Leaving was far harder than I thought it would be. Audrey and Dennis have become surrogate parents to us and leaving was leaving behind everything familiar and safe. We read The Hobbit tonight and Tolkien describes Bilbo as half Took and half Baggins, one adventurous the other homey. Leaving brought out the Baggins in me in spades.
Our journey today can only be described as hard. We traveled up over the slope of the Long Mynd. A road so difficult it was amazing. It was like climbing to clouds. But our descent was pure pleasure, the green hills of England rumpled around us, speckled with the white of sheep, the Devil’s Chair looming up at our side.
We stopped for a rest in Bishops Castle, at the cathedral, and were treated to the melodius sound of the organist practicing.
When we left we were once again faced with an enourmous hill that almost broke us. Our trip down was once again amazing with the Castle of Clun looming like a jagged tooth below us.
When we finally arrived at Clun it was strangely anticlimactic. I had no idea what to do with myself and would have wandered around aimlessly had we not found a map. We followed it to the hostel,, a quaint old mill converted to a travelers rest. It is stone and wood and comfortable and vastly different that I expected. Of course we have a dorm to ourselves, the hoof and mouth disease that has ravaged the cattle of Britain has done the same to the travel industry.
We found on our arrival here that a few things had not happened as planned, most especially my water bottle had broken, filling my backpack with water and drenching my map. But I am tired enough to overlook small problems. Tomorrow we will face the consequences of today and we will decide were to go. I only hope that with experience the fear that knots my belly will diminish.
Next Entry: Day 12
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2 comments:
I remember sitting in the catherdral listening to the organ being played and thinking how moving the sounds was.
I believe that this is where we began to learn that what goes down must go up eventually.
This is all super cool, Brendan. What a good way to share your awesome experience. I find myself reading this instead of working.... oops.
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