I am lying on my back in a green pool. I float through lily pads. The world is reduced to a frog’s view of blue sky and waving green leaves. Sunlight creates flashes of gold in front of my eyes. Is it just the light or is it the light catching the blonde of my eye lashes? I never know.
My hearing is muffled but I can still sense the rush of water. It reminds me of having my hair washed in the bath as a child. The otherworldliness of being submerged in water. It’s like being cradled while in the background the river sings her cooing, comforting melody. Around the pool there is flashing sunlight as it filters through the trees. At one end there is a run into the pool. The water splashes and gurgles. It makes silver wavelets that sparkle in the light before it rushes into the roundness of the pool. The water flows fast down the middle while it slows and eddies on the margins.
Blue damsel flies dart here and there. Streams of white gnats fly in opposing directions to each other just above the water. It’s an insect superhighway. Where the two streams cross each other it looks like crushed glass being blown through a wind tunnel.
I am near Mudford just North of Yeovil. It is only a day after stumbling across the church at Hornblotton and overhearing the teenagers outside Castle Cary.
I slept well in the orchard below Cadbury Castle. I woke at about 5 as usual. For most of the morning the sun was blocked by a thick bank of cloud that covered half the sky. I willed the pale smudge of sun to grow stronger. Dressed in several layers, I trudged on. Shivering. Meadows were heavy with moisture; my legs quickly dark and shiny from the wet.
The way takes a left to Stafford’s Green. It’s silent.
A mile later Sandford Orcas sleeps. All curtains closed. Is it because most people are still working from home? Or is it that it’s early?
It’s only once I join the B3148 before it goes into Sherborne that the sun tentatively starts to show itself. I’m no sooner on it before I’m off on another drove. The purple of a linseed field accompanies me as the blue appears.
Suddenly dog walkers are everywhere. One man is smiling at me from 100 metres away.
‘Morning! Lovely day.’
‘Yes, absolutely’ I reply, both of us matching each other’s enthusiasm at the miracle of sunshine.
It’s slippery working my way down Charlock Hill. As I step into a meadow the west has opened out in front of me. Everything changes. I stop and breathe. The land here drops gently: one line will slope downwards and another will intersect it and go off at a similarly low angle. I used to draw lines like these to dream myself away from lessons at school.
The path becomes a track which becomes a narrow road. Openings into felds give way to openings into driveways and pretty stone houses. The relative vibrance of a village feels so different after the solitude of the way. A radio blasts out chart music. A man in dusty overalls walks around the front of his van.
‘Morning. Turned out nice.’
‘Lovely, isn’t it?’
Who says the English are obsessed with the weather?
The Rose and Crown in Trent has one of the best beer gardens there is. Flowers in June create a flood of colour. You can see south over meadows towards Nether Compton while looking west the land dips down into the Yeo valley and the northernmost houses of Yeovil are visible amongst the trees. I eat a good caesar salad and a cold Coke. If I drink beer I’ll fall asleep.
This was supposed to be the end for this time. Yeovil Pen Mill station is only a mile away. From there I can get a train to Castle Cary and then a taxi back to the car at Wookey Hole. But the sun is out. I can get a later train. It’s warm and there’s a weir on the map. I suddenly realise it’s on the Way. I imagine young people jumping off swings or a dead pool with scum and drinks bottles around the edges.
The walking is now a stroll through fields. Thoughts are absent; sunlight is in my eyes. Am I 50? Am I 5? In a moment sometimes I can’t tell.
I’m in the hottest part of the day. The sweat makes my hair stick to my scalp. I have to stop to wipe it out of my eyes. The river appears to my left but behind a thick swathe of nettles. Around a bend. Thick trees enrobe the river. There is a narrow footbridge. And suddenly an opening. I feel like a berber traveller stumbling on an oasis in the desert. I feel the little jolts in my chest – immutable, undimmed by the years or decades that I’ve felt the same rush of energy. Who would have thought a green pool could have the power to move me so?
Shorts, socks, trainers, boxers are discarded in seconds. The trunks are on and I slip over on the mud bank. I pause for a second then laugh to myself like a madman. I am in amongst the wavelets, the lilies, the glitter, the flowing insects. Somehow I feel this was predestined – not that I believe in such things – but there is a sense that I was waiting for this, working towards it. As long as I keep going.
The water holds me. I look like Millais’ s Ophelia but not. I don’t think she was grinning like this..
The Slow Walker 