Day 16 - Rest Day - Nottingham

When planning this walk I decided to give myself one rest day out of 24. As I've been on this journey I have thought possibly more than one non-walking day might have been good, but this was usually after a late night, or waking up in a comfy, warm bed and not wanting to leave it! I don't feel like I've been putting too much pressure on my body walking every day, if anything it seems to have loosened tight muscles and I always know I can take public transport if needed. I enjoy the nightly routine of checking the following day's distance, working out what time to have breakfast and start walking in the morning which has been anything from 7.45am - 10.15am. It's been a guesstimate most days as I'm not a numbers person, but it's all worked out well.

I considered various places for a rest day, but with one week to go before reaching Bradford,  Saturday 23rd November in Nottingham seemed ideal. I was hoping I could stay with John and had sent him a message to explain what I was doing. I was in the bookshop in Whitby when I received his response, I remember this because it made me cry! He said of course I'd be welcome to stay and that on the Saturday evening he would love to host a banquet in honour of Ro. I thought this was so beautiful and a wonderful tribute to Ro who loved to eat with others, plus I have had the pleasure of experiencing John's generous hospitality and know he is an excellent cook and host. 

I woke up earlier but didn't get out of bed until 10am, went into the kitchen where John had just made me a cup of tea and was cooking breakfast! I lounged around, drank coffee and was grateful I had planned my rest day on the day of the storm, very happy to have an indoor day. I downloaded my next few day's maps and then John asked me to put together a slide show of photos of Ro which he planned to project onto the wall while we were eating. 

I enjoyed spending an hour or so looking at photos of Ro over the years many of which had been collected from friends before his funeral. There was the last photo I ever took with him at the end of my rabbit themed 40th birthday party in Bradford in August 2023, at the restaurant where I'd enjoyed a curry with friends after a day of fun, food and swimming in Ilkley lido. There's 7 of us and we're pulling silly rabbit faces! When Ro died I felt sad at first that it wasn't a nice smiley photo, but I have plenty of those from over the years and the more I looked at it the more I saw an authentic moment, a literal snapshot of friendship, loved ones who embrace me and my ideas, rabbit themed or otherwise! I felt blessed that many people travelled from near and far for that weekend, and it now feels like my party had a higher purpose as it was the last time I and many others saw Ro. He was living in London and about to start his new job but there was no way he'd have missed celebrating my birthday. 

He helped me prepare for the party and wanted to make a salad. He bought the ingredients and made a delicious crunchy coleslaw, he used half a plastic bottle of mayo and put it in my fridge. It was almost a year before I could take it out, I didn't want to throw it away, I couldn't. He'd touched it and it represented generosity, kindness and a celebration of being alive. One day I decided to cut out the front label, clean it, put it in a box frame and hang it on my kitchen wall, I'm sure I've seen similar in Tate Modern, but this one is priceless!

It is painful we never got to celebrate Ro alive on his 40th. Woody, Mark and I joined members of his family at his graveside on the 17th February 2024 to remember him with love and balloons.

13th August 2024 marked a year since the last time I'd seen Ro as we said goodbye on a station platform in Bradford and he got on the train with a very heavy computer thing (I have no idea what it was!) which he'd got from Facebook market place that morning. He loved a bargain and would often get computers/bikes/fitness equipment this way. The one year anniversary felt significant and I decided to mark it and remember him by going to Leeds where I met my sister Hannah and we drank cocktails and ate fries at Five Guys. 

The reason for this was that on 23rd November (coming back to my walk - the date of my rest day) in 2018 I had been in the hospital in Wolverhampton with my great aunty Audrey (mentioned in an earlier post) as she died. I was close to Audrey and it was a deeply profound moment in my life which I won't go into details about here but I'd travelled down from Yorkshire to say goodbye and hadn't expected she would die in the 4 hours I was there at her bedside. I stayed a little while with her and then caught my train back to Leeds where I was sharing a house with Woody and Ro. It was Friday night and Ro met me in town after work for a drink, he listened as I cried and told him about my day. I suggested cocktails, he followed that with Five Guys then we jumped in a taxi and went to a comedy night in Bradford, it was just what I needed.

Anyway back to the banquet! John creating an ambience fitting for Ro, who he remembered always smelled good, sprayed the hallway with cologne. He laid on a stunning 5 course vegan/veggie feast for me, Woody, Nora, Lorna, Hari and Hugh. All of us except Hugh had sat round a table with Ro multiple times, sharing food and conversation. Puns were flying all over the place, landing to various degrees of success, Ro would have loved it and been joining in (to various degrees of success!). Throughout the evening we talked about many things including Ro, bringing him into the warm space with us. We placed a photo of him on the table.

Unfortunately we couldn't get the tech to work for the slideshow of photos during the meal. John and I both had the same idea that as we have the slideshow we'll have to hold another banquet for Ro in the future, why stop at one!