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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       CHAPTER 4 Eyes in Your Feet

       England–Holland–Germany, October 2003

      Choppy waves in the fresh breeze. Darkness falls as I gaze back at England.

      It’s 225 miles since I crossed the Severn Bridge. Seagulls cry as the ferry pulls out. I’m standing on deck, looking as the lights come on in Harwich, and darkness falls.

      ‘October blackberries are the Devil’s fruit,’ my grandmother Carlie used to say but I think they’re the most tempting of any fruit. They make handy fuelling stations for a runner and I feast on them. There has been a full moon above the sweeping soft English autumn countryside and the days are sparkling and sunny though sometimes chilly. It’s been a beautiful run.

      Among the most powerful images of this part of the route are the distinguished buildings and grounds of great stately-looking places like the Marlborough Public School buildings and grounds, and quaint houses and tiny cottages in quiet villages and small market towns like Castle Combe, Chipping Sodbury and others. Even Slough, which I have always only driven through, I now see in a new way too.

      Everywhere I’m cheered on and helped with good humour and kindness; especially outside pubs along the canal path from Slough to London, where people sit with their pints, their reflections in the clear water turning them into double pints. En route, I see foxes and badgers, and the blackbird’s morning song follows me everywhere.

      I have the same feelings that I did when leaving Wales: England, the whole of the British Isles, is so precious and beautiful. My ears ache with listening and trying to remember the melody of the blackbirds and my eyes and mind hurt with storing the sights around me that I will not see again for years.

      Near Marlborough in Wiltshire, a vet stops his car. His name is Martin and he tells me he’s also a runner. When he ran from Land’s End to John O’Groats he used a baby-jogger.

      ‘Much easier than carrying a backpack. You’re carrying too much weight which long term will ruin your back. You need to get a cart to pull.’

      Looking back, I really respected his advice and wished I’d taken it sooner. At the time, though, I thought it could be difficult to camp at night and progress through tracks in woods with a cart.

      It means so much that Mark, Clive’s favourite nephew, his wife Mandy and son Andrew drive out to see me. They are such a part of it all, and yet so already is Geoff who I have only ever met once before, at the Omsk Marathon. Geoff runs 20 miles with me and we drink cool lemonade at the end. The most special moments are the two nights with Eve, Pete and my grandson Michael, after I’ve run the canal path from Slough to London. I wake up in the spare bedroom, thinking I have all the time in the world.

      Please make time stand still—also please make time pass that I can win through. There’s no point in feeling selfish about this. So many people go through the same thing when they are off on some mission—or off to war. This run is a joy for me to do, but it is also my small personal and fierce war, my little contribution to life, not much compared to what many do. If I was a doctor or nurse I would not run around the world because then I could do more here.

      I love my family so much. Eve is like me but much cleverer and more beautiful; Michael is a kindred spirit, though only one and half; Pete’s a Liverpudlian, a designer—one of the best people I’ve ever met. They want me to go on my run; it’s for Clive, but it is for them too.

      I also feel very sad when saying goodbye to Catherine in London, and to dear Nedd, the black cat who owns her; I have faith I will see them all again; I have faith it will all work out; but my heart is thudding with the immensity of the journey ahead.

      I spend several days running from London to Colchester and on to the east coast. I keep thinking, ’This is just one little step, one little breath, in my aim to circle the globe. I have planned it, prepared for it; been inspired to do it; yet it is still something I never thought I could reach for in my lifetime. It has been full of practical, prosaic plans and strategies and solutions; but still something beyond all the horizons I know.

      By 19 October, I’m boarding the ferry to Holland.

      The ferry docks at Hook at 4am in the stillness of predawn darkness. I unwrap the bivvi, rest in it awhile, awaken to skies blazing in a tangerine sunrise. The huge clouds across the skies are golden. I understand why in Holland they call clouds ‘the Dutch mountains’. They are the most spectacular peaks around. Soon, early light is reflecting the tops of many glasshouses in town, which sparkle like diamonds. Thousands appear on bikes on their way to work. Everybody is warm and good-humoured, saying good morning to me in English. There’s the smell of hot coffee, fresh croissants and cakes in the chocolatiers and bakeries.

      I begin the 50km run to Haarlem. The path is through a forest, then along dykes and canals. A mist descends. Boats emerging out of the fog seem close enough to touch. It almost seems I’m travelling beside them in the same element, on the water. СКАЧАТЬ