A pilgrims tale.
Your hero and heroine have journeyed from the little old town of Westerham, near the mighty M25 turnpike, where the high street turns its back on London and reaches out to Wessex in the west and Canterbury in the East, to the great cathedral city of Canterbury, without resort to any horse, donkey or porter.
The season was bleak, two whole days were spent walking hooded, in rain of varying heaviness, but as said by Andie MacDowel to Hugh Grant in an atrocious film we should not remember, “there comes a time when you can’t get any wetter”. The wet days were every bit as pleasant as the dull days, and even the brief bright winter light moments. Each moment was precious and each turn lead to a tunnel of falling leaves, a view across the Downs, a carpet of golden yellow Field Maple leaves, a tramp across a flood plain…
The North Downs Way is a protected passage for walkers, we oft had views across the sprawl of Maidstone and the rumble of motorways was ever present, but it was possible to keep our focus throughout on the beauty, peace, and variety of the path and its very natural route, a continuity of landscape and nature.
A highlight was on the last day, (one of the partially wet days), we came across two beautiful young heifers munching their way through long grass, tree shoots and ivy in a secluded hazel coppice. My companion became quite ecstatic to see these sweet girls living such good life and being cared for and employed in proper land management, it was definitely the first time I have seen cows looking so happy and not depleting their environment. It had never before occurred to me but surely, grass to manure and back to grass is a very unlikely eco system in our crowded region, sustaining a very limited amount of biodiversity and, most likely, requiring an input of South American grain.
A contrast to this, we encountered another massive field where we were meanly separated from the sheep by an electric fence, the field was so large, that it needed to be divided this way. It had, I am confident, previously been divided by one, or several hedges and or walls. To our left was a vast expanse of ploughed and harrowed field, at this season a great muddy abyss of little ridges and troughs. To our right, behind the electricity, the sheep still had the run of a large space, although they weren’t given the shelter of the wall through which we had come, the fence stood 6 feet before it. The grass looked short, and it wasn’t clear where the sheep would go when they were done with the meagre meal on offer. I am told that these sheep could have been regularly moved down the lanes to other more verdant pastures, but we never encountered such a sight, and I expect, good people of Kent, neither have you. We neither of us remember clearly seeing a feeding station but it is most probable that an input was required from outside of this field.
On our last day, we walked from the marvellously named Flying Horse Pub in Boughton Lees, which stands on the unlit side of a triangular cricket field, and crosses the “V” formed by two lanes, with the fork in the road at the other end of the village. Walking up either lane from the fork, the floodlit Flying Horse across the green made a lovely sight. This day took us on a diversion from the North Downs Way, in mind of blisters and sore feet, to the safer, shorter and more solid path of the Stour Valley Walk, which took us, after a terrifying rush hour mile down a commuter lane to Wye, onto a lovely improved path/cycle path entering the city along the river instead of descending from the hills.
Seeing a Kingfisher, at a few yards distance, and long enough to recognise his blue body, his pointed head and his long stout beak, should have been a highlight, but I was more excited at the achievement than any distinct beauty, or any great understanding of him. It was pleasing nonetheless, I called back my wife, hoping for another show, and though we waited a few minutes, as the path was some distance from the river, where my friend had dived for his fishy meal, and separated by some bushes it seemed unlikely he should show off to us again.
Evensong in the cathedral later was a treat, it felt very fine to be welcomed as a ”pilgrim”, although we are not entirely sure we were, and a comfort to think that in this strange structured way, humans, the choir, are exhibiting beauty every morning and every cold winter’s night.
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