Day 7 on the Pennine Way, Malham to Shelford.

Day 7 on the Pennine way, Malham to Shelford.

Eagle-Eyed viewers might notice that Shelford is not on the Pennine way.  To put a positive spin on it, you might say that I got home ahead of schedule. On the evening of the fifth day (you'll remember how I wrote that I was feeling much stronger and walking much more confidently and that I had finally gained my Pennine legs!) I was suddenly  struck down by some kind of stomach virus or similar affliction. 

I needn't detain you with the details, suffice to say it wasn't pretty and it wasn't pleasant. By the following morning I had had no sleep at all and was feeling mighty rough. I pondered my options. First option was to take a taxi to gargrave and walk from there to Malham making it a shorter day. This option was soon overtaken by option 2 when I actually tried to heft my rucksack onto my back and realised I wasn't walking anywhere on day six. 

Option two was to get the bus to Malham and then continue hiking from there the following day. I hung around in Skipton waiting for the bus at 2:45, but the bus never arrived. Option three emerged which was a taxi to Malham. The first taxi in the taxi rank was the same taxi driver I had used the day before. He was delighted to see me and was keen to tell me all about his Eid celebrations the previous day. I feel like I've made a friend!

We chatted all the way to Malham and I settled in to the B&B but was feeling very ropey. Through the day as I waited in Skipton, I had spoken with Lythan and I had pondered the options and I realised that it was very likely in my current condition that I wouldn't be able to walk for at least a few days.  Legs: fine, heart: fine, Energy levels: totally feak and weeble.

In my older years I am, I suppose, a little more introspective than I used to be and I do try to understand what's going on within myself. Lythan commented that it is not like me to give up on something so quickly, and she's right. So I gave this quite a bit of thought. 

I concluded that I had prepared as much as I could for the physical challenge of the Pennine way and I think I could have completed it.  I think that what I was not prepared for was the mental challenge of walking the Pennine way, and that when a significant setback comes along, like this virus, my psychological strength dissipates very quickly. I don't think I could, for instance, take a week off back in Cambridge and then return to do the last third of the walk. I think feeding into this is something I hadn't really realised about myself and that is since my heart attack 4 years ago and my coronary event last year I am less confident in my body than I used to be. Although my heart has been fine in this week of walking, this sudden loss of strength and energy has made me nervous about taking up the challenge again.  

Anyway to cut a lot of hand-wringing and overthinking short, I have called an end to it and have returned home.

I said to the URC that in the first few weeks of my sabbatical I would be walking the pennine way and reflecting on the Psalms of ascent.  In my mind, I think I pictured walking the hills through the day and then in the evenings waxing lyrical about my experiences in a deeply thought-out blog. It quickly became apparent that this would not happen as I was mentally exhausted at the end of each day and could only manage to dictate a few scattered notes about what each day had contained. 

So, again, to look on the positive side I HAVE walked some of the Pennine way and I think I can reasonably imagine that I've seen plenty of big steep hills, rivers, lush fields and there would have been plenty more of the same to come but that I may have seen enough to give me material for reflection on those Psalms. And now I have a couple of weeks to sit and reflect with my brain actually working.

More seriously and I was thinking about this on the train. I have never liked failing at things. But perhaps it's not a bad thing for me to fail at something, particularly in such a public way, having told so many people  this is what I was going to do!  It's possible that me failing at doing this could offer me deeper lessons about my life than me succeeding at doing this would have. But I will take my time and reflect on that at more depth in the days to come. 

Thank you for following this far and I'm sorry you didn't get to see any of the last two weeks! The picture is about my journey home. Don't get me wrong. I think the UK train system is fantastic, and on this walk I have met Germans and Australians who tell me that our train system is fantastic, and to be able to get a train from Skipton down to shelford yards from my door on a Sunday with just a few hours notice is fantastic. But of course, it did involve a rail replacement bus service!