The Warwickshire Centenary Way
By Mark Walford
Prologue
Route: Sitting at home watching all the weather
Next
Rain stopped play ....
Note to self: never make plans that rely on A) the weather or B) the vagaries of other people’s lives. But most particularly, the weather. Once the excesses of Christmas 2011 had been safely absorbed—both financially and around the waistline—I began to cast an optimistic eye over the coming year and consider where my legs might reasonably be persuaded to carry me. Another long-distance path seemed in order. There was certainly no shortage to choose from; by my reckoning there were at least ninety scattered across the UK, of which I had managed a rather meagre four, either in whole or in part.
The difficulty, as so often, was money. A week’s walking in somewhere suitably rugged—Scotland, say, where the scenery is magnificent and the accommodation quietly expensive—was beyond me. The wider economic gloom had taken a small but persistent bite out of my own finances, and I had already been forced, with only moderate dignity, to decline an invitation from my good friend Bod to tackle the first half of the Wainwright Coast to Coast. It is hard to turn down an adventure on principle, and harder still when the principle is that you are skint. I entered January nursing a mild but well-developed sulk.
Then, in one of those moments of discovery that feel suspiciously like common sense catching up, I realised there were no fewer than three long-distance paths practically on my doorstep. They lacked the romance of distant mountains, certainly, but they had the considerable advantage of being accessible for the price of a tank of diesel and a willingness to return home at the end of the day. Sections could be walked piecemeal. Progress could be made. Plans, tentatively, re-emerged.
I settled on an April start, reasoning that longer days and the vague promise of spring might conspire in my favour. The route for the year would be the Warwickshire Centenary Way—chosen less out of burning desire than geographical convenience, which is often how these things are decided in practice. There was the minor complication of owning only one car and attempting to walk a non-circular route, but this was solved in the traditional manner: by enlisting the goodwill of friends and colleagues and quietly turning them into a relay system of drivers.
Eight sections. Completed by August.
Simple, I thought.
It is at this point that 2012 made its contribution.
April arrived like a damp apology and never improved. Rain settled in with the quiet determination of a long-term guest, soaking fields, swelling streams, and tapping persistently at the windows as if checking I hadn’t forgotten it was there. May continued the theme with enthusiasm, the sort of steady, committed rainfall that suggests a moral position rather than a passing weather pattern. June was marginally better, though chiefly in that the rain was now warmer, which is of limited comfort when it is falling directly down the back of your neck.
July offered a glimmer of hope, but only in theory. In practice, every day I identified as suitable for a walk turned out to coincide with prior obligations in the lives of my volunteer chauffeurs. It transpired that 2012 was also, quite remarkably, the year in which everyone I knew decided to get married. Entire weekends vanished into confetti and polite applause.
And so the months slipped by, sodden and faintly ridiculous, sloshing along like a pair of overworked wellington boots, while I sat indoors drumming my fingers and occasionally contemplating emigration to somewhere reliably warm and dry.
Eventually—late August, by which point expectations had been lowered to a manageable level—things aligned. I had time off. My friend Dave had time off. Crucially, Dave also had a car and was willing to use it. A date was set.
I watched the long-range forecast in the days leading up to the walk with a kind of resigned fatalism. The Met Office, in a rare moment of optimism, predicted sunny spells and isolated showers. It was a forecast that sounded almost cheerful, if you didn’t look too closely at the wording. The day before we were due to start, they revised it.
Heavy rain, they said.
Naturally.
Next
By Mark Walford
Prologue
Route: Sitting at home watching all the weather
Next
Rain stopped play ....
Note to self: never make plans that rely on A) the weather or B) the vagaries of other people’s lives. But most particularly, the weather. Once the excesses of Christmas 2011 had been safely absorbed—both financially and around the waistline—I began to cast an optimistic eye over the coming year and consider where my legs might reasonably be persuaded to carry me. Another long-distance path seemed in order. There was certainly no shortage to choose from; by my reckoning there were at least ninety scattered across the UK, of which I had managed a rather meagre four, either in whole or in part.
The difficulty, as so often, was money. A week’s walking in somewhere suitably rugged—Scotland, say, where the scenery is magnificent and the accommodation quietly expensive—was beyond me. The wider economic gloom had taken a small but persistent bite out of my own finances, and I had already been forced, with only moderate dignity, to decline an invitation from my good friend Bod to tackle the first half of the Wainwright Coast to Coast. It is hard to turn down an adventure on principle, and harder still when the principle is that you are skint. I entered January nursing a mild but well-developed sulk.
Then, in one of those moments of discovery that feel suspiciously like common sense catching up, I realised there were no fewer than three long-distance paths practically on my doorstep. They lacked the romance of distant mountains, certainly, but they had the considerable advantage of being accessible for the price of a tank of diesel and a willingness to return home at the end of the day. Sections could be walked piecemeal. Progress could be made. Plans, tentatively, re-emerged.
I settled on an April start, reasoning that longer days and the vague promise of spring might conspire in my favour. The route for the year would be the Warwickshire Centenary Way—chosen less out of burning desire than geographical convenience, which is often how these things are decided in practice. There was the minor complication of owning only one car and attempting to walk a non-circular route, but this was solved in the traditional manner: by enlisting the goodwill of friends and colleagues and quietly turning them into a relay system of drivers.
Eight sections. Completed by August.
Simple, I thought.
It is at this point that 2012 made its contribution.
April arrived like a damp apology and never improved. Rain settled in with the quiet determination of a long-term guest, soaking fields, swelling streams, and tapping persistently at the windows as if checking I hadn’t forgotten it was there. May continued the theme with enthusiasm, the sort of steady, committed rainfall that suggests a moral position rather than a passing weather pattern. June was marginally better, though chiefly in that the rain was now warmer, which is of limited comfort when it is falling directly down the back of your neck.
July offered a glimmer of hope, but only in theory. In practice, every day I identified as suitable for a walk turned out to coincide with prior obligations in the lives of my volunteer chauffeurs. It transpired that 2012 was also, quite remarkably, the year in which everyone I knew decided to get married. Entire weekends vanished into confetti and polite applause.
And so the months slipped by, sodden and faintly ridiculous, sloshing along like a pair of overworked wellington boots, while I sat indoors drumming my fingers and occasionally contemplating emigration to somewhere reliably warm and dry.
Eventually—late August, by which point expectations had been lowered to a manageable level—things aligned. I had time off. My friend Dave had time off. Crucially, Dave also had a car and was willing to use it. A date was set.
I watched the long-range forecast in the days leading up to the walk with a kind of resigned fatalism. The Met Office, in a rare moment of optimism, predicted sunny spells and isolated showers. It was a forecast that sounded almost cheerful, if you didn’t look too closely at the wording. The day before we were due to start, they revised it.
Heavy rain, they said.
Naturally.
Next
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