Courtroom Drama

Last Thursday – Friday Nigel was in court.  He and colleagues Sue and Phil had super-glued themselves to Barclays’ window to protest against the fact that Barclays is Europe’s largest funder of new fossil fuel extraction, a massive driver of the global rise in temperatures and sea levels.

These court cases are quite frustrating – the audio-visual equipment for viewing evidence usually doesn’t work and a lawyer has to show everybody on their little laptop.  On this occasion the judge’s microphone also didn’t work and the defendants hadn’t been sent all the necessary paperwork, again, quite usual.

To stave off the boredom, I took some embroidery.  Supporters of climate protesters get an extra thorough search on the way in, so I’d already had my embroidery scissors confiscated, but was still stitching away at the back when, during a lull, I caught the judge’s eye.

‘Somebody has brought a dangerous implement into the court!’  she announced.  I looked around me in surprise before realising she was referring to my embroidery needle.  As the court usher marched towards me, I zipped it into my bag and tried to look innocent. He let me keep it.

Nigel, Sue and Phil, however, were not so lucky - they were found guilty of criminal damage because the police’s de-bonding agent temporarily left some smeary marks on the glass when mixed with the super glue (now all nicely cleaned up).

The whole experience leads me to the question, who is more dangerous – a woman embroidering, three non-violent protesters glued to a window, or a vast multinational bent on profiteering from causing irreparable damage to the planet?

For much greener banks, try Nationwide or Triodos.

A Haven of Welcome

  
There is something very special about the house of friends – a haven where you know you are welcome.  Carolyn and David’s house in Gateshead has been that to us ever since we met when sharing the experience of new parenthood thirty years ago.

For twenty-four years however, we have been living in different regions, hundreds of miles apart.

Over that time, the generations have rolled over and the families have developed through different phases in their life cycle.

We have met the changes in our own family by moving from one house to another, whereas David and Carolyn have extended and adapted the same house in an inventive manner. This time when we visited, a room that I remember was a bathroom thirty years ago had become a bathroom once more, whereas the bathroom which long ago replaced it had morphed into the dining room.

I wished for a time lapse film that tracked the expansion of both family and house.

However, when we visited recently, the person who recalled most to us the first days of our friendship was somebody we had never met before - Lydia, one of their young grandchildren, busied herself with toys that once Hannah and Pascoe had played with and over her head we smiled at one another

Advent - a blessing

 

In the past, Advent was a time of fasting and contemplation, allowing people to prepare themselves spiritually for the Christmas celebration to follow, rather as Lent is a time to prepare for Easter.

Now, lights and baubles surround us even before Advent starts and many Christmas parties are over by the second week in December. 

In CS Lewis' much loved children's book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Narnia was under a curse whereby it was always winter and never Christmas.

Nowadays we seem to be under a spell where it is always Christmas and never Advent.

No wonder that when Christmas Day arrives, we are often frazzled - instead of a sense of wonder, I have a sense of disappointment - somehow I have cheated myself of the 'true meaning of Christmas'.

This year, I'm going to try to take the bustle and preparations with a pinch of salt.  Whatever I manage to do, it will have to be good enough.  And actually, because my friends and family are kind and forgiving people, it WILL be good enough.

So in 2022, I am making a pre-New Year's resolution to find some space and stillness in Advent.

Photo shows Nigel & our friend Carolyn with a giant robin at Gibside.

The pleasures of giving blood

Today was really rushed, with a thousand small-yet-important errands and tasks jostling my brain, and on top of everything else, I had made an appointment to give blood. 

However, once there, my hectic day slowed right down – the first task was to have a long, cool drink of squash while glancing at a list of activities to avoid in case they made you faint.  After filling in a form with a smug long list of ‘No’s (no intravenous drug use, recent tattoos, sex with intravenous drug users), I was settled into a reclining seat and a line attached to my arm, tethering me to the spot.

Whatever tasks beckoned, I could now do none of them.  Hits of the eighties played gently, and I scrolled casually through the book I am reading on my phone.  Apart from remembering to squeeze my fist, I was relieved of all duties for a number of precious minutes.  It was not unlike being at the hairdressers, although without the glossy mags.

And afterwards, I was commanded to sit still for a bit and have another lovely drink of squash and a cheering bag of crisps. 

The only thing that nearly ruined this period of me-time was when I saw that the snack selected by the woman next to me was a delicious chocolatey waggon-wheel. 

‘Nobody told me there were waggon-wheels!’ I wanted to shout. 

However, I took a deep breath and resumed my calmness.  After all, I wouldn’t want to faint, would I? 

Poppies

I wore a white poppy this year – given me by my friend Davina. At the green heart of the paper bloom, it says PEACE.

It is an anti-war, pacifist poppy.

But isn’t that disrespectful to the many thousands who gave their lives for this country in the First and Second World Wars and more recent conflicts? 

I don’t think so.  For me, remembering those who died makes it even more imperative there should be no more wars.  No more husbands, sons and brothers, no more wives, daughters and sisters should be lost. I suspect very few of the casualties, if able to have their say now, would clamour for more war.

When we walk on Coombe Hill in the Chilterns, we pass a memorial from the Boer War (pictured above), a conflict in South Africa where the British as a colonial power tried to oust the Dutch, their rivals. This is not a glorious moment in our history and is little talked of today, but even those Boer War soldiers died for their country in what they believed was a good cause and should be respected accordingly.

If the red poppy symbolises remembrance, then maybe the white poppy represents learning from our mistakes.  Maybe next year I shall wear both together.

Turning Sixty

 Earlier this month I turned sixty. 

Several weeks have elapsed and I now feel familiar enough with sixty to submit a review.

I’m not sure how many stars to give it, so I’ll work through the factors.

Pro’s

I never thought I’d still feel so young at sixty.

Learning to pace myself and to take better care of my diet, exercise and sleep – these are new skills I am acquiring and wish I’d learned earlier.

I enjoy my work, and with retirement on the horizon, much of the stress has vanished.

I have accepted who I am and have learned to be kinder to myself.

My values have crystallised, meaning I am not torn between different worlds.

Free prescriptions!

Con's

My body sometimes creaks even when I don’t know what I’ve done to cause it.

I go to more funerals now and even look forward to the tiny sandwiches.

I often do not recognise the music of current top ten artists.

 

Over all I’d probably give sixty a rating of four stars

So I’ll just submit my review now – but where to?

I shall go away and look for the metaphysical version of Trip Adviser.

What Integrity Looks Like

 

I recently attended the funeral of my 97 year old friend John.  There are pleasures to be found in the funeral of somebody who lived as long and well as he did - most especially hearing the life story of the departed person.

John’s story, told by his children, was remarkable in being entirely consistent.  His strong Christian faith led him to uphold the rights of others and to defend the underdog.

World War Two found him a pacifist.

Worthwhile work as a missionary led him to Uganda.

Marriage showed him a feminist, supporting his wife in continuing with her work as a doctor.

Fatherhood was a role he shouldered fully.

 

It is this consistency in John’s values and behaviour which adds up to the precious quality of integrity.

 

When, eleven years ago, John became confined to a wheelchair, I questioned how such an active man could bear it. Problems with eyesight meant he lacked even the consolation of reading. 

But his mental furniture came to the rescue. He knew many works of literature almost by heart and even on his death bed introduced me to a Robert Frost poem I had not read. 

He would say that he was re-reading a certain book but in fact he was going over it in his mind.

Others might grumble at being wheelchair bound, but not John.  To a man of such integrity, the long stretch of stillness each day was an opportunity.  He prayed – for his family and friends and for our church, but also for the many parts of the country and of the world afflicted by troubles.

Much missed, John is now a torch for me, lighting the way into old age.

Hag Stones

 

We just had a family weekend in Norfolk.

 

On the beach were a huge number of flints, rolled and tumbled by the tide, some smoothed into spheres, others fractured to reveal their ochre hearts. It was flints like this which influenced sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

 

My friend Carol collects flints with holes running through them - she threads them on twine and hangs them from her fence. These perforated stones were once considered magical. Said to ward off witches, they were called hag stones.

That day in Norfolk, I asked my family to comb the beach for very tiny hag stones – hag pebbles.

A long time ago when Pascoe was little and the twins mere toddlers we were all together, wrapped up against the cold wind, paddling on the beach below Kilimantringen

 

Lighthouse in Galloway, when Nigel handed me just such a pebble. Ever since, it has been my key fob.

 

Twenty-six years, however, have worn the hole broad and the stone thin, and someday soon it will wear through. Before that happens, I would like to have its successor lined up, and if possible, I would like it also to have been gleaned on a day when we were all together once more. 

Lucky then that we found one – another precious memory I can turn over in my pocket through the years ahead.

 

(Thank you so much, Andrew and Liz, for lending us your barn).

 

Show Your Scars

At Girton College, Cambridge there is a unique permanent exhibition called People’s Portraits.  The artists are members of the hallowed Royal Society of Portrait Painters, but the sitters who are the subjects of the paintings are ‘ordinary people’ insofar as anybody may be said to be ordinary.

A couple of weeks ago, I went with Nigel and my old friend, artist Mary Fraser @artbymarybee, to see the unveiling of the portrait of Sylvia Mac, founder of the organisation Love_Disfigure.

Having suffered severe childhood burns to her back and received a number of painful skin grafts, she grew into adulthood self-conscious of her scarring.  However, as a mature woman, she decided she could no longer live a life of concealment and began defiantly to display her body, scars and all, on social media.  She has opened up a conversation, changed hearts and minds and lent confidence to others with similar body-issues.

In this bold portrait, Alastair Adams, the artist, had worked closely with Sylvia to convey the image by which she is known – a woman who has defied her scars to become a proud and capable person. 

It has to be said, Sylvia is not only an artist’s model, but also a role model and very far from being ‘an ordinary person’.

Tree of Hope

I’ve found it difficult to muster the spirit to blog recently.

This has been an odd time, muted as we mourn the Queen’s death, then waking up to a terrifying budget.  Underlying it all has been the War in Ukraine and the oncoming climate and biodiversity disaster, not to mention a winter of privations. Closer to home, a number of friends (including our Ukrainian guests) have been suffering bereavement.

However, today I was filing away the year’s photos and I found something which had interested me in February.  Following a gale, I saw how wind-thrown trees still succeeded in bringing forth blossom.  Then I began to spot trees which had endured some trauma in the past but had continued to grow and thrive, forming new and different shapes.

A couple of weeks ago, Nigel and I went to a seminar by a wonderful organisation called HEART on deep adaptation – how we can best be resilient in the face of the Climate Crisis.  They shared many ideas about forming communities where people learn to help one another.  It sounded not so much like a survival mechanism as a richer and more fulfilling way of life.

I hope then that we shall be like the trees and bring forth beautiful new forms in the face of adversity.

Dancing in Fields

Over this summer, I often found myself dancing in fields under the stars.  A couple of these were festivals we had booked, others were just occasions on which I happened.  Some of the bands were big names, some of them were local people with a day job, but loads of talent and verve.

The most unusual was at the Greenbelt Festival, where the poet laureate, Simon Armitage, DJed a set late at night in an open-sided tent.  His choice of hits spanned the decades and had everybody bopping in a friendly crush.  I was wearing a skirt stitched with mirrors and became a human glitter ball. 

Since Covid, it is plain to see that dancing with other people, friends and strangers, is a privilege.

The school term has started now, the nights are drawing in and the news is very gloomy.  I face this winter with more than usual trepidation.  The question is, in bleak November, will I be able once more to take out those memories of whirling under moonlit skies and use them to fuel me through the short sombre days?

With green/renewable electricity, provided by wind turbines or solar panels, the greatest challenge is to develop a way of storing the energy for days when the wind does not blow or the sun doesn’t shine.  I fear the human memory is also deficient in this way. 

Therefore, in my kitchen, I shall have to replay the tracks and shut my eyes and pretend I am in a hay-scented paddock somewhere, and dance.

Photos are from the Greenbelt Festival

The Party at the End of the World

We went to stay with Pascoe in Edinburgh.  The Fringe festival would be on but following two years of Covid, it was impossible to imagine packing together with strangers in tiny pub rooms.

We planned to walk in the Pentlands.  We took an extra big case to accommodate walking boots and walking poles and massive woolly socks.

But when we arrived, the lure of fresh live entertainment was strong.

‘And Covid levels are dropping’ said Pascoe.

The limpid summer light across Edinburgh reproached us, but still we allowed ourselves to be funnelled into backrooms, to have our flabby laughing muscles tickled back into life.

A fusillade of puns and one-liners was a great hors doeuvre for the more substantial imaginative humour of Foil, Arms and Hog, and Flo and Joan.  We marvelled at people of extraordinary skill, such as the Australian acrobats of Humans 2.0 and the almost-telepathic ventriloquist Nina Conti – to appreciate performers like these, live performance was so important. 

This year, there seemed to be more festival-goers than ever before.  There was little mention in any of the acts of Covid, Ukraine, Climate catastrophe.  People just wanted to forget for a few days.  With the streets full of fire-eaters and stilt-walkers, it was like the Party at the End of the World.

However, after two days, heads whirling and ribs aching from laughter, we needed a palate cleanser – going for a walk along the tranquil coast at Musselburgh and taking stock, before returning to the realities of our daily lives and the grim news reports.

So we did use those boots after all.

Get my Goat

At the weekend, Perran and I went to camp near Avebury, Europe’s largest stone circle.  We planned to explore the surrounding landscape, rich in prehistoric monuments like Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow. 

But we reckoned without the livestock.

We set off from the stone circle towards the Western Ridgeway intending to walk to see the Cherhill white horse.  At first we set up a thousand butterflies, a hundred birds and a couple of hares and it was all very magical and charming.

Then I spotted a problem – at least it was a problem for me – a large cluster of big white park cattle with calves.  I know cows with calves can be aggressive (understandably) and am becoming less and less willing to walk through such a herd.

Luckily the path veered round that field.

‘But,’ I said to Perran, ‘I can see more in the next field where the path goes.’

‘Well I can’t!’

‘They’re in that dip.’

As we got closer, he too spotted white backs. ‘But they’re too short for cows, Mum – must be sheep.’

‘Oh great, I’m fine with sheep.  But sheep aren’t tan are they? I can see some tan.’

As we passed through the kissing gate into the field, a whole herd of very lively goats raised their horned heads and cantered enthusiastically towards us en masse. 

‘It’s okay, Mum, they probably just want to see if we have any food.’  But too late – I had done a vertical take off over a gate into a nearby field full of brush and thistles. 

‘Safe!’ But then the first goat managed to squeeze between the gate bars and join me.  Suddenly I was charging uphill fast with Perran just behind, chuckling.  Now off the path, we had to squeeze under one barbed wire fence and climb over another in order finally to attain the Ridgeway.  If I looked a long way back down the path, I could just make out, lying in the dirt where I had left it, my lost dignity.

When finally we found ourselves on the bank above the Cherhill chalk figure, I was about to go through the kissing gate to get a better look, when Perran said.

‘Are you sure you want to go into that field, Mum?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘I think you’ll find there’s a white horse in there.’

Gran at Hemmick Beach

 

We have been staying in Cornwall, paying visits to my parents and going cliff walking.

Being high season, it was difficult to find accommodation.  By chance, we ended up in Charlestown, close to where both of my father’s parents came from, and near to Holmbush Cemetery where they are buried.  I would have liked to visit their graves, but my parents do not recall the location of their plots.

Instead, I pursued remembrance in a more active way. My gran, Winifred, grew up at Gorran where her father was headmaster at the little school which lies between Gorran Church Town and Gorran Haven.

Cornish author, Ann Treneer named it ‘The Schoolhouse in the Wind’ and we visited it.   The original building burnt down in 1967 but the current school is thriving with an ‘outstanding’ from Ofsted and its own swimming pool.  We walked the tall-hedged, butterfly-fluttering lanes that my grandmother once walked.  I wondered what she would have thought of the dense crowd of tourists at Gorran Haven, making the harbour into some sort of human soup.

When I saw Dad again, he said that Gran told him her favourite beach was Hemmick, near the Dodman Point.  He himself had never been there, and I hadn’t either.

The next day, Nigel and I walked to Hemmick. It turned out to be lovely, with tongues of slatey rock running into a shallow sea, excellent for bathing.  On the sand were broken sea-smoothed shards of Venus shell and dog cockle which had a sculptural quality.  While Nigel swam, I did a water colour where, once again, I failed to capture the Cornish rocks.

I don’t know what Gran used to enjoy doing at Hemmick – I don’t believe she could swim, although one of the scant photos does show her paddling.  Perhaps it was somewhere her family went for a picnic.  Perhaps she just enjoyed the view of the distant Lizard, and the regular hush of the sea. 

However, for me, a pilgrimage to Hemmick was a way to stand for a moment in her shoes, or at least in her bare feet.

Hadrian's Wall - A Cast of Thousands

When we set off to walk Hadrian’s Wall, one of the things we were looking forward to was conversations with strangers.

As a Celt and a Christian, encounters where two people who do not know one another pause and talk to one another feel sacred to me. 

We were blessed to meet Fenella, on the day we arrived.  She helped us find the bus to Bowness and gave us a wealth of information.  If not for her, we might never have heard how mighty Edward I, Hammer of the Scots, died and lay in state in the little church at Burgh by Sands while his voracious court ate the local community out of house and home, biding time until Edward II was finally located and brought there.

As we left Carlisle, by way of a large park, a Swedish man carrying binoculars told us that close by that spot had been the Roman fort of Stanwix. Although nothing now remained, it had been the largest fort on the Wall, manned by a massive cavalry regiment called the Ala Petriana, ready to ride out and quell the tribes of the troublesome West.

We also met various other walkers, although exchanges were often superficial – how far we had come and the weather outlook.  One young couple we encountered several times.  Good-looking, tall and tanned, their accents were Southern European. We met them first when they were waiting at a gate, hoping for company to help them cross a field of over-friendly horses.  Whenever we saw them again, they always seemed to be just ahead of us, admirable as the woman was walking Hadrian’s Wall in flip-flops.

The hosts at our Bed and Breakfast stops also had tales to tell. One couple even had the story of how a Mr and Mrs Johnson had booked in for a weekend and they found themselves unexpectedly playing host to Boris and Marina.  It was interesting to hear about how their businesses worked and at St Marys Vale, Lanercost, we particularly enjoyed meeting both Deborah (pictured) and her extraordinary coloured Ryeland sheep. 

One of the most memorable stops was with Les at The Old Repeater Station, near Housesteads.  After the toughest day, we felt welcome in his book-lined home, alone in many miles of wild pastureland. (The Repeater Station was originally built to relay telephone signals.)  

And it was Les we met again on our very last day.  Pascoe had joined us in Newcastle for the end of our walk, and we were in the Hancock Museum, just looking at the very long scale model of Hadrian’s Wall and congratulating ourselves on our achievement.  As we pointed out the Old Repeater Station, Les himself appeared.  ‘I’m having a day off and I’ve brought my grandson to the museum!’

Were we somehow living through a Hollywood movie where all the significant characters contrive to reappear for a heart-warming last scene?  We looked about us, half-expecting to see Fenella and the Swedish guy.

But no, it was just Les.  Nice to see him again though.

 

 

Hadrian's Wall in full colour

View from the Old Repeater Station

When I blog, I have to decide what I think about something.  Writing helps me pick out the stories that have happened during my week.

I also like to paint as it helps me see what is around me better.  I probably never would sit and simply stare at the view for a whole hour if I didn't have a sketch pad on my knee.  When we were packing for our long hike, we had to minimise.  I left out my shampoo and hairbrush, put I couldn't leave behind paints and paintbrush.

I didn't paint Hadrian's Wall itself.  There was too much walking to be done.

But when we got to the B&B each night, I had a chance to capture an impression of the landscape.

St Mary Vale, near Lanercost

North Tyne from the George at Chollerford

North Tyne from the George at Chollerford

From the Robin Hood at East Wallhouses

Scotland and the Solway from Drumburgh, painted in the rain.

Hadrian's - west to east - out on the toon

We walked Hadrian's Wall west to east rather than, as many do, east to west.

There were a number of reasons:

Logical - the place now named Wallsend lies at the far east of the wall, near the mouth of the Tyne.

Practical - great transport links would get us home easily from Newcastle.

Emotional - the Tyneside conurbation was where Nigel was born, where we began our family, and where Nigel's mother still resides. Walking there felt like going home.

But on the Saturday evening, we also remembered that it was a great place to go out on the toon.  Pascoe had joined Nigel and me for the very end of our journey and from our hotel near the Baltic, we crossed the Tyne via the Millennium Bridge. We had a drink in a pop-up bar, then returned south of the river for an excellent Indian meal at Raval's.  After that, we strolled up to the bar of the Sage concert hall for a digestif mint tea.

Even in the morning, it was all still going on as runners for The Great North Run 10k assembled outside our hotel. 

What better place than Newcastle and Gateshead to celebrate the fact that in our sixtieth year we had walked Hadrian's wall? 

Kittiwakes nesting on the Tyne Bridge

Hadrian's Wall - Day 9 - Wylam to Wallsend.

Today is the first time we made a major change to Nigel's well-crafted schedule.  Armed with yesterday's knowledge that we now walked faster, we decided to see if we could complete the walk in one day, rather than two.

Hadrian's path took us off the route of the wall, and along the bank of the Tyne  - a much more winding course but one where we were less likely to get run over or inhale traffic fumes.

We marched straight past all manner of interesting industrial archaeology, intent on getting to Segedunum fort at Wallsend in time to have a look around before it shut.

Pascoe met us on the riverbank near the Redheugh Bridge in Newcastle. He had intended to start our walk with us, but a Covid scare had prevented him.   Instead, he would help us finish it. 

We stopped at Greggs on the buzzing Quayside - a sit down meal would take too long. 

We fell in step with some younger walkers supporting teenagers with cancer - a chiropractor and his patients. Half their number had already dropped out and it made us proud that we had stayed the course. Although my knee was certainly twingeing again. 

We arrived at Wallsend, Segedunum Fort, at 14.30 and we identified the point at which the Romans had sent a branch wall down into the Tyne, marking the end of Hadrian's Wall. 

Even so, I asked museum staff for reassurance that we had truly reached the end of the Wall and there was no last little bit we must do. 

We had our photos taken under the arch which proclaimed we had walked the Wall and could not help noticing it was considerably shorter than the arch where we set off. We decided that perhaps most walkers had worn a foot off their height by the time they got there.

Hadrian's Wall - Day 8 - The Wall begins to vanish

Two things were noticeable today. One was that the wall, forts, milecastles and turrets had become largely hypothetical. 

Grassy humps and bumps did no more than allude to the presence of the Wall, even while our OS map pinpointed the location of a once mighty fortress. The fortifications, built of squared stone blocks had provided a convenient quarry for local houses, churches and farm walls.

That stretches remain at all is to the credit of certain antiquarians and enlightened landowners who stopped its depletion. However, even the bits that remain are a mere stump of a wall which once, including its parapet, stood 6 metres tall.

The other thing that happened to today was that we discovered how much better we had got at walking, even though it was barely a week since we began. We had nine or ten miles to walk, since we were stopping at Wylam to see Nigel's mother. We told her to expect us mid afternoon. 

In fact, even having toured an Anglo Saxon church and searched for a coffee shop at Heddon, and then having accidentally taken a long way round to Wylam, we were still there by 12.30.

Which was a good thing, as Gill was keen for an outing, and Nigel drove us over to Blanchland for a cup of tea.

Hadrian's Wall - Day 7 - Ministry of Funny Walks

For us, the walking was becoming easier, and we had plenty of time in the breakfast room at the George Hotel to enjoy the splendour of the North Tyne.

We also enjoyed the strange view of people hobbling awkwardly along the long terrace.  

In fact, some of them looked as if EVERYTHING hurt.

'It's like being at The Ministry of Funny Walks' I whispered to Nigel.

It turned out these were people who had chosen to walk East to West (the opposite direction to us) and that the George was where you got to after two days of very intensive walking.

As for us, now practiced trekkers, we had been fit enough to take to the path again last night for a mile round trip to locate the impressive Roman bridge abutment, and the rude good luck symbol that the builders had carved on it in ancient times!

Hadrian's Wall - Day 6 - Sewingshields to Chollerford

After yesterday, the walking itself was getting easier and it was possible to enjoy the archaeology more.  

It was a day of Roman religion.

We immediately think of the great Olympian gods whom the Romans adopted from the Greeks.  However, the Romans were not snobs - they would plunder gods from ANYBODY, and take them to their hearts and worship them.

In fact, with respect to their theology, they were complete kleptomaniacs.

Yesterday, at Housesteads fort, we had visited my favourite shrine - to the three British gods the 'cucullati'.  Only British gods would be shown wearing duffel coats.

Today, we saw the Carrawburgh Mithraeum.  The worship of Mithras was a secret, male-only cult with origins in the Near East, whose terrifying initiation ceremonies were held in dark, windowless temples.  It was popular among Roman soldiers and some say it has contributed much to the more modern freemason cult.

Much more attractive to me was the nearby Well of Coventina.  She was a watery goddess of British origin and here the Romans had erected a shrine building around a spring.  We could not see any remains of this above the ground, but in the museum at Chesters Fort were some of the very many offerings made to Coventina, showing how well-loved she was.

Hadrian's Wall - Day 5 - Half Way

Today was always going to be both the best day and the worst.

It would be the worst day because it was tough walking over high crags where Hadrian's wall snaked along the impossible course of the Whin Sill, a jagged outcrop of dolerite, with the wall teetering on its parapet.

And it would be the best day too for exactly the same reason.

My knee had been twingeing the day before, so I wasn't sure I'd manage it.

I put two straps on my knee and we set out early.

When we reached the trig point at Whinshields we photographed it,  but it was only some way further on that we discovered that it had marked the half way point both in today's walking, and in the whole trip, and the highest point we would have to scale. 

My confidence returned.  My knee had held up so far. 

Only another six miles to do today.

Hadrian's Wall - Day 4 - Of water and the Wall

Today had a watery theme. 

Over the previous 3 days heavy showers have been forecast, but only a smattering of rain fell.  So we had developed a false sense of security and were unpleasantly surprised to receive a drenching as we plodded along the Wall to Birdoswald fort. 

We were soaked from head to toe, but it is the toes which matter most - wet feet are much more vulnerable to blisters. 

The Romans obviously knew this - where the Wall crossed a river, they made a mighty masonry bridge.  We saw the impressive remains of the bridge over the Irthing today and will see the abutment of the bridge over the Tyne the day after tomorrow. 

We crossed over the Irthing by a more modern bridge and spotted grey wagtails and a dipper, bobbing its white bib above the water.

We thought we were home and dry when we arrived at the bed and breakfast and our hosts offered us the use of their drying room to sort my soaked boots.  

But then we had one last burst of wetness when I failed to shut the shower door properly and flooded the bathroom!

Hadrian's Wall - Day 3 - Carlisle to Lanercost Priory

Google lied. Google said today's walk was 12 miles. It turned out to be 14.5. Had it not been for the company of our old friends, David and Carolyn Thompson, the miles would have dragged, but it was good to hear news of their children and grandchildren. 

Their huskie Sky behaved well and allowed herself to be restrained, even in the presence of curious horses, frisky bullocks and delicious sheep. 

And around Blea Tarn, we started noticing actual bits of wall sticking out of the grassy ramparts we were traversing. 

What I had not expected was that after fourteen and a half miles, I could break into a run. However, the news that the tea shop at Lanercost was about to shut spurred me into a sort of limping canter, and we just made it!

Hadrian's Wall - Day 2 - Easton to Carlisle

You would have thought that walking ten miles would be the tough part of the day, but no, the difficult bit was when we reached Carlisle and lost one another. For two hours. 

At breakfast in the B&B, a woman who had nearly finished her walk highly recommended Hadrian's Haul as a way to get our bags from A to B. Nigel was keen to keep on heaving his massive rucksack but my weak back meant that even a modest daysack was weighing heavy. 

Finally Nigel conceded, so when we reached Carlisle, I scampered off to buy such luxuries as shampoo, conditioner and body lotion, which we had been unable to carry previously.  I told Nigel which shops I was headed for and he went to get a new phone cable. 

As I darted between M&S and Boots, I thought to share my location with him via WhatsApp.  And that's when my phone ran out of juice.

To complicate matters, Nigel didn't figure it out.  He appears to have thought that I was dazzled by the bright lights of Carlisle and had gone on some wild girlie spending spree.

Anyway, we kept missing each other. Nigel reckons that CCTV footage of the town centre would show a farcical series of comings and goings as our paths criss-crossed one another. 

Only when I borrowed a stranger's phone and rang him did the drama turn back into a comedy. 

I was so exhausted that I did not have enough strength to use my new toiletries. 

But I did manage to gloat over them. 

Hadrian's Wall, Day 1- Bowness on Solway

Nigel at Euston with another famous explorer - Matthew Flinders

For a long time, Nigel and I had talked of walking the route of Hadrian's Wall.  

2022 is the 1900th year since the building of the wall, and the 60th year of our lives.

If not now, when?

We had thought the main problems with walking Hadrian's wall might be the weather, or our knees. But it turned out to be a train strike. 

We had to take a taxi to Euston.  The journey of a thousand miles may start with the first step, but this was quite an expensive first step.

In Carlisle, the transport theme developed.  We were to catch a local bus for local people which ran from Carlisle to Bowness only twice a day.  It was teetering on the brink of being axed.  

We had to run for the bus stands, only to discover they were not marked with the numbers of the services which stopped there.

A kindly woman called Fenella appraised our walking gear, correctly guessed our destination and took us under her wing.

Which was just as well, because when the bus finally arrived, it had no number on the front - luckily for us, Fenella recognised the driver, otherwise we might still be standing in Carlisle!