Long and winding road

Well this was the longest walk of my Lenten challenge to date. I looked at the map and decided that to do it in sections would feel unsatisfactory and involve covering a great deal of ground at least twice. So off I set back up Minster Road and down Great Western Way and around all the streets leading off it and then owing to the lack of any connecting alleyways through to Brindley Street, back onto Minster Road in order to access it.

From here on, it was possible to do the walk almost seamlessly with very little doubling back. I won't name all the roads because it would end up as a long list but I wandered up and down those leading off Brindley Street before entering Windermere Way, past Burlish Park Primary School
 and heading around all those places named after stretches of water in the Lake District (can you tell I watch Qi when I don't call them 'lakes'?!) Windermere Way led me into Kingsway and the names then included some from Lakes and dams in Wales.

Lake Llangorse is one of my favourite spots, so I indulged in a photo! I wonder how many people who live there have actually visited the lake....and those in Elan Avenue; have they been to the Elan Valley, I wonder? Such a beautiful place created out of flooding a Welsh valley and evicting the villagers in order to provide water for Birmingham. Now it's a stunning nature reserve!

The weather was dry but blustery and the wind chased dark clouds across the sky. It felt exhilirating to walk in the cool wind. I saw the variety of architecture that has created our larger housing estates over the decades.

Always, the backdrop of hills and fields was never far away.

Life was carrying on as normal around me; I was making a pilgrimage but invisibly. People sat in the hairdressers, young people made their way home from the High School, cats slept on the driveways and gardens, people played rounds of golf and dogs were taken for walks on Burlish Top and through the woods alongside Kings Way. I walked and walked and walked.

On and on, with the wind still encouraging my pace, I made my way through some of the most beautiful parts of Stourport.

There is something in the motion, the movement, the pressing forward that ties the mind to the moment, to the place, to what is real. I felt almost invisible; not because people couldn't see me - clearly they could and sometimes they spoke and I replied. No; what was invisible was my purpose, my thoughts, my connection with the earth, the creator, the moment.                                                                                         

Finally civilisation began to be a reality again, gently, firstly the allotments

then the sports facilities and finally the familiar sight of the High School. I was back on Minster Road and on my way home again in what seemed like so little time! Funny thing, time; it's not real until you make it so with your clocks and schedules. Without time, there are simply seasons that go round for ever in circles, there are dawns, days, dusks and nights; there is birth, life and death. There is knowing and feeling and believing.There is loving and hoping and trusting. And it's all really there, when you stop looking at the clock.