Cotswold Way- Day 4&5 Hailes to Colgate to Cranham

Day 4

I’m slow setting off. Take an hour and a half to sort and eat but walking before nine. The route starts with snatches of view into the ruins of Hailes Abbey. Cromwell found their ‘blood of Christ’ to be honey , coloured with saffron. My head is groggy with tiredness but I’m glad to be pacing. The route crosses an old salt way.

I wandered round Winchcombe and stopped to buy apples in a friendly fruit shop, then admired the churches’ gargoyles. The rain starts on the hill out so I speed up the long hill to the cover of sycamore woods. A long hill, woods, and long hill lead unraveling. I try to get through a kissing gate and I literally can not fit through with my huge bag, and then the path breaks out on to Belas Knap Long barrow. It is awesome. 5500 years old. The final site of at least 38 people. They died between 3700 and 3600 BC! It is hard to fathom such time. Four chambers, a false portal, and a green mound, now rich in thistle and long grass and meadow flowers. And you can go inside! A little sheltering hollow. I wonder who has sheltered here in the last 100 years. Although it’s a bit early it would seem a shame to miss out on this spot for lunch. I am just short enough to stand up inside, with my head touching the golden limestone roof. The walks are laid in exactly the same fashion they are still building the dry stone walls round here now. And the stone is gold. I think of those people lying within- nature has made for them a gilded chamber, fit for the resting of kings. There they lie, ancient farmers, in a grave within the graveyard of an ancient ocean. This very stone surrounding their skeletons is the skeleton of sea creatures. The lives of these little grains, visible in the rock, makes the distance of time between the closure of the chamber and me here within it seem rather silly to think as long. As if they just died an hour ago, as if their memory was still fresh. I wonder what their beliefs were, how they thought of the world, what they thought of death . Even the distance between the top of one stone slab and the bottom must exceed huge swathes of history. This shelter reminds me a little of the storm shelter on cadar idris with its circle of seats, though the rocks are very different. I take time to eat my pita and (preserved lemon yuck) tuna. A few people lean in to peep in the hollow- I feel I little guilty keeping it to myself but not much!

From the side the barrow looks like a mini drumlin as if remembering some Neolithic glacier.

The wind is cold but fortunately the rain is holding off beyond occasional spitting. I could do with a cup of tea. The sloes are growing big up here, surprisingly I am sad that the black berries aren’t out - these bushes would feed thousands- though that would mean the year was nearing its close. But then further along I finds raspberries right in the path- and yet it’s extraordinary no ones touched them though it’s a fairly busy route- there wonderful tart and sweet. Not certain this doesn’t count as dog height but it’s worth it. All down the path find them and I eat them. their delicious, many times better than bought ones. The brambles are in flower. My red stained fingers make me think of woods filled with Bilberries and of Bilberry. A steep Zigzagging white path leads down through the beach wood , reminds me of the path we climbed on that hot day to the cavern in Germany. It’s really remarkably similar, the limestone, the beech, the wide worn path. A young stream flows, popped out from a spring. Out of the woods I see an anvil in the back of a van, there a man is banging nails unto the horses’ feet fitting horse shoes - feels such an ancient practise that it is a wonderful thing to come across out of the woods.

I spot my guide book’s front cover photo as I head towards Cleeve common- it’s huge swath of land rears up. My feet are pretty soar by 1:30. White paths lead up onto the green common. It is remarkable that such a huge swaths of land remained unenclosed. I wonder how that happened. It is quiet, there are few people round this side. Crows circle in gaggles ‘murders’. Old quarry sites scar the hills, the earth is thin here. The wind blows. I try to imagine a January morning with fog cloaking the plateau. This is a place for witches and armies, grand things and the uncanny, but there’s a golf course.

I enjoy the experience of having a little more knowledge about a landscape. In Hadrian’s wall I was a visitor, wide eyed and admiring, but a little bit of prereading here makes th e experience deeper- more rewarding, the sites make my brain whir. Just like how you visit a site alone, stand, read the information boards and admire, but you visit it with a good guide and a world is opened, another time becomes nearer, you see it differently. I stop at the golf club house and buy a tea, some small minded golf men patronise me going alone. ‘The women who goes alone says with her presence , the world is worth the risk’. From the top of the common I see strange rippling cloud formation in the grey cover - storming clouds. rain is falling in the west. I go past the belay points where we came in on that day of glouriaois sun, in the midst of lockdown. Sun changes a place. At the edge of the escarpment the wind whips up forcefully. It feels remote but Cheltenham sprawls below.

The way off the common is a bit confusing - although I have been incredibly impressed with how clearly the cotswold way is marked, I’ve hardly needed my map except for sites of interest - With all the crisscrossing paths it is like playing eye spy for acorn waymarket posts and then trying to figure which way it’s pointing down. A pair of buzzards float overhead on the updraft. A steep climb up a dry gully makes me regret putting in my waterproofs, and I joke about the rain with a passing walker. I pass through a lovely reserve of unimproved grasslands and butterflies. A bench dedicated to a cotswold way volunteer called rick Charles saves my tired feet. I always like it when benches tell you a bit about that person, i think Rick must have liked the idea of his bench giving relief to soar feet. The rain starts at 3:40. I see a magpie (maybe) sitting on the back of a sheep, yesterday I saw pidgion on the back of a thatched fox. The view to my west is completely white in the rain cloud but it is dry on the road under the shadow of old beech trees. I think with relief I am nearly there then have half an hour of worry as I walk up and down roads in the rain, my phone dying, trying to look for the camp. After stress, phone calls, and rising worry I walk down colgate farms drive and find an ‘isthmus’ with porta loos, no people on site. My home for the night. I set up in the rain, manage to get the porta shower working and hot, and sit sorting out details: I phone and chat with cranham scout camp- I don’t need to wild camp phew. I get an email from thistledown, relieving some of my huge worry of that night (though I’m not sure they know it’s two people). All is sorted, now just me in my tent in the rain, got to sort out dinner sometime, pay sometime, and try not to think about my smelly damp clothes for tommorrow. I’ve barely drunk today.

Dinner was awful- I thought yesterday’s was bad, but the only good thing About potato hotpot is the hot bit. I am so thankful for the room in my tent that I can eat inside. They sent ‘one of the boys’ to collect my payment - he seemed a very farmer boy. I found a scrap of yellow satin in my jacket pocket, from my prom dress skirt. It’s strange how my ‘hobbies’ -sewing, hiking- are at such different ends. I suppose both are introverted.

Day 5

I barley sleep again. I take a long time to get ready , unwilling to go out in the rain. It rained all night. I realise my watch has reset itself and it is actually 9:30 when I leave, annoyingly. I will have to walk fast. I leave the Porto loo in a state (it doesn’t flush!) but at least I’m off. Rain and unending rain. This is an English summer indeed. ‘summers lease hath all too short a date’ floats in my head . Walking in the rain is a bit less miserable than camping in the rain. It’s a puzzle to find my way back to the way (though much easier than finding the camp yesterday. ) High voltage power lines buzz loudly in the rain. I hope my phone will stay dry in it’s plastic bag. I keep putting my wet hands in there making it damp again. The route winds through my first pine forest of the walk- dowseswell woods. I try to catch views of the ‘penisnualr’ I slept on but the views are all tree covered. The world feels deserted of people, just me and the sheep and the cows. But, tommorrow is a very exciting day - just have to get over these 21km and another damp night in a minimal campsite first then I’ll be walking alone no longer :) it’s a plodding day. It’s a fretting day. It’s a how long does this go on for day. Passing through old woods and quiet fields.

I think how much I appreciate this freedom; when I was young I resented being a child, people would say don’t wish to grow up you’ll regret it, but I am still sure of that judgment. I hated all the associations being a child meant, the lack of choice, lack of respect. People still will doubt, but once I become brave enough to do things anyway they lose the power to stop me.

Leckhampton hill must be quite a remarkable place, but the topography points into views of dense white cloud. I miss out on a detour to the devils chimney. A long way further on, A square of chairs huddle under a bunch of four trees, like a giant teddy bears picnic. I make the mistake of a short cut and find out I’m segregated from my foot path so scramble a fence. I slowly catch up on two men with big rucksacks, overtake, then we chat while I set up my lunch- there’re meant to be getting to painswick tonight but it’s dawning what a big task that is. I thought I had a long way to go, and I walk faster than them! My feet are out to try and dry them, though they just end up getting big rain drops in my socks. Two dogs try to eat my tuna. My wet bench in a wet wood doesn’t quite live up to having lunch inside a Neolithic long barrow. I smell. Then to Crickley hill which is an increadible site of archeological history (Neolithic, Iron Age Roman , and presumably wonderful for views) for exploring on a sunny day. I take a short cut. My breath forms clouds of steams, which seems odd, it’s not cold at all. The crossing at the air balloon roundabout- junction of three huge a roads- is horrendous, I only get across becaus two lorries stop for me. I overtake the two backpacking guys again, there’re getting a taxi from Birdlip now. Sounds nice.

I enter a forest on ‘the peak’It is so full of mist it looks like a sauna, steaming through the trees. But I am happy when I turn over my map- it’s not terribly far left. I’ve done better than I thought. This is some magic forest, this breathing land, high above an invisible world of roads and noise, the roads are in a different place, echoing in the white clouds. The beeches breath. These woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promised to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep .

I turn my airplane mode off just to check and by very lucky coincidence just then I get a call, it’s my cranham scout centre man, organising everything for me, and he asks if I’d want to stay in a Bunk cabin - of course! How wonderfully lucky to have found such a good place when I thought I’d be waiting till sunset to wild camp. Makes me think of something someone told me: it is amazing how much people will do for you, if you only ask.

Fast plodding. I reach Witcombe wood, clearly a centre for mountain biking but strangely quiet. Trees drip. You would get lost in here. And I was meant to be wild camping somewhere around- scary, wet. It needs a bit of wayfindung through the woods to make my way from the cotswold way down to cranham. Reminds me again how good the way marking is on the trail, this was my first time using my compass. It is funny that two 21km days on hadrians wall would have had me in agony and exhausted, I wonder if my bag is very much lighter , or I am stronger. I end up going down the wrong road in cranham (a very pleasant very out of the way village) but I find the scout camp, and use Cal’s photo to find the key to my bunk house. It’s awesome, a room of bunks to myself with loads of places to hang up clothes, Heaters and power sockets, and the key to the accessible toilet with a nice warm shower. I spend ages in the shower, washing a pile of clothes which I then hang up on the bunks. I then go and boil my water under the shelter of the reception where I get WiFi, answer messages. and call home. My dehydrated ‘chicken curty’is not appetising. I stay up doing the post. Its 8:30 and I still have some stuff to do- past my bedtime! I turn my drying. Go down to the office to post this on the WiFi. I only have a short day tommorrow, I think it will be a good day, although the day after that is huge. Hope the rain will end.