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

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СКАЧАТЬ call Eve and James, and the line is so clear I feel I am reaching out and hugging them. They are part of me—the very best part—and I feel so close to them. I am happy and cheered knowing that everything is well at home. As many parents with grown-up families do, I feel that Eve and James and Pete are more than daughter and son and son-in-law to me; they are friends who I admire so much as well as love. They are in their thirties and with their own lives, but they are so good to me. They live far from Tenby, and often in the past we’ve been at the end of a phone like now. The difference this time is both that I shall be gone so long; but also that we are perhaps getting even closer in spirit than ever before.

      It’s a delightful boost when Geoff flies to Hamburg to walk with me for several kilometres before catching his flight back the same day. He also takes some good photos for the sponsors, which has been hard for me to achieve alone.

      As we set off, I find that I can cope without too much trouble with the bad foot. I wear a running shoe on one foot, surgical slipper on the other. With a plastic bag over the bandage, it works OK. Every time I get tired we call into a shop; they pull out a chair so I can rest for a few minutes but I soon get stronger.

      The only sad thing on the way from Hamburg is that Tenby Bear gets lost. I feel more than a twinge of sorrow. He’s been firmly tied and squashed into the backpack, but has vanished. Maybe he didn’t approve of the Red Light District or, on the contrary, liked it too much and has rushed back there to join in the fun. I hope some child in Hamburg who needs a beautiful bear will find him and love him a lot.

      By 15 November I’ve made 14km. I’m out in the forests again, it’s nearly −8 and the trees look like gossamer with stars caught in the frost branches. It always turns me inside-out with feelings I can’t describe, because of the sheer beauty and the feeling of being all alone in it.

      It’s cold but doesn’t rain, which is lucky as the foot stays dry and doesn’t get infected. I’m gradually able to wear a shoe on my bad foot, though without an insole.

      By 17 November I’ve reached Ratzeburg. Between here and Gadebusch, I run across the former border of East Germany. There is more difference between the old East Germany and West Germany than I realised. Bus stops in villages don’t have shelters, there are fewer cycle tracks. Houses are older, usually having smaller windows; penny marts and stalls sell everything. They seem quietly spoken, private folk who smile a bit when they hear my efforts at German. I had to learn the basics of five different languages before leaving home because in many cases nobody outside towns can speak English. It also seems to be a courtesy as well as necessity to learn a bit of each language.

      In a penny mart I meet Marion, selling salami with her husband. She writes in my book and says she’d love to cycle across Africa one day. ‘A dream is as necessary as being able to eat. It’s even more important when it’s all you have,’ she says. ‘We’ll go one day. Don’t tell my husband yet as it’s a secret.’ I can see he knows, from the affectionate smile he gives her. Maybe they should get a tandem, but then again maybe not. A week ago near Hamburg on a cycle path I saw a couple on a tandem. The man in front was beaming, pedalling fast. Luckily he couldn’t look back to see his wife her face like thunder, and not pedalling at all.

      Chunks of snow decorate the sweet-smelling pine forest after the first snowfall. Beneath mighty trees, little spruces and firs, delicately fringed with snow, are waiting to be collected to give pleasure over Christmas. I think, I want one like this next Christmas. I imagine my family sitting around it; parcels beneath. I think, It’s what I have always taken for granted that means the most now. That’s the biggest lesson of my run so far.

      People show me paths from farm to farm and through mighty pine woods before I head back onto a big road leading to Schwerin with its Cinderella-like castle. The last big place was Hamburg. I’m finding that reaching a town becomes part of the adventure.

      My foot is much better. The rest and recent low mileage have helped too—I ran 46km today to get to Schwerin, but am pretty tired; I decide, it’s definitely time for a treat.

      The first hotel I call at is expensive; the elderly blonde woman has a mean mouth. But a handsome young man with flowing hair is in charge of the next. He has a little dog with a bow in its hair that never leaves his heels. He welcomes me and charges half price. I have dinner in a hotel cafe with large aquaria everywhere, so one is truly dining with the fish; there are no other human guests. I retire to a comfy room where I can sort everything out and have a bath, soak the sore foot—and stretch in the warm water and luxuriate deliciously.

      Next morning I run in lashing rain across the Rampamoor, leading past mangroves and swamps close to the road between the water. It’s said to be a famous beauty spot but is ghoulish and full of restless ghosts as I cross in a near gale.

      A downpour has caused splashes of rainwater to be released in the trees. Each time the branches shake it’s like living under a waterfall so I have to keep moving the bivvi in the middle of the night. Since by now there’s no chance of getting to sleep, I do some writing. As my handwriting is a trainee MI5’s operative’s masterclass in decoding, especially by the flickering torchlight, I have to find new batteries. The bivvi suddenly seems larger once everything is brighter and now I can read what I have written I’m wondering why I bothered in the first place.

      I arrive at a strange place in the woods. A sign says it’s Raststate Rosenhof. The door’s unlocked so I push it. There are tree branches inside decorating it, so it still seems like part of the forest. There’s nobody there. Places are laid out with bowls and spoons, as in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I shout out ‘Hello’. A bouncy-looking man with gleaming eyes and a jolly expression appears, introducing himself as Jurgen. He treats me to coffee and produces a tray of freckled eggs in front of my eyes, carrying them off to the kitchen and personally cooking me a delicious breakfast: eggs, bacon and sausage, better than Goldilocks’ porridge. It stops raining and I get going. A car comes roaring up behind me on the country road. It’s Jurgen. As it’s early in the morning he’s dug his wife out of bed to meet up with me. He’s wrapped a blanket around her and brought her curlers and all.

      They have come because his parents have both died of cancer. They embrace me and wish me ‘gut speed’. The warmth with which they say it keeps me going a long way.

      Bruel is desolate and very windy when I get there. I wash my thermal vest in the Ladies (Damen) in one of the cafes, put it on wet as usual to be dried by my body—I’m my own clothes-horse. Drying is helped by the blast of the slipstream of passing juggernauts. The only problem is I haven’t rinsed the apple shampoo out of my clothes so everything smells of apple. Talk about ‘Cider with Rosie’.

      It often occurs to me that running as a way of travelling is a mixture of practical things, myths and unspoken laws:

       Say thank you to the ground you have slept on.

       Pick up any litter as if it’s 50 euro notes.

       Never miss the chance to be happy.

      I’ll never get over the feeling of climbing a hill and seeing the red roof of the first house in the next village. In this case it’s Grobraden, where there’s an old Slavonic castle. There are two languages, just like in Wales, and the history goes back thousands of years.

      I carry on over the next 150km to Usedom, a historical spot with a thin strip of land binding the Acterwasser or lake along the road that runs to Poland. I am tempted to stay longer in Usedom. There are breathtaking old oaks and beech trees among frosty, feathered pine trees. I see a sign beside a footpath saying there are wolves here, but don’t see any. There are no campsites open so I stay in the woods, tidily and quietly.

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