The Heart Of England Way
By Mark Walford
Prologue
Route: From winter to spring
Next
A cunning plan ....
The Warwickshire Centenary Way was done. One hundred miles of my home county, walked in sections across the better part of a year, through places I had lived within twenty miles of for most of my life and never once visited. That is one of the reliable gifts of long-distance walking — it takes you to the parts of a landscape that familiarity has made invisible, and shows you things that proximity alone would never have revealed.
During the first few days of the Centenary Way, and again toward its conclusion, the route had interwoven with another long-distance path — their waymarkers often sharing the same post, their paths occasionally running in parallel before diverging again. The white acorn of the Centenary Way and the green arrow of the Heart of England Way, side by side on a wooden fingerpost at the edge of a field. I noticed it the first time and filed it away. I noticed it the second time and began to think. By the third time I was already making plans, and by the time the final few miles of the Centenary Way were behind me I had made up my mind entirely. One hundred and three miles through three counties. Starting in Staffordshire. Finishing in the Cotswolds.
Colin had been persuaded without much difficulty. He usually is.
We formalised the plan over our last pint of the Centenary Way, seated in the Royal Oak at Whatcote as winter drew the day to a dark and chilly conclusion outside. A date was sketched in — early May 2013 — with the comfortable confidence of people who are planning something several months away and therefore have no immediate obligations. It all seemed agreeably distant. We raised our glasses to it and drove home through the dark.
The Heart of England Way is roughly the same length as the Centenary Way but moves through the landscape with a different instinct — quieter byways rather than market towns, country lanes rather than canal towpaths, a route that dips briefly into the busier places and retreats again without lingering. It starts in Staffordshire, further north than the Centenary Way, and heads steadily south, weaving with some dexterity between the conurbations of Birmingham and Coventry before making for rural Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds. The industrial Midlands receive the merest of nods; this is largely a route of green pastures, old woodland, and the kind of English countryside that appears on calendars and is assumed by overseas visitors to represent the whole country rather than the parts of it that have been sufficiently lucky. For some of the journey I would be on familiar ground — sections shared with the Centenary Way, others covered in years of local walking. For many miles I would be on territory entirely new to me, which is the whole point. And at the end of it all, after three counties and one metropolitan borough, the path would deposit us at Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds — one of my most favourite places in England. It all seemed very agreeable.
Christmas came and went. The months rolled by with their usual combination of urgency and uneventfulness. The walk remained a pleasant fixture on the calendar, far enough away to require no immediate attention, close enough to feel like something to look forward to.
And then, quite suddenly, it was a fortnight away.
I took stock. I had not walked with any consistency since completing the Centenary Way. I had not booked the time off work. On the latter point I was able to act quickly. On the former, I had — as I was forced to acknowledge — comprehensively missed the boat.
The time-off problem was easily solved. The fitness problem was not. There is a period, well known to experienced walkers, between the moment when preparation would still have been useful and the moment when the walk begins — a window during which something could theoretically be done but during which, in practice, nothing is. I had spent that window doing other things, and here I was on the far side of it, measurably less fit than I had been eight months earlier and with fourteen days to do anything about it.
Fourteen days is not enough time to get fit. It is enough time to become acutely aware that you are not.
In March, at a family gathering, Bod had sidled over and mentioned that he would like to join us for a few days on the walk. I agreed immediately and with genuine pleasure. Bod then told me, with the calm of a man reporting a weather forecast, about the cycling he had been doing. And the gym work. He seemed to be finding both satisfying and productive. I pictured him on a hillside — lean, efficient, pulling steadily away from me up a gradient without apparent effort.
I already knew that Colin jogged regularly and worked with weights.
I began to form a clear mental image of the three of us on a May morning somewhere in Staffordshire. Bod and Colin, moving with the easy competence of people who have prepared, dwindling steadily into the middle distance. And myself, some way behind, toiling along with screaming leg muscles and the specific expression of a man who has made a series of poor decisions and is now living inside them.
It was, I had to admit, an entirely familiar picture.
Some people train for long walks. Others walk themselves into fitness somewhere around day three, by which point the worst is usually over and the body has accepted its situation. I have always belonged to the second category, and the evidence suggests that this is, at some level, a choice rather than an oversight.
With two weeks to go, and the plan very much formalised, I looked forward to May with the pleasant anticipation of someone who has committed to something enjoyable and is choosing not to think too carefully about the opening days.
It was going to be fine. Probably.
Next
By Mark Walford
Prologue
Route: From winter to spring
Next
A cunning plan ....
The Warwickshire Centenary Way was done. One hundred miles of my home county, walked in sections across the better part of a year, through places I had lived within twenty miles of for most of my life and never once visited. That is one of the reliable gifts of long-distance walking — it takes you to the parts of a landscape that familiarity has made invisible, and shows you things that proximity alone would never have revealed.
During the first few days of the Centenary Way, and again toward its conclusion, the route had interwoven with another long-distance path — their waymarkers often sharing the same post, their paths occasionally running in parallel before diverging again. The white acorn of the Centenary Way and the green arrow of the Heart of England Way, side by side on a wooden fingerpost at the edge of a field. I noticed it the first time and filed it away. I noticed it the second time and began to think. By the third time I was already making plans, and by the time the final few miles of the Centenary Way were behind me I had made up my mind entirely. One hundred and three miles through three counties. Starting in Staffordshire. Finishing in the Cotswolds.
Colin had been persuaded without much difficulty. He usually is.
We formalised the plan over our last pint of the Centenary Way, seated in the Royal Oak at Whatcote as winter drew the day to a dark and chilly conclusion outside. A date was sketched in — early May 2013 — with the comfortable confidence of people who are planning something several months away and therefore have no immediate obligations. It all seemed agreeably distant. We raised our glasses to it and drove home through the dark.
The Heart of England Way is roughly the same length as the Centenary Way but moves through the landscape with a different instinct — quieter byways rather than market towns, country lanes rather than canal towpaths, a route that dips briefly into the busier places and retreats again without lingering. It starts in Staffordshire, further north than the Centenary Way, and heads steadily south, weaving with some dexterity between the conurbations of Birmingham and Coventry before making for rural Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds. The industrial Midlands receive the merest of nods; this is largely a route of green pastures, old woodland, and the kind of English countryside that appears on calendars and is assumed by overseas visitors to represent the whole country rather than the parts of it that have been sufficiently lucky. For some of the journey I would be on familiar ground — sections shared with the Centenary Way, others covered in years of local walking. For many miles I would be on territory entirely new to me, which is the whole point. And at the end of it all, after three counties and one metropolitan borough, the path would deposit us at Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds — one of my most favourite places in England. It all seemed very agreeable.
Christmas came and went. The months rolled by with their usual combination of urgency and uneventfulness. The walk remained a pleasant fixture on the calendar, far enough away to require no immediate attention, close enough to feel like something to look forward to.
And then, quite suddenly, it was a fortnight away.
I took stock. I had not walked with any consistency since completing the Centenary Way. I had not booked the time off work. On the latter point I was able to act quickly. On the former, I had — as I was forced to acknowledge — comprehensively missed the boat.
The time-off problem was easily solved. The fitness problem was not. There is a period, well known to experienced walkers, between the moment when preparation would still have been useful and the moment when the walk begins — a window during which something could theoretically be done but during which, in practice, nothing is. I had spent that window doing other things, and here I was on the far side of it, measurably less fit than I had been eight months earlier and with fourteen days to do anything about it.
Fourteen days is not enough time to get fit. It is enough time to become acutely aware that you are not.
In March, at a family gathering, Bod had sidled over and mentioned that he would like to join us for a few days on the walk. I agreed immediately and with genuine pleasure. Bod then told me, with the calm of a man reporting a weather forecast, about the cycling he had been doing. And the gym work. He seemed to be finding both satisfying and productive. I pictured him on a hillside — lean, efficient, pulling steadily away from me up a gradient without apparent effort.
I already knew that Colin jogged regularly and worked with weights.
I began to form a clear mental image of the three of us on a May morning somewhere in Staffordshire. Bod and Colin, moving with the easy competence of people who have prepared, dwindling steadily into the middle distance. And myself, some way behind, toiling along with screaming leg muscles and the specific expression of a man who has made a series of poor decisions and is now living inside them.
It was, I had to admit, an entirely familiar picture.
Some people train for long walks. Others walk themselves into fitness somewhere around day three, by which point the worst is usually over and the body has accepted its situation. I have always belonged to the second category, and the evidence suggests that this is, at some level, a choice rather than an oversight.
With two weeks to go, and the plan very much formalised, I looked forward to May with the pleasant anticipation of someone who has committed to something enjoyable and is choosing not to think too carefully about the opening days.
It was going to be fine. Probably.
Next
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