the plus side we had to be up at five o’clock and they didn’t give us much opportunity to oversleep. We got to the airport only to discover that, contrary to what we had been told, standby tickets weren’t available on the first flight of the day. Wendy somehow managed to talk them into letting us on. When we got on board, Wendy had a word with the stewardess and a little announcement was made over the tannoy saying what we had just done. There was some embarrassed applause but fortunately nobody asked us to stand up. Later on we were invited onto the flight deck! This was a brilliant treat and we were up there for twenty minutes as he first dropped the port wing to show us Kinder Scout, and then the starboard wing to show us Manchester. He explained the radar and all the navigation equipment. At one stage he was called away by the stewardess and returned to tell us that he had planned to let us sit in on the landing but that a passenger was panicking about all the manoeuvres and our being on the flight deck, so we missed out on that culminating treat. Back at Heathrow we landed with a metaphoric bump to find ourselves no longer celebrities but just another pair of faces in the crowd. We caught the tube from Heathrow to Cockfosters, the full length of the Piccadilly Line, and felt utterly estranged from the commuters streaming into work. We stood for most of the way, beaming health and strength, and were appalled to see all the grey and unsmiling faces arraigned before us. My brother, John, picked us up from the station and we spent some time with Susan and the kids and mum and dad before going over to Barry and Lesley’s for a meal. In the evening we went down The Woodman for a couple of pints of Abbot. This has been a hugely full day, almost a whole week. When we got back to the house we put the tent up in the garden and slept outside: we just couldn’t bring ourselves to sleep indoors. Pausing Not wanting to stay, pausing only To dry our sodden tent by the stream In this steaming window of sunshine, Aware of the woman watching at her gate. Don’t worry, the pleasure’s all In the passing through, walking the old ways, Not over the tops, but threading the passes. We’ve followed this stream from where it rises In the hills behind, and now the map describes Forgotten roads into another valley, And all the unseen valleys that might follow. Our settlement is the routine of movement. Yesterday was gritstone and peat, Tomorrow will be granite and thrift. And how the speech can differ so On two sides of the same hill. No, We’re pausing only, not wanting to stay.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 21:22:22 +0000
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