Just a Little Run Around the World: 5 Years, 3 Packs of Wolves and 53 Pairs of Shoes. Rosie Pope Swale

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER 6 Need Makes the Naked Lady Spin

       Germany, November 2003

      These are the foothills of the epic adventures ahead. I am in a hidden Germany I’ve never known existed: white-tailed deer leaping and bounding so high you’d think they had wings; cottages out of Hansel and Gretel; more hogs (though none behave like Eric); foxes and owls hunting at night, falcons and kestrels and hundreds of songbirds by day. As I nibble at black bread and cheese, the smaller birds often hop along with me, jumping on the crumbs.

      I arrive at the historical town of Oldenburg among pretty buildings and churches with tall spires. I’d like to stay in Oldenburg one day with someone I love. I put the idea in a little bag inside my head called ‘Later’. I hope it’s a strong bag, as it holds a lot.

      I think how lucky I’ve been to sleep beneath the beautiful stars in forests at night; to hear the wind stirring after a calm forest night; and get the smells and taste almost of the new day; the wild herbs, berries and fresh wild air—and to be on my way. The mornings are frosty and clear and everything just feels great.

      I love these forests and towns that give me a feeling of running through a storybook. ‘I’ll be back, I keep telling myself.’ On foot I am slow enough for the spell of my surroundings to catch and absorb me. They become part of me. Yet this is overshadowed by my emotions about the urgency of trying to keep going as well as I can. Russia lies ahead but it is at least 2,000 miles away.

      I’m already on my third pair of shoes and they have looked after me really well, My legs feel fine. Top marathoners sometimes do 150 miles a week, just in training for a race, so the distance, even with the heavy pack, isn’t so extreme as my pace is about 30–35km a day. If I think like this, the running is easier.

      Over the next few days I cross footbridges over the huge autobahns or go through dark little tunnels leading beneath them, following mostly farm tracks and cycle paths. I’m so slow people often stop me to find out what I’m doing and give me valuable local directions. I am getting on reasonably well in German with the help of a phrase book, and going slowly makes me feel part of the communities I am running through, which makes me less lonely, and everybody is good to me. Some of the byways aren’t on any map I’ve bought. I go north of Bremen after negotiating the bridge on the outskirts across the river, eventually reaching Buxthude and I’m 20km from Hamburg where I need to collect a parcel.

      I’m given keys to a closed campsite so I can shower in the toilet block. The showers work but the lights are dim and while I’m showering I hear crunching beneath my feet and realise the floor’s full of broken glass, as one of the windows has been smashed by the winter storms. I spend a long time picking it out of my feet but think no more of it.

      I arrive in Hamburg at last on 11 November, and find a policeman leaning against his motorcycle as I reach the city centre after hours of heading in from the outskirts. He signs my logbook with a flourish, directing me to the Allianz Cornhill building—a glittering skyscraper. One of the most difficult things on this run is getting an address where I can get my kit sent ahead. Geoff Hall who works for Allianz Cornhill in London has arranged for their office in Hamburg to kindly help and receive a box of equipment for me which has arrived. Myrto Reiger and her colleagues greet me cheerfully, dragging in what they call ‘the Rosie Parcel’.

      I check out the website which is going so well. I’m inspired all the time by the way people have been helping non-stop; most of all, the heart-warming and exceptional support from my ‘A Team’ back at home who have been in on it from day one. This sustained assistance is so valuable. Ann has even sent a ‘Red Cross parcel’ she’s made up for me, containing fruitcake and home-made apple pie, that’s somehow survived. The items need to be packed into my rucksack. They all help, as the poor pack grows and grows. Cakes and coffee are served, and they produce a gift of a big box of chocolates, sharing my joy as I open letters from family and hand around photos. I get out all the treats, letters from my family, vital winter kit from PHD and new shoes. It’s like a birthday party! I leave a couple of hours later feeling happy and exuberant.

      The first place I arrive at that has rooms is a very prosperous bordello, one of the best in town, says the landlady as she shows me up the stairs. They have plenty of rooms for the budget traveller as well. The whole establishment seems to have been designed as a stage set for a Feydeau farce—with separate staircases so those going up for fun won’t collide with those coming down and be embarrassed, she informs me archly, taking me up to my tiny room.

      It’s only when I stop and the euphoria of arrival wears off that I become aware of the extreme pain in my left foot. I sink on the bed, close the gingham curtains and examine my foot which had trodden on the glass and which is now very painful. There’s a huge lump like a corn with a glistening sliver of glass still in it and the callous has grown around it. I get out my small knife and dig the glass out a bit ferociously, but it doesn’t work and the foot soon becomes agonising. The little room is spotless but black mice keep darting here and there. If I turn on the light, I even find them sitting on the shelf. So there is wildlife here too. They entertain me all through the night as I can’t sleep.

      Next day a nearby pharmacy gives me the name of a doctor. I call Ann in Tenby, still keeping an eye on my finances, and go for it. The nurse wraps a black band with a blood-pressure measuring dial around my left ankle and injects my foot. The doctor proceeds to cut off most of my third toe but it’s probably just the skin. The nurse wraps it all up in thick bandages so it resembles a Yeti’s foot and says I have to buy a giant blue surgical slipper she’s produced.

      No running for two weeks, the doctor says.

      I retire to my bordello, determined to make it in three days. The foot will heal fast as I’m fit. I’m concerned that I had a visa for the little piece of Russia called Kallingrad, which is all on its own in Europe; an extra visa to get through this area has also been arranged by Liza but will run out if I don’t get there soon enough.

      I get ready. It’s 12 November; if I can leave on the 14th, that would be fantastic. Behind my hotel, alternating with the many wild-looking clip joints and naked shows, are small, inexpensive shops selling food from around the world, ranging from African sweet yams to delicious tiny Caribbean bananas and rye-bread.

      The kiosk walls in the many small businesses offering cheap phone-calls are paper-thin. As I queue up with others, mostly from a large, hard-working immigrant community living quietly alongside the thriving nightlife, I recognise joy in the voices at once as soon as anyone gets through.

      It’s the first time on my run I’ve been amongst others far from their homes who have left families behind in more straitened circumstances of poverty and war than I could ever dream. They are sweet people and very polite to me. We communicate with words and gestures. As an Icelandic friend later tells me, ‘Need makes the naked lady spin.’

      The mice look on with definite approval СКАЧАТЬ