I had changed my attitude towards woodland. At first I found woods a confusing, enclosed environment in which it was easy to get lost. Gradually I had come to see them as being an essential element of England. In the heat of early August I relished the moment when I reached the tree-line and plunged into the shade produced by the canopy of mature oak trees. It was like diving into a pool, into a different element. An element made precious by being rare.

Most of the Weald was cleared centuries ago and is now laid out in long established farms. However after centuries of clearance the map is still liberally littered with spots of green. I was happy hiking along the back roads of Kent so long as I had the occasional chance to dive into another small copse.

After the initial shock of being hit by the cool air, the next thing I noticed when I entered a wood was the tremendous racket under the trees. Birdsong, from every branch and bush. I was beaten by the sheer intensity of it. The manic modem twitterings of fast passing of information. I sat down in the shade to eat my lunch and while I ate I tried to figure out the meaning of the bird’s song.
"Fancy a Shag! Fancy a Shag!"

It’s the poetry that’s lost when you attempt a translation.

Outside the wood it was harvest time and towards Rye, I watched the corn make heroic last stands. Columns that waved in the light, drying breeze. Despite it being Sunday the fields were busy.

Huge combine harvesters crossed the fields reaping, threshing, spitting out the grain. In one field I stopped in the corner watching the consummate skill with which the driver of one combine danced this great dragon of a machine around a tree. I was quite surprised at the size of the driver who jumped down from the cab. As I chatted to him about how the combine worked I realised that he was probably not old enough to hold a car licence. His deferential politeness made me feel really old.

I felt involved in this harvest. My Summer, my grain. I had seen the whole process this year from the muddy ploughed up fields to the crackling stubble. I felt I had grown up with it, from greenness to ripeness. I had learnt with it about the sun and about the rain and now I finally knew the process was coming to an end. It was time to take my harvest and to go home for Winter.

All through my walk my subconscious had been warning me about the risks of being away from Pauline. I had relived our split-up and all the hurt that I had felt at the time. It warned me that I was taking her support for granted. That I was still walking away from her.

It seemed unfair the projectionist in my head did not feel the need to show the reel of our reconciliation. I guess I needed first to enjoy myself and to understand how lucky I had been. I needed to understand that she had helped me to take this huge leap into the unknown. I needed to understand that I was also walking towards her.

It was Pauline who taught me that, given high enough stakes, it is always worth taking a risk. She came back to me, all the way from Nigeria after years of uncertainty to find out whether there was anything between us. I don’t think that there was much of the old feelings there when we eventually met up. Instead we talked about how we had hurt each other before. It was like ripping off a plaster. It hurt as we pulled on those old feelings, but we carried on pulling. Love and hate came closer and closer together.

It was at this point, when I realised that I hated her for involving me with my feelings about our past, that I also discovered against the odds that I could fall in love with her again. I admired her for seizing the opportunity to be something truly special.

I was surprised when I found that the scars underneath my plaster had healed. I took the first step that would bring me back home to her.

To walk forward, first you must make yourself unstable, vulnerable, liable to fall over. It’s the basic principle of human locomotion. After a million-odd strides I finally come to understand what a remarkable process walking is. Ask any toddler wobbling its way across a carpet for the first time whether it is easy.

However, the reward is the journey, and this is worth the risk that you might fall flat on your face. It is much the same with love I guess.

I felt ridiculous as I walked along the streets of Rye next morning. My wild man of the hills look just did not fit in with the containerised landscape. People laughed at me as they passed in their cars. They pointed me out like a circus freak.

Shy Rye. A pretty place that seemed to be under siege from the cars on its roads. Everywhere I walked people were trying to park, trying to pass, trying just to move in their cars. The faces of the drivers told you they had been trying too long and they were no longer sure why they were trying at all. I wanted to get back to walking alone. I headed out on to the Hythe road and the flattened expanse of Romney Marsh.

Marsh. There is a word to conjure with. To me it suggests a sodden scenery where the land meets the sea in a five mile strip of compromise. A mangrove morass that threatens the unwary traveller with being sucked under. Romney might have been like that once but now its like a giant melamine shelf that some jobbing handy man has bracketed to the coast of Kent. A well-cared-for shelf, criss-crossed with drains, channels and derelict looking locks.

I decided not to follow the coastline over the miles of pebbles to Dungeness opting instead to follow the old coast line, the Saxon shore whose cliffs and crags were now almost ten miles from the sea. I wanted a day free from maps and so I set out following the line of the Royal Military Canal which would take me back to the coast near the town of Hythe.

Despite being billed as a canal I don’t think that many craft move along the Royal Military now. Like Romney Marsh its name reminds you of what it might have once been. The defences of England in the event that Napoleon had invaded. Now the Royal Military Canal is an ornamental pond, twenty feet across and over twenty miles long. Its untroubled surface is covered with yellow lilies. As I watched dragon flies dance from flower to flower I found it difficult to imagine this body of water stopping the army of France.

The first mile or so of the canal was disappointing. The local flood protection was being repaired and the path I was walking on had been turned into a contractors’ access road. The contractors were using sand to build up the embankment and I found myself walking through a very small desert. After the sand the path became easier. A green route that wove its way alongside the water.

The day kept coming and the canal kept coming and I sizzled in the heat under my hat. The Royal Military canal performed an arc under the old cliffs that eventually took me to Hythe.

My long walk along the bottom of England was almost over. It was half a day now to Dover and then I would be turning north towards Canterbury. I decided on one last stroll alongside the sea.

My route out of Hythe next morning took me over the beach, past an endless array of groynes. This should have been an easy enough path to follow but I had not bargained on the fact that the coastal protection was actually there for a reason.

The wooden walls were there to resist the scouring effect of long-shore drift. At Hythe the groynes were doing their job. As a consequence, on one side the stones were piled up to the height of the wooden planks while on the side there was a ten foot drop. I proceeded by a series of back breaking flops. I was glad when Hythe rolled into Folkestone and I was able to walk on the promenade.

I became aware on the cliffs above Folkestone that I had come to another corner of England. Beyond Dover Castle I could see the coast starting to curve away. I thought it would be peaceful here on the famous white cliffs of Dover. But rather than enjoying one last view of the sea, I felt hemmed in by the newly constructed road that connected the motorways to the Channel Tunnel. I looked out across the Channel hoping to get a view of France. Instead I saw a ferry as it disappeared into the haze.

Unlike Cornwall, where I got a real sense of closure, a sense that I had reached the limit of the land, here amongst the cars heading for the channel ports I was aware of the link connecting England to the rest of the world.

The planes, the ships are all bringing the world closer to this island. The latest of these links, the Channel Tunnel, has brought England physically, as well as metaphorically, a little closer to the continent of Europe. The waste and rock that was dug out when the Tunnel was built has been dumped at the foot of the cliffs I was walking. Along Shakespeare Cliffs I looked down on the massive fans ventilating the tunnel from their position at the foot of the cliff, built onto the top of this newly constructed piece of England.

I turned the last corner and started to head for home.