I went West today. I headed out beyond the fossil beach and climbed the steep wooden steps to the coast path that leads to Seaton. The sign said it would take between 3 and 4 hours, would be an 'arduous' journey across 'unpredictable' terrain and included no routes back to the sea or the main road once you were on it. It was all or nothing. I like a challenge. I am clearly missing some wiring.
Little did I know at that hopeful signpost, that this would be the Most Difficult Walk I Have Ever Done. It started raining about an hour in and that made everything slippy. I was roasting under my raincoat but also getting soaked, which left me with the choice of being wet through or being cooked for most of the way. The path itself was a mud-slide through the woods, twisting and turning between the trees and the roots and the brambles, scaling up the cliff and then climbing back down with steep wooden steps. I fell over eight times, slipping in the mud, thinking about Jurassic Park, stumbling in the sopping puddles of murky brown water that line the route. My hands were black with soil and stinging with nettles. Rain pelted me through the trees and yet again the woods seemed interminable.
So tea-break number two was very welcome, under that tree in the pouring rain. I'd spread my raincoat out over the moss-covered earth and opened up the tin, ready to pour myself out a beautiful cup of hot tea - lid of the flask on one knee, packet of chocolate buttons on the other.
I found myself thinking of my friends, Megan and Adam. They're in Morocco this week. I bet they're not sheltering under a tree drinking tea in the rain. Then there's Rory and Danni. They're in Crete, a beautiful Greek island which is all green, white and blue in my imagination. I pictured fluffy little clouds floating lazily over a deep green ocean and tall cypresses waving against the warm blue sky.
Would I swap? I wondered.
After a while, I came to the conclusion that I really wouldn't. This kind of arduous eight-mile adventure has its own reward, and I like it. Besides, this is what I have chosen - and there is a beauty about the solitude of the woods. Tea rarely tasted sweeter and the leaves have never sounded richer or happier than when blown by the breeze or dripping with rain. We're all different I suppose.
I got to Seaton feeling elated and exhausted, and I settled for some lunch in a little coffee shop there. They had a copy of the Daily Mirror so I skimmed through all the celebrity and sports junk and tackled the crossword. Then I walked along the stony seafront before waiting for the bus back. By that time the rain had really set in and there was no way I was going back the way I came.
I thought up a poem in the bus shelter. It's called Miracle Brew:
Miracle Brew
The rain cascades
On the Perspex cage
Where I wait on a plastic seat
I'm damp and I'm cold
And I ache cos I'm old
And the water's got down
to my feet
The bus won't be here
Until later this year
And the rain trickles
Endlessly on
Past graffiti and smoke
Like a terrible joke
Oh I do hope the bus won't be long!
But miracles do
Come out of the blue
And stop you before you can ask
I remembered with glee
The leftover tea
Which was swirling around in my flask!
Oh miracle brew!
How beautifully you
Come pouring to cheer us all up
I unscrewed the top
And opened the stop
And the tea trickled into the cup
The rain cascades
On the Perspex cage
Where I wait in a world getting wetter
But if you're like me
With a flask of tea
It's already feeling much better
Shortly after this, the bus appeared and for a very welcome two pounds and ninety pence, it took me back to Lyme Regis. I asked the bus driver whether there was a stop near my hotel, and he very kindly stopped right outside it. "There is today!" he said, cheerily. I doubt that would happen in Marrakech or Crete.
Mind you, I have never felt more alive or more exhausted. Or soaked.
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