In a somewhat rather camp version of Blair Witch, I headed out on Saturday with Michael and his walking group into deepest darkest Sussex. Led by partly-deaf Gerry, this bunch of pacemakers were on average a little more senior than may have been anticipated. I half expected the new-found pop sensation the Zimmers to put in an appearance. We were just somewhat fortunate to get out before deepest darkest Robertsbridge became really deep and darkest Robertsbridge. After leaving London Bridge at around 1030, the plan was to walk 11 miles, taking in a castle and the breatheable country air on the way.As the pollen picked up, my nose twitched like a bloodhound at the start of a hunt, but I was determined to be “at one with nature”. I was almost at one with several dog, cow or horse shits, narrowly missing them when Mike pushed me to the side of what was becoming one giant animal toilet. My school camp came hauntingly back into my mind. The fact that Mike’s heroics almost thrust me into stinging nettles is insignificant.
Two hours after clambering over gates, shuffling through wheat fields and admiring horses with buckets over their snouts, we stopped to rest in a field and eat the picnic lunches we were supposed to bring. Fortunately, two rather plain bagels had been prepared for me, Mike had to make do with a plastic ploughman, the sandwich, not the farmer.
We sat there in a field of gay men, spaced out among the weeds like a flambouyant crop circle. Glances back and forth. One giant cruising ground. Literally. It went on for miles. Suddenly, just after Mike had interrupted a 69 year-old bisexual Colorado father to ask him what dermatologist he used as he could not possibly be that age, my phone rang. Green Day in a green field. My Australian flatmate Sam was supposed to be on a party bus headed for Amsterdam. It had crashed before picking him up. He asked me to recommend somewhere up north. I sent them to Blackpool. When I hung up, the crowd was relaxed again. There had been a moment of awkwardness when Mike interrupted this Denver man, who was talking about his pending 40th school reunion, to field a question about his skin regime.
Other characters lounging around included an East German called Faq or Fuq from Baden Wurden Battenburg or somewhere near. Sadly not only did his lack of humour reinforce that stereotype but he wore a bright yellow fluorescent jacket for safety. We were in fields of gold. Not stranded on the M6. Still, an American called Ned could beat him to that elusive honour. He carried a 100 litre rucksack on his back, possibly anticipating a 5 day hike to Poland, not a little walk to Hastings. There was a man who bored me rigid, who on the topic of football told me that there were no pretty players at Wolverhampton Wanderers. Perhaps that should after all be the criteria for promotion. At that point, I dropped back into the spread-out group only to find myself near a singing Chinaman so I sped up again.
Still many normal people attended, a comical 40-something called Ken, an IT guru at LSE, from Belfast and his friend Nick, a jobhunter from Dorset, whom Mike thought had naturally hairless calves. And told me.
A short while after, we broke. Not broke down. We broke. We saw our holy grail. The 600 year-old castle at Bodiam, constructed to hold off the French. Presumably, they tossed off plates of English cuisine and the Frogs fled back to Calais. Here we enjoyed some tea and scones, whilst chaffinches sang and a steam train passed. I felt like I was in The Railway Children.
On the way back, Gerry, our Scout leader for the day, was not only slightly hard of hearing with an aid, but also partly blind as we stumbled through field after field, insisting it was the right way. We shoudl have sat nav. I wanted to call Country Cab as we seemed set to be there all night. I tried to befriend some local hippies camping in one
field lest they try to rob and kill us later. My urban paranoia was creeping in. I must make 7pm train” became my mantra as my weary legs and nettle stings picked themselves up and I tried, like Mike, to knock it into second gear. Every footpath, every gate clambered over, every passer by, I asked if this path led to the train. Still in the end, we made it, nobody splashed intoa stream and disappered, no one collapsed in the wheat fields and no one got left behind at the castle.
On the train, I was just grateful no one sang “one man went to Mo, went with Mos to a meadow” and even more grateful to cross the river and get off at Charing Cross, on the northern side of our Thames. I could now breathe, change back my money and start to feel safe again, amid the rabbis of Golders Green.I am at one with nature. At peace. With my coffee, newspapers and in my flat in Golders Green.
