LEJOG - Re-Living the Journey

Even though I’d printed my own maps on A4 paper, which seemed at the time to be a disposable entity, when it came to the walk I couldn’t bear to throw those pages away. They’d taken me an absolute age to print and cost a small fortune in ink, so I decided instead to post them home in batches and to justify the keeping of them I annotated them with our actual route where it deviated from the plan.

 

I’m now just going through the process of re-plotting the route. It’s not a necessary exercise, but I want to know the measured mileage of the route we actually walked, rather than what we planned to walk, and in the absence of an internet connection to keep me occupied in an evening, it’s keeping me out of trouble.

 

It is an exercise that’s turning out to have an unexpected benefit: I get to re-live the journey over again.

 

I’m surprised at how many of the days I remember in quite some detail now I look at the maps again. I’m sure that detail will soon fade.

 

So, just now I’m on Day 12 and see the name of ‘Thorverton’. It immediately conjures up the picture of a gorgeous sunny day and a village street with stone-cobbled ‘pavements’ (I think there may have even been a stream running down the side of the road – or perhaps I’m making that bit up), and of a village post office that has been relegated to a portacabin in a car park.

 

At the east side of the village there’s an immaculate triangle of a village green, with a stream running along one side and a convenient bench upon which weary walkers may rest.

 

It was a ‘shoe off’ break on that green, combined with a fruit snack, but I resisted bathing my feet in the stream!

 

Just up the road was a family who enquired whether we were walking the Exe Valley Way and with whom we chatted for a while.

 

Oh, I could go on… Happy days!