Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott on day 35 of my pilgrimage across England following the Mary and Michael Currents.
Today I've been following the Mary Current and you find me beside the Grand Union Canal.
This is now in the east part of England,
Buckinghamshire.
It's a very busy place so you might hear aeroplanes or trains or traffic in the background but just here beside the water it's a little oasis of peace.
Beside me a duck is paddling down and I can see behind him,
It's a he,
It's a mallard duck.
There's a sort of a V-trail of ripples as he goes across this very still water.
I've passed fishermen,
Runners,
Cyclists,
People walking dogs.
This is a well-used leisure route and I'm not surprised.
It's just got a sense of,
You know,
You can get close to nature here and it's been a great end of the day.
I feel very relaxed and very settled which is a huge comparison to earlier on today.
Earlier today,
There's one of the trains going by,
Earlier today it all started really well.
I set out,
My husband who's supporting me with lifts and just like helping me with shopping and washing and getting campsites and all of that,
He walked for about a mile with me this morning.
We were walking through meadows and seeing horses and the views and the blackthorn blossoms which are out at the moment and just really had a lovely time.
And then shortly after he turned around to go back,
My footpath hit a dead end.
The footpath came up against a construction site which is a massive construction site.
It's to create something called HS2 which is a high-speed rail link in England and it's caused a lot of controversy over the years.
And here I was up against,
I mean I'd heard about it but down in Devon,
You know,
It was news I never really thought about and here I was up against it.
And it meant a really long diversion on a very busy road to navigate my way around this huge construction project.
And I just felt completely and utterly overwhelmed,
Overwhelmed and upset.
And as I walked past the HS2 project,
The scar and gash in the landscape that it's leaving just turned my stomach.
I felt sick.
It just looks awful,
Awful.
And this link is to improve travel between,
I think it's the north of England and London.
The idea is that it's a high-speed link and billions have been spent on it so far and it's still not been created.
And for me,
As I called my husband and said,
Oh I might need a lift around this because I don't know what I'm,
I don't know how to do it.
And he met up with me and we actually sat and had a cup of tea in a cafe and he didn't give me a lift.
I did find a way around it,
But I just burst into tears when I saw him.
I just felt so overwhelmed and distressed.
That morning I had been in a place of like,
Oh,
I'm going to speed up a little bit now and I'm stronger and I can add an extra mile to my day.
And I was thinking maybe if I do this and that in the week,
I can,
You know,
Crack another,
Give myself another day off.
I was just thinking ahead.
It's like I'm getting closer to the end of the walk now.
And as I get closer to the end of the walk,
I,
My mind has just been kind of moving into how do I get there even more quickly?
And as I sat with my husband and he,
You know,
Wiped my eyes as it were,
He explained his morning and he had been,
He'd gone and had a cup of coffee and had a chat with an old man and then he'd gone for a little wander and had seen a sheep dog being trained by its owner and she'd sort of explained what she was doing and he was just saying,
I've had a lovely morning.
And I was thinking,
Well,
This is crazy.
He's actually experiencing what I want to be experiencing,
Which is a slow pace of life.
And yet here am I in hurry up mode.
I'm on hurry up mode,
Even in the middle of a pilgrimage,
Which is to help me slow down.
And something has shifted within me over the day.
And as I walk now along the canal,
I feel that shift totally.
I have settled right back into this as a pilgrimage.
This is,
I don't want to speed this up.
That's not what it's about.
And yet again,
Life gives me a lesson in slowing down.
