Leaving Wonderland
On Wednesday, July 12, we strolled out of a our last sheep field and into Penrith—and so completed the final leg of the 100-mile Lady Anne’s Way. Steve half expected someone to meet us asking after a friend or family member who started the walk weeks ago and hadn’t yet emerged from brambles. But other than the fist bump we gave each other after making it up the hill to our B and B, there was no fanfare. Nor was there entrance to our accommodation, since we were (we realized too late) two hours early. So we allowed gravity to pull us back down the hill and into the center of town. We found a tea shop down a narrow alley which was still serving cakes, and sat down to a scone with clotted cream and jam for me, and some kind of meringue jam roll for Steve. We stunk up a far corner of the tea shop until we emptied our pot of tea, then made our way slowly back up the hill to our lodging for the night.
The last few days of walking had found us saying farewell to the high moors and fellsides, and dropping down into the dales and their villages at the edge of the Lake District.
Of course there were still sheep. There are sheep everywhere, and we have spent time with so many of them at this point that we are beginning to recognize the different breeds. And also, wonder in earnest at just why there are so many bloody sheep. We’ve learned along the way that they are not being used for wool since there is little demand for it these days. Many are used for meat, which is apparent from the menus anyway. Popular dishes include minted lamb burgers, lamb curry, lamb pie, and the all-inclusive “lamb three ways.” We’ve also been told that the hill sheep—the females having a reputation of being good mothers—are used for breeding still more sheep.
Yesterday, a friendly lady who invited us into her garden to enjoy our lunch (having warned us off her neighbor’s wall against which we were about to make our picnic) helped shed a little light on the mystery, explaining that farm subsidies were, until recently, based on head of sheep.
We had a short chat with a sheep farmer who had just finished up the process of separating the lambs from the moms, and over the farmyard din told us that she and her growing family were definitely seeing the need to diversify.
And while walking through this country has given the impression of vastness and open countryside, these intermittent chats remind me that the Britain is still just a small island and that changes in things like climate or policy tend to affect the entire population more or less all at once. Evidence of effective environmental education is all around - from notices of water conservation in every single accommodation we stayed at, to outdoor postings about common sense practices for wildlife and native plant conservation. On a social note, we were thrilled to see Pride banners displayed in almost every small village or hamlet we walked through.
And again, I am grateful for the opportunity to have walked slowly through at least a portion of this place. In many ways, this trip has been an exercise in using real life tools without the aid of the latest technology. Navigation has required actual paper maps and written directions, having not being able to consult Siri or any number of navigational apps on our phones. In many instances, it has meant asking directions. And in this way, communication has required more than a text, or one-on-one video chat with a friend or colleague. And our learning curve in getting around, or deciphering a menu or a road sign, or understanding an unfamiliar phrase or accent has required more than a YouTube or TikTok video. In fact, it has required us to trust the help of strangers. And what I’ve found, is that most people want to help. Not only do they want to share what they know of the place they call home, but they genuinely wanted us to succeed in whatever we were trying to do—from navigating through a busy farmyard to the correct footpath beyond, to simply knowing how to order dinner at the village pub.
Living this way for more than two weeks has me considering what slowing down like this would mean in my own daily life back in the States. I’ve realized that in many ways I still haven’t climbed fully out of the isolation that COVID required. I rarely eat out, and my socializing doesn’t often involve interacting with people I don’t know. And while I won’t be walking the 7 miles to work every day, or frequenting the Old Port bars, I can see hosting a gathering and inviting people I don’t know very well. Or becoming a morning regular at a neighborhood coffee shop.
I’m also reminded that it’s important to do things that you kind of suck at. I had the very good fortune to have learned many outdoor navigation skills from my mother while I was growing up. But let’s face it: that was a pretty long time ago. My brain really had to stretch to relearn many of those skills and put them into practice. And I found I wasn’t very good at it. Once while crossing a road somewhere in the middle of the remote Yorkshire countryside, we ran into a motorcyclist who had stopped briefly on the side of the road. Since we had quite literally just emerged from the shrubbery, he told us he hoped we had a good map. We assured him we did, and that we’ve really needed it, to which he replied that his problem would be that he wouldn’t know how to read it. But in actuality, I think we would if he really needed to. In the end, it’s not rocket science. Maps are very practical documents that were created to help the average person get around. And when you clear your brain of all the static of modern daily life, it turns out maps just make sense.
On Thursday, we traveled south on the train and spent our last few days with dear friends at their home in Oxfordshire. We did laundry and I scoured their cookbooks in search of recipes for favorite dishes we’d had along our walk: Yorkshire parkin, steak and ale pie, oat biscuits, Victoria sponge. We drank gallons of tea, ran errands, and generally started our re-entry into regular life. By the time we arrived home, late on Sunday night, my world had both sped up and returned to it’s normal size, as if I had just climbed out of the rabbit hole and exited Wonderland.
But there is still wonder. In the week since we’ve been back, I’ve embraced friends and cuddled cats. I have said a forever goodbye to a dear friend, and held his wife so tight it’s a miracle she didn’t finally break. Instead I am in awe of her resilience and grace in the face of such terrible grief. I have sailed for 4 days on a wooden schooner through fog like woolen batting, wondering in earnest if I might taste salt on my lips and hear the jangle of rigging in my dreams for the rest of my life. And there is wonder as the fog lifts this morning in Portland and reveals Maine in her full summer flush—capable of holding beauty and grief and laughter and heartbreak in the pillow of her lush lap all at once. She reminds me that she has not abandoned us; she has, in fact, been here the whole time behind a grey veil of fog and rain, straightening her jeweled crown of blue sea and sky so that we may—as the curtain lifts—revel in the benevolence of home.
