this little world - Chapter 36

Fade

The final couple of days were a planning cock up. I wanted to close the circle by ending my walk back where I started in Aylesbury but I had also arranged to go to Milton Keynes en route to make a brief meeting with some ADEC co-workers. When I came to draw up my final plans, Milton Keynes was a spare bit of the jigsaw that just did not fit and I was tempted to throw it away and forget about it. But after I had laughed at my own poor planning I decided to accept the extra two days walking and created a loop that would take me up the canal right through the centre of the city of Milton Keynes before heading back to Aylesbury through the fields of North Buckinghamshire. It was a way to wean myself off my daily intakes of adrenaline. It also provided me with one last surprise.

This was Day 100 and I clocked up my 2,000th mile as I strolled with a group of friends up the Grand Union Canal. It was difficult to meet all my old acquaintances again, as I was forced to spend the day talking about the walk, converting my experiences into the past tense. Even people I barely knew however seemed pleased to see me. One man who I met every day while training told rather shyly that he was glad that I was out. He had assumed that I had spent the last three months at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

A number of my friends simply did not recognise me. After three months of encouragement my beard had expanded to biblical proportions. I looked like Moses crossing the Red Sea as I balanced my way across the top of the lock gates. The pasty faced commuter of the Spring had been completely exorcised.

I had not expected much from the city side canal route but I was surprised as the miles rolled by. I kept waiting for the walk to take us to the city centre. We kept on strolling through willows and parkland.

From a car, Milton Keynes is a faceless place. A flat place of fast dual carriage-ways and endless roundabouts. Its hard to tell the shopping centre from the industrial estates. Milton Keynes has a reputation for being soul-less and materialistic. Its skyline is marked not by its City church but The Point, a red-lit pyramid that houses a multiplex cinema and a night club.

The roads of Milton Keynes are not, however, a good place from which to judge the city. It was a city created with the problems of the car in mind and Milton Keynes hides behind its glass and hedges to keep the monster at bay. It is a city that keeps its secrets tucked away. Take, for example, Milton Keynes’ miles of red-ways which allow bikes and walkers to move about the city in peace or the delightful old villages which flourish buried in amongst the new houses of the city.

Even the city’s trademark concrete cows have become elusive beasts now, protected like the rest of the city behind the maturing trees. They are an icon of a place that has at least tried to plan for the present. The makers of Milton Keynes also recognised the value of the canal to the City and maintained it as a parkland corridor that runs right through it. We walked on all the way to Wolverton and were never troubled by having to cross a road.

The last day was a dull day. I wandered the suburban streets of Wolverton like a stray dog peering up alley ways as I searched for a cycle path that would let me join the red-ways.

When I had set out back in May I had assumed that this would be a day of glory, a loud, public occasion. Instead, only Sean, who gave me a lift to Wolverton saw me set out on the last leg of my journey away from the station car park. The day went about its business, self-absorbed, self-important and I staggered on feeling that no one gave a toss.

On the worst days of the walk when I fought with myself in the Fens I had promised myself a marching band when I got back to Aylesbury. I imagined myself in a parade coming up the Bicester Road with the band rocking out 'We are the Champions!'. But now it was just me and the weekday traffic. There was nothing I could do about the death of my ambition. Coming to the end is the price you have to pay for success.

Bits of my body were malfunctioning badly. As I walked I weaved and my legs swung out like a marionette’s. My head bobbed slackly bouncing my chin off my chest. My mind had gone. Red lights came on all over my head.

I had reached saturation point for absorbing new images. The good times of the Summer were leaking away from me. Now I remembered pain.I only remembered pain.

I probably sat down more that last day than I had on any other. My concentration was starting to dissipate. The magic was fading and I bitterly regretted having punished my body. I was a raver waking up in a field the next day wondering where the hell the party had gone.

I wandered the Swans Way across Whaddon Chase heading south towards the village of Swanbourne. From here my feet followed familiar field paths. I had tried to engineer a way that took me along new routes - routes that I hadn’t got bored with as I trained in the Spring. But the sense of the familiar became more and more suffocating. I had guessed the plot. The suspense had gone and I was rapidly turning pages to get to the end . All that I wanted to do now was to climb up Pitchcott Hill and see the view over Aylesbury. I ploughed on, wanting to get there.

The end, in the end is always welcome. I kept pace with the cars caught in the rush hour and marched up Bicester Road with a band in my head.

One last corner and then I was there. I saw Pauline standing quietly waiting for my return.

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