Day 5: Randwick to Dursley

Weather:   Cloudy to start with a cold wind and sunny later

Distance   covered today: 22.2km ( 13.8 mi)

Last night’s   B&B: Court Farm (£30)

% Complete:   69.5%

GPS satellite   track of today’s route: Day 5 (click!)

Today was supposed to be a relatively gentle day of about 10 miles (16km) after a couple of testing days of around 25km per day.  This clearly lulled John into a false sense of security. Shortly after setting out, he discovered and I confirmed that there were two official alternatives for a portion of today’s route. He became enthusiastic about taking the longer of the two, particularly since the early part of this leg would involve walking along a canal.

He insists that both Yasmin and I had agreed that this was the right decision, and even that we had been enthusiastic about it. True, the canal was very pleasant to start with, and we even met the fellow responsible for restoring the canal, who was working on one of the locks.  He was really interesting about the blend of volunteering and contracting involved and the fact that the work is basically funded by lottery money. That was about it….

We found ourselves on the outskirts of Stroud, with the way ahead blocked by his contractors working on the canal. I was my suggestion that we find an atmospheric little teashop for some elevenses and a brew. To cut a long story short, we were not in that sort of town. We wound up in the café of a giant Sainsbury’s!

Back on the road, we walked twice round the huge superstore trying to orient ourselves, set out across a field rendered almost impassable by deep mud and cow-dung, all mixed up together in a glutinous soup, and finally regained the Cotswold Way high above Stroud in the attractive little village of Selsley.  At this point I was able to inform Yasmin that as a result of John’s little deviation we had already completed 8km, but had a further 15 to go. This, on a day when we were only supposed to do a total of 16!!

John of course would have none of this! In his view, I was somehow equally responsible, and that anyway, it was a very pleasant day and what was I complaining about? Yasmin has remarked that the two of us remind her of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon in a movie we think was called “The Odd Couple”. In fact despite the fact that he is almost always wrong about everything, and I am almost always right, the three of us are getting on like a house on fire, and I can seldom have laughed so much for days on end….

It is true though that walking with others puts a very different complexion on the walking experience. It is already clear that there is much less time for introspection and the experience becomes much more of a social event.  It is necessarily less spontaneous since one is always concerned about the others’ needs and expectations (though John may dispute this in my case!), and so any deviation or change has first to be discussed and agreed. In the evenings, there is less time for reflection and much more time for drinking, also impacting on the gravity of the event.   I managed to lose a significant amount of weight on LEJOG. I doubt I will repeat that here!

In short, it is all a massive holiday and no worse at all for that!

Today I even learned a few unexpected things, for which I must reluctantly credit John. We were walking down his canal and came across an old mill that had been restored. There was a column on the canal shoreline commemorating the various phases of the mill’s existence. It had started off logically enough as a grain mill, moved on through textiles and animal feeds, and finally it had become, of all things, a snowmill! It is indeed the largest manufacturer of artificial snow in Britain, if not Europe, with the product being mainly used in the movie industry but also elsewhere as required! The things one discovers on these trips!

The character of the Way is again in flux. After the wild and atmospheric scarps of the northern sections of the Way, we spent a couple of days looking down at urban development in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud. Now, we seem to be regaining a more rural tranquillity, which may well last until we start getting close to Bath. Always there is the Severn estuary off to our right, with the river gradually getting wider and wider, and the essential, distinguishing quality of the Cotswold Hills remains unchanged. To the east lies a gently declining plain; to the west the craggy escarpment that characterises almost the entire Way. The whole is simply beautiful in its spring colour and the rolling, green English countryside is peaceful and welcoming.

Even the weather has been cooperating! We were expecting finally to have to don waterproofs today, but not a bit of it. After some early mist and cloud, the sun gradually appeared and the weather improved into a simply stunning evening!  Our luck can’t last, can it?

And thereby hangs a tale!

A cat stalking a shark in a tree. Of course!

This post commemorated the mill’s evolution from grain to cloth to animal feed to, of all things, SNOW!

Genteel gentrification of the canal environment, but not unattractive!

This extremely attractive mill is now the council admin office. Sign of the times

Unrelenting forest in unremitting beauty!

With always the Severn for company, growing ever larger!

An enormous oak resentfully amongst the rape