WALKING BACK TO HAPPINESS

 

They have the sheep well-trained in Leicestershire

Both Sue and I had our first bout of Covid during December, (we’re ‘Novids!’) so thirty-four days from first positive test, on a dreakh, cheerless day, here I am so to speak testing the waters with a walk (never any wild swimming, or indeed any swimming at all for me)  because only on a few occasions in the last five weeks have I managed my ten thousand steps.

For us the Virus passed reasonably gently, like a really bad cold, but some symptoms have hung around. Sue still has a bad cough and has lost her sense of smell, temporarily we hope. I have moments of fatigue. We’ve both experienced brain fog. The variation of Covid symptoms person to person has perhaps heightened awareness that the same is true of other coronaviruses.  One would like to think that people’s social habits have changed as a result of their experience of infection, but not so.  We probably caught it at a posh concert in Uppingham School Chapel from people who must have known they were unwell but didn’t wish to forego their chance to hear The Sixteen.  How was Covid for you?

The Church is slowly reverting to previous practice, and we’re left with a few permanent changes. ‘Zoom’ has gone from being a spiritual lifeline to a useful ‘bolt on’, but perhaps has in some places become an excuse for avoiding the messiness and work involved in gathering together in person. The question of how communion is received has been examined afresh. In our benefice, practice now varies.  In some places people receive ‘in two kinds’ again, in some the priest continues to intinct the bread on behalf on the worshippers. In one church people are again dipping a wafer into the cup, though this is a practice now widely frowned on.  It’s said this is because people can be inclined to horrible clumsiness, which is true:  I wonder if some clergy also dislike it because it’s a democratic bridge too far, diminishing their own priestly role.  In daily life, having now experienced the Virus directly after more than four years of its known existence among us, I’ve stopped my rather obsessive following of the available world-wide statistics detailing its advance.  Why? Personal psychology no doubt, but also because the stats are now only patchily available week by week. No one’s counting any more.

Most of the traffic away from Stonesby towards Waltham on the Wolds seems to be coming towards me, so there’s a lot of verge-hopping.  The visibility isn’t great. The high pressure which has developed after an exceedingly rainy period over Christmas and the New Year has resulted in a cloud-sheet which comes and goes. Yesterday was lovely and bright. Today is depressingly overcast, and I hadn’t factored in the accompanying fine drizzle. My mood has darkened along with the weather.

Waltham presents an attractive face to the world. Walking up the High Street I pass a farm deli and a small hair salon. There’s a Post Office, and in the distance I see the lights of the pub. Oh, and here’s St. Mary Magdalene’s which seems to promise a good opportunity for someone…

Inside the church is delightfully re-ordered, chairs and tables laid out café-style. I like the pews laid against the walls on the north and south aisles, which make me think of how things might have been in medieval times. The sanctuary is dark but charming once the lights are on – I hope they use it!  And unless I’m misunderstanding, there’s not one, but two loos.  The heating looks like it might be enough to prevent frostbite during the coming months. Well done to Waltham’s thousand or so souls for a cheerful welcome even when there’s no one there.

The church was a victim of the 2008 ‘Market Rasen earthquake’, which measured a considerable 5.2 on the Richter Scale – unusually large for the UK. The top thirty feet of the spire had to be replaced, which cost someone a lot of money.

Volcanic

Catnip for today’s ‘Express’:

earthquake, wind and fire.

Unexpected though, to learn

the ground brought down a spire

here among the rolling wolds

of domestic Leicestershire.

 

My inner landscape boils and heaves

beneath a placid frame,

giving no hint of the lava flows,

the conflict, guilt and shame,

which force a way between my lips

to hurt, destroy and blame:

 

obscuring the faint insistent voice

which softly calls my name.

 

I think of walking north towards Bescarby, but decide I’ve had enough for a first outing, and find the Mowbray Way which begins a loop around the south of the quarry back to Stonesby village.  It’s not as sodden underfoot as I’d thought, and though there’s a bit of slipping and sliding on the grassy path beyond the duck farm, I skirt the hedge until the track turns south towards Stonesby’s church.  And then realise I no longer have my stick in my right hand. It was a present from my dad, who passed away a few months more than a decade ago. It’s been my walking companion for twenty-five years. I’ve left him accidentally twice before, once on a Central Line station in West London, and once in the middle of a very wet field of barley near Piddington in Northants, quite early in my Big Walk around Peterborough Diocese.  Both times I’ve retraced my steps, and been reunited. In the Central Line – one of the Ealings, I think,  I was simply astonished to find him still leaning on the platform bench where I’d sat down half an hour earlier. And I’m third-time-lucky today.  There he is lying, snoozing in the grass beside a stile.  Joy is as unconfined as sorrow was just a few minutes earlier.  By the likes of this, we contemporary humans understand the impulse of our ancestors towards ‘grave goods’. What few things would you wish to be buried with, undertakers permitting…?

Stonesby – Waltham on the Wolds – Stonesby

9 km (including the backtracking)  3.5 hours. 6 degrees C.  Cloudy, damp and discouraging.  But then, it’s January!

‘Walking back to happiness’ was a number 1 chart hit for Helen Shapiro in 1961.  Helen was only 14 when she recorded the song, but her voice sounds extraordinarily mature and dark for someone so young.  Career-wise this worked against her.  The style and influences of the next wave of British women singers were very different, and Helen seemed to become identified with a kind of pop music that was suddenly un-hip.  Her descent into cabaret and ‘the clubs’ was more rapid than for most, but great affection remains for this and her other early hits.