This morning I rediscovered some notes and doodles I had created which recounts the tale of a very long walk in 2012 with my then six year old twin children in which we got very lost and walked about 8 miles when we only needed to walk a fraction of that, sound familiar? I will recount the story a bit further on.
I've been pushing my comfort zones more consciously recently in a gentle way, not in an adrenaline fuelled, crossed-eyed crazy way. I'm aware of my ever present shadow "the headless chicken", the one that panics and runs around in ever-decreasing circles and then collapses on the ground. I'm pushing one step further into the unknown at a time and my inner science-lab assistant stands in white coat, with clip-board and pen poised, peers over her glasses and utters "Hmmmm zat is very interesting" in her spoof Russian accent.
One of the ways I have been doing this is trusting my intuition or my inner "sat nav" when driving to unfamiliar places and seeing if I get myself utterly and hopelessly lost or if I find my way. I do this most of the time when driving around the lanes in Devon. I decided, spontaneously, to do this whilst I was away in Cornwall for a few days. I was staying at a farm on Bodmin moor out in the sticks. This area, like the whole of the county of Cornwall (and Devon where I live) is criss-crossed by wiggly, woggly, narrow, high-hedged lanes. They are the perfect place to get lost in a car. The perfect place also to drive very carefully and trust the feeling that a massive farm vehicle may be coming in the other direction around the next corner. Or there is the wayward, loose canon, holiday-maker in a sparkly new BMW which they are trying not to scratch on the hedges and would rather your car gets scratched instead - I'm not bitter I love my banger. Tis perilous my friends.
To help me on my way some of the sign posts around Bodmin more aren't actually that reliable. For example at a cross roads with a four way pointing sign the direction of the signs didn't correspond with that of the roads. When looking for an ancient megalithic stone monument one evening I drove up and down a road 4 times and kept returning to the sign puzzled - it was pointing down the road and said it was half a mile to Trethevy Quoit yet I couldn't find it! I returned the next day and stopped to ask a local he said "Oh yes m'dear tis up that way" pointing in the opposite direction of the sign! My experience reminded me of when Dorothy first meets the Scarecrow in the film 'The Wizard of Oz' and she asks him which way to Oz and he crosses his arms and points in both directions.
I had a road atlas of the UK with me and at times, before I set out on journeys looked at Google maps, but could never really orientate myself - until the end of my stay when I had actually figured out where certain places were in relation to others.
The result of my little experiment was that I always got to my destination eventually. The main ingredient being trust. When I didn't trust my inner sat nav and lost faith that the road was leading me in the right direction the majority of times I had to double back on myself because I found I had been travelling in the right direction in the first place.
I did allot of reversing and turning around in farm gateways over the course of my time away. On the morning I found Trethevy Quoit the 'headless chicken' told me to turn my car onto a muddy, unsignposted track that had deep, water filled pot holes. Even so (with many self berations and expletives) I managed to turn my car around and get back onto the tarmac and headed in the the right direction, met the local man and reached my destination with ease.
Trust is the key. We are never really lost. If I could see my journey from a bird's eye view wouldn't it be easy?
Here is the story of the 'The Very Long Walk' from September 2012. I wrote it up for my children and doodled little pictures. I'm going to tell it without embellishment, as it was written in note form:
We set out from Steps Bridge car park at 2.30pm.
We went down the hill and through St Thomas's woods and followed the river until we reached a little bridge. Here we played 'Pooh Sticks'.
We crossed the bridge and found the ruin of a very old cottage where we all had a wee in the bushes. Mummy said "Keep a look out",
Ava (my daughter) shouted "Don't come in here mummy is having a wee..."
Mummy said "that's not quite what I meant..."
We walked on...
Through beautiful plants and trees. The river was very deep here.
We saw a big ants' nest with very big ants. They were all along the path too.
We saw a very big dragonfly.
The path became very muddy and there were big piles of logs either side.
The muddy, loggy path went on for a very long way.
The pine trees went up and up and up the hill alongside the path.
We couldn't find the other bridge to get back across the river so we walked on further and further and further...
Then over a hedge we saw some houses on stilts!
Finally we came to a bridge, but it was the wrong bridge!
There was a sign that said we had to walk another two miles to get back to the village near where our car was parked.
We had to walk up a very long, dark road through a tunnel of trees. We saw a sign to a nature reserve and another path. We walked up the steep steps to the nature reserve and sat at the top and drank our cartons of Orange juice, then decided to climb back down to the road so that we didn't get any more lost.
Mummy prayed to the angels for help.
Finally the road came out of the dark woods and into the light.
We walked to the top of a very long hill and sat in the gateway to a field and chewed some gum. Mummy told Ava and Ethan to chew the gum until the flavour ran out. They both swallowed it.
"I can see the Church now mummy" said Ava. It was Dunsford Church so we walked to the bottom of the hill and up another hill through the village to the Church. Some of the old cottages had bumpy walls. Some of the walls curved inwards like they were bending over to say "Hello".
Mummy asked a running lady with a dog where Steps Bridge was, the lady said "You need to walk back in the direction you came".
We walked back down the hill and along another road. Past a farm with some geese. Until we saw the chapel by the roadside that we had passed on the way in the car. It was a very busy road and we had to keep in close by the hedge until we got to the bridge, and Ethan talked all the way!
Back at the car park, Ava and Ethan kissed our car. We were all so happy to see it. It was 7.30pm and almost dark.
On the drive home we stopped at a convenience store and bought a pizza. It was the best pizza we had ever, ever eaten.
Then I wrote as an end note to the tale:
I will look back at this story one day and smile...time passes too quickly...Carpe Diem.
Trust and seize the day my friend.
Mucho love
Claire xxx
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