Day 1: I am filled to the brim…..
…with confidence and optimism.
This because I’m pretty sure the reports of killer sheep are malicious rumors spread by Brits who don’t want me here anyway.
Listen, when I went to Yellowstone they sold me bear spray. No sheep spray in sight here, so….
Anyway, Jen had enough confidence and optimism for the both of us as we pushed off from Chipping-Campden for our first CW walk.
Course, I’ve got 40 years on her.
And at a mere 10 miles it rather seemed like a, um, walk in the park.
As it were.
Suffice it to say we traversed many landscapes.
And we climbed and climbed and….
…until we came to Broadway Hill, site of the historic Broadway Tower.
This of course being the site where Davy Crocket attempted to fend off William and Conquerer and thereby free England from Norman oppression.
And listen! If that story isn’t true, it damned well ought to be.
But I digress.
The point being that we had many adventures and saw many sights on our expedition.
And it wasn’t until our steep and treacherous descent from Broadway Hill into the quaint village of Broadway that I began to question my mortality.
It was rather like walking down Shining Rock in the Pisgah National Forest…
…except that, now, I am about 35 and change years older than I was then.
On the plus side, the temperature was in the high 50s to low 60s.
With an occasional biting wind that felt like the low 40s.
A great relief from the unseasonably 90 degree plus May GNV temperatures from which I’d fled. (But rest assured, The Great DeSanitizer says climate change isn’t worth mentioning so I won’t.)
Plus, I saw acorns. Many acorns.
Which admittedly isn’t as interesting as seeing dead people.
But it was infinitely more reassuring than seeing dead people.
Because every time I saw an acorn I knew that I wasn’t lost.
That’s the way they mark the Cotswold Way. With acorns.
I felt rather like those kids who followed a trail of bread crumbs to, um, safety.
We saw a rare sight indeed in the primitive village of Broadway.
Telephone booths that actually had working telephones in them.
Listen, anybody who knows Al Stewart’s song “Broadway Hotel” can rest assured that something tawdry is going on inside these walls. I’ll say no more.
Except that the descent into the slightly more advanced village of Stanton was every bit as treacherous and bone jarring as the descent from Shining Rock et al. But when we got there we were greeted by other Cotswold Way pilgrims.
Whose pre-arranged rides to their hotels also hadn’t shown up yet.
I always say that progress made is progress earned.
Tomorrow is a 14 day trek through an unknown land of rampaging sheep and fat black leeches as thick as your thumb.
But as today, I am filled to the brim with confidence and optimism.
FreeGNV 