“Don’t you want to progress? Write, do it, you might die at any moment.” And suddenly I realised this was the answer to the irritating journalist’s cliché, How has cancer changed you?
I hadn’t received any national coverage by this point, and didn’t receive much press attention at all, other than a few articles about my journey in Wales Online, but could guarantee a column in each local paper. I’d usually phone them up for an interview which ticked off a checklist of standard questions – name, age, where from, charities raising money for, amount raised. If I was lucky (or unlucky), I’d get a question about cancer and how it had affected me. All I ever wanted to answer was, “NO, it hasn’t changed me at all! I’m still the same and I’m not going to be affected by this stupid illness. I just had a hole ripped in my belly, that’s all, I just lost a couple of minor organs. I’m still the same person, I am all the things I was before.”
But there was a difference, here was the change. It made me aware of time, of the blunt ending of death, its indifference to circumstances. I’m aware that my precious life could end at any moment and I need to make use of it because I’ll never get it back. I felt the need to get on, the need to achieve now, because no-one knows when death might come. Every month must be movement towards achievement, there was no time to let focus slide. I hadn’t thought like this before cancer.
South of Llangollen, I joined the Offa’s Dyke Path at Rhydycroesau where it skirted around Oswestry. I woke up in the house of a couple I’d met when I’d walked into the Barley Mow, Trefonen, the previous night. Michelle, Steve, baby Charlotte and three big dogs welcomed me into their home, after chatting to me for a while in the pub as I helped myself to the buffet plates of party food scattered around, the remnants of a birthday. We chatted, ate a slow breakfast together, and somehow I didn’t start walking until ten.
I followed the Offa’s Dyke Path again, in reverse this time, down from Trefonen towards Welshpool. I wanted to get to Welshpool but knew it was too far, so I texted Jen in Guilsfield to see if I could stay with her. She was a Facebook follower who I didn’t know at all but had messaged to offer me a bed when my path brought me close to her. No probs, she said. Great.
Offa’s Dyke is signed at every junction and also very heavily walked so you never have to think about where you’re going, just follow the clear pathway worn down into the grass, the tread of feet noticeably thinning the undergrowth. It was very different to my recent struggles with Ordnance Survey maps, invisible stiles and banks of nettles. I felt like I was on a walker’s motorway, an ambulatory fast track, allowing me to walk much faster than I’d been able to in recent weeks. I came to Llanymynech Hill and could see over the Welshpool valley. It was so satisfying to think that I’d traversed this landscape three times already, on the Severn Way, the Offa’s Dyke path and Glyndŵr’s Way, all in one sequential journey.
I reached Arddlin at six, to meet Jen. She walked along the path a little way to meet me, waving as we walked towards each other. We chatted a bit and I said how I really wanted to get to Welshpool tonight, it would make tomorrow so much easier – allowing me to walk to Llanfair Caereinion in a day, to stay with my mother’s friends.
“Well, why don’t you?” she said. “It’s only another four miles and I’ll come and pick you up when you’re done.”
I thought about it. It was much further than I’d recently been attempting, but I could give Jen the rucksack and it would be great to get all the way to Welshpool. So I set off.
A girl called Lou wanted to meet me, too, a friend of Jen’s. She’d meet me in Welshpool and take me to Jen’s. Half seven, I said, maybe eight.
Definitely eight, I amended, a bit later on, Facebook messages flicking between us all.
It was 9pm by the time I got into Lou’s car. She came along the towpath to find me, fed me banana and chocolate and was a great companion for the last hour. Meeting me was important to her; her mother had died from ovarian cancer and, in response, she had done a lot of symptoms-awareness and fundraising work in Wales.
At Jen’s we drank beer and ate together. The girls told me I’d walked somewhere between seventeen and twenty miles that day. I couldn’t believe them, asking a few times for confirmation; I didn’t think my bad foot was capable of that. It’s astounding. I would never have pushed for that last section on my own. It was hard, and I definitely felt the pain once I’d stopped, but nowhere near as badly as I’d thought.
I was so grateful to Jen and Lou for that day. They were a brilliant support team, coming out to walk alongside me.
From Welshpool to Llanfair Caereinion to Caersws to Abbeycwmhir to Glastonbury; I met strong women everywhere I went. Sarah in Llangollen facing down a potential cancer diagnosis, Lou and Jen in Welshpool helping me through a twenty-mile day, their own bereavements very present, Claire the Couchsurfer in Welshpool leading a nursing team, and Rebecca the 1000-mile walker who would support me through the Knighton area. Maybe it was walking as a single woman that invited care from the women who wanted to help me, or the ovarian cancer I’d suffered that inspired female solidarity. Each of them, in their own particular way, inspired me in return.
The day before I left for the Glastonbury Festival, taking a week out for a yearly commitment to serve pizza and earn some much needed wages, I walked over the high hills from Caersws towards Abbeycwmhir through gently roaring wind-farms. I was very late starting but it didn’t matter at all as in Caersws I was given an ice-cream by the nice lady from the café, and saw Dee Doody driving past, whose house I stayed in as a guest of Heloise in Llanidloes. Plus, Shân Ashton, who’d done so much for me in the Conwy valley, called excitedly to me as she pulled a minibus over to the side of the road on her way to Merthyr Tydfil. Wales felt like a big village that day, and I was coming to know all of it, my adventure making so many new connections for me.
Abbeycwmhir was a hidden village, hanging trees obscuring the views of most of the houses. I first saw the ornate tower top of a church, then descended a steep hillside to find an interesting pub at the winding roadside.
I sat alone in the Happy Union Inn for a couple of hours until, after 10pm, the customers drifted in. Working farmers, still in the comfortable grime of their working clothes, drinking and refreshing themselves after a long day of haymaking, vibrating tractors and dusty grasses. It was a comfortable and ancient place, with people doing as they had done for many decades. I sat in their atmosphere for as long as I could stay awake, absorbing their relaxation and joviality, until I went to find a field to sleep in and hitched out the next morning to head for Glastonbury.
My friend sponsored me with a pizza, a Festival special: the Wonderwoman! 50p from every one sold would go to my charities. It was a strange thing, taking a break. While I was there, in the packed-out glorious Glastonbury, I couldn’t imagine being able to journey again, to return to that world of constant outside, where my legs strode across the land in automatic steps. Loud music was all around me, people rushing past to collect supplies to feed the waiting queues. I reversed my body clock completely, smoked a bit, drank a lot, chatted, joked, made up stories, flirted, grinned, received tips and slung pizza at a variety of drunken, happy, glitter-covered festie-goers. Right there, in that chair behind the food stall, in the centre of the festival buzz, the solitary dreamer of my walking days seemed very far away.
I always have a lovely time working at Glastonbury – intense but lovely. I chatted a lot of late-night rubbish with happy drunken people and came away with £213 for my two charities, another few hundred pounds income to keep me walking, and a warm glow.
I hitched back to Abbeycwmhir, happily wearing the remnants of my festival facepaint. Other after-effects lasted a bit longer, though. I’d spent the week drinking lager rather than water, sleeping during the day and staying awake all night.
I woke the next morning in the long grass on the edge of a field containing the remnants of Cwmhir Abbey. Over time most of the stones and monastic works had been taken away to adorn
other churches or build houses. I was up with the light but it wasn’t a good day. Sickness, diarrhoea, fuzzy head. Rebecca and Phil came to meet me. Rebecca had finished her 1000 miles around Wales two months previously; we’d been in contact during that time, sending each other messages and postcards without ever meeting. She and I walked a slow eight miles over the hills down to Llanfihangel Rhydithon before they whisked me home for rest and recuperation. They were wonderful hosts. Phil was a jolly bear of a man, loud and comforting to be around, complementing the quiet Rebecca. In their provision of good food and joviality they made me feel completely welcome.
I had a morning off in their house, frantically trying to do as many computer things as I could. Emailing newspapers to work up some publicity, updating my blog, buying supplies, making online payments, uploading photos. It was days like this that I missed having a support team, people working away in the background to make everything run smoothly so that I didn’t have to worry about things like a broken shampoo bottle or a dress that needed mending or where to buy sun-cream.
My shoes were damaged again, the soles separating away from the uppers. They’d not done badly, I’d walked about 800 miles in this pair of fell-running trainers. In Hay-on-Wye I could buy glue in an outdoor shop and make a temporary repair while I arranged to receive a new pair in the post. Accessing an address for parcel delivery was the complicated part, I had to try to find a friendly person online who wouldn’t mind receiving post for me and keeping it until I arrived on foot.
I got up early, unpacked my rucksack and packed it again, trying, as always, to find something I could take out to lighten the load. Maybe it was warm enough now to lose a pair of gloves or even my fleece waistcoat? I took it downstairs to where Rebecca and Phil were babysitting a neighbour’s boy, entertaining him with wooden trains. They weighed my rucksack and it came out at a stonking 17kg, far more than I wanted on my shoulders. We took some food out and got it down to a more manageable fifteen. I aimed to carry between 12kg and 14kg, including food and water. There were so many small things that seemed to slip in as essentials that took me over that, though; symptoms awareness cards and postcards to send to supporters were a significant weight. Plus, it was difficult to buy small packets of certain foods; if I wanted more muesli I had to buy a kilo at a time, when I ate roughly 350g a week. With the packing, rearranging and discussing it was gone 10am before we got in the car to go to the drop-off, pretty typical for most days I spend being hosted. I usually have great intentions to get going but pottering happens, interesting conversations over breakfast, and I never make it out early.
I set off across the hills from Llanfihangel Nant Melan towards Hay-on-Wye. First came a high steep climb behind some farm buildings over to a mix of moorland and forestry. I got lost within half a mile and it started to rain, not a great beginning to the day. I decided to stop for lunch early (cunningly lightening my load still further): oily bacon and potatoes eaten straight out of a vacuum packed silver bag as I sat on soft moss, pine fronds tickling my neck. I wiped my fork on the moss, then on my leggings and cracked on in the drizzle. It would have been a glorious landscape to walk through in the dry: high pasture and moorland, with lakes and sheep and tiny isolated houses, small wind-turbines whirling. As it was I only saw glimpses of this through rain-studded spectacles as I walked as fast as I could, the bridleway stretching out ahead of me and curling around a hillside. I needed to get out of the rain for a bit, so I decided to stop in the next barn for half an hour. Just my luck it had people in it! I asked if I could shelter for a bit and they didn’t mind, even made me a cup of tea before continuing with their shearing. I hung my sodden waterproofs from various protruding pieces of metal machinery, took my boots off, squeezing them, squelching from each foot and sat, steaming slightly, as I drank the good hot tea.
I came down into Newchurch at about 5pm, a place I remembered from the Offa’s Dyke Path. It has about fifteen houses and a small church where they lay out drinks and biscuits for walkers, according to a tradition started in the time of Charles II. I sat in the church for several hours, drying out and rehydrating, as the rain fell outside. 7pm came and went, nobody came to lock up the church. 8pm passed and I hadn’t seen anyone. I might sleep in here, I thought, not looking forward to the thought of a soggy bed outside. 9pm passed – still no-one. So I made my bed in the aisle. I felt slightly nervous about ghosts and spirits, the atmospheric humming of the ancient building affecting me until I lay down and sleepy feelings took over. I looked at the ceiling and thought about the hundreds of years of weekly wishes spiralling up into the rafters.
The next day I absolutely stormed the seven miles into Hay-on-Wye. A nice lady came in to clean the church at 7.30am, making me very glad I was already up and packed! I don’t think she would have minded anyway, but it was good to get out walking by eight. The Offa’s Dyke Path is great for fast walking; I saw plenty of other walkers coming my way too, a nice change to say hello and have the odd conversation. I saw the Black Mountains again. It felt slightly less awe-inspiring to look across the landscape and think that I’d walked that three months ago. Was this experience in danger of becoming mundane? Was everything finally blurring into one long year of walking, like routine days in an office job that all became the same?
In a Hay café I did a bit of internet surfing and stuff, washed my socks in the sink, blagged a free bit of cheesecake and put my shoes on the windowsill to dry out. I used the break to put up a social media post celebrating 1000 miles walked. Whoop!
It felt good, it felt official. Even though I was overweight, even though I didn’t train, even though I was carrying too much in my pack, even though I hurt my foot, I’d walked 1000 miles because I’m stubborn and determined. It felt great. If it all went wrong next week I’d still have walked 1000 miles and that was enough to be proud of. I’d celebrated with Rebecca the night before, opening a bottle of Prosecco in our honour, two female 1000-mile walkers. Reaching this milestone also gave me hope for the future. If I could walk 1000 miles, I could walk any distance. I might be walking for an entire year but I was going to walk 3000 miles. Fuck. Yeah.
That night I knew, for a too-brief overnight stay, what it felt like to do a supported walk. I came up onto the high land out of Hay-on-Wye, following the Offa’s Dyke Path again. It was coming to sundown and I wanted to get a few miles done before the light faded. I came to the long, flat plateau overlooking the Wye Valley, the Black Mountains towering to my left and a long clear view of the land beyond me, the lights of Hay glimmering down to the right, and the squares and fields of farmland, cut outs, lines and markings, the division of land into owned pieces and the lights that marked the human dwellings.
A van overtook me, windows in the back marked it as a camper. There’s a cup of tea in that van, I thought, and watched as it pulled in about 200m ahead of me. As I trod closer, in steady paces, a silver-haired woman called out to me.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” Magic.
I ended up in there for the evening, sitting with my feet outstretched as a slender and graceful woman cooked me a meal, kneading chapatti dough in a bowl, giving me banana and fried vegetables to scoop with my fingers. Her story started with a fact; she’d been abandoned by her partner. He’d unexpectedly ended the relationship, the man she thought was hers forever had dumped her for a younger woman. She’d settled into this partnership, thought it was a certainty and then she had to learn that they’d been taking each other for granted. They’d lost the spark, stopped trying and he’d sneakily, weakly, fallen in love with someone else.
I listened to her stages of denial and grief. Grief at the fact of the younger woman, at her own unattractiveness, her uncertainty. Pain at the way they had to untangle their shared lives, communal properties, bringing new people into old beds. Her sadness at becoming the hag, the crone, the woman whose love life is over, wrinkled and shrivelled, replaced by plump and dewy youth. Discarded, no good. She bemoaned his immaturity, his shallowness, but acknowledged that they�
��d both stopped trying. They were ignoring their deeper sexual selves and taking each other for granted. I was listening to a woman who’d had her life broken apart and was choosing to get wise and deal with it, picking up the pieces, finding herself in the shards, putting together a new person in light of this huge imposed, unwanted change.
I wanted to stay talking to her all night, listening to her life story, an amazing tale of psychosis and hidden gardens, of shattering and healing, but tore myself away to go to bed. If I was camping alone, I would generally choose to be in bed by 9pm. That night was late, late, late, almost 11pm before I snuggled on one of my benefactor’s sofa cushions outside the van, a beautiful late night skyline beside me. The light was almost gone from the sky, just a line of colours at the black horizon bleeding between red, yellow, pink and then blue, deepening down to the velvet violet darkness where stars were beginning to show. I had to tuck down inside the sleeping bag to get my head out of the brisk wind that came off the wide landscape before me.
The next morning I was up by 7am; the lovely lady made me chapattis with marmite, tahini and banana, delicious energy-giving food, as well as zingy coffee. We talked some more about the nature of love. All love involves need, we decided. What if love could be given freely, without leaving you wanting something in return. Was that possible? Altruistic love?
It was a wonderful evening, just being able to walk up to a van, sit and talk and receive food and hot drinks. This happens every day to someone being supported. It made me realise that what I’m doing, the way I’m doing it, is REALLY BLOODY HARD!!
My route that day lay over the Black Mountains, a steep climb up to the west of Lord Hereford’s Knob then down the valley along into Capel-y-ffin, and on towards Llanthony Priory. I revelled in the wilderness of the high hills, the long views out behind me and the easy-to-follow path, spending the night sleeping out near the remains of the priory. I woke at 6am, sitting for a while, slowly coming back to life, then ate breakfast and set off, following the contour line around the hillside down to Cwmyoy. There was a fantastic church there, the ground settling underneath it over the centuries, leaving it leaning south at one end and north at the other. I sat inside for a rest, admiring the visibly twisted archways and door jambs, but soon the view started to spin and I realised I had an awful headache. The longer I sat there the less I felt like walking. I slumped over in one of the pews and went to sleep for an hour. It’s very hard being vulnerable in public, with nowhere safe to go when you feel peculiar. The painkillers kicked in while I slept, and once I woke up I could think more clearly. I realised I hadn’t eaten very much the previous day and had only drunk a single litre of water. I slowly chewed my way through a big meal of couscous, chopping beetroot and tomatoes into the bowl, and felt much better. I went to see the woman in the house next door to ask for water and, wonderfully, she invited me in for a cup of tea and made me some sandwiches.
One Woman Walks Wales Page 13