It was an early start today as Megan works in London and dropped me at Dorking train station around 6.15am where I got breakfast and coffee and waited for the sun to rise. I began walking at 7.45am and it was a day of beautiful routes and BLUE SKY! The first part of my walk was through a vineyard.
Slow Ways is great because I can read the reviews of my planned route and decide if I want to adapt it. I did this today to avoid muddy hills and stuck to the very quiet roads and bridlepaths although I did have to make an extra diversion due to Ash die back and danger of falling trees, but as today was a shorter day anyway that didn't matter. I avoided the mud but the hills were still very much there, my glutes got a workout!
I don't think the weather could have been any better, there was even sunshine and it brought out all the beautiful colours of the leaves on the trees and on the path.
I arrived in Leatherhead at 11am and found a coffee shop although I definitely got the feeling from the staff that muddy long distance hikers with big rucksacks were not the customers they wanted to welcome! Unfortunately for them I ordered a coffee and when I'd finished that I ordered a smoothie, so I was there a little while. The drinks and other customers were very nice.
My route took me over the M25 and as I looked at the passing traffic I remembered journeys I'd taken with Ro, in cars, and in my van when I was doing festivals, stalls and events with Fair Grounds, a fair trade social enterprise. Ro was a supporter, encourager and cheerleader of everything I did and always willing to help, I'll probably write more on this another day. He also loved a road trip or a drive and I know there are many people who have memories of sitting next to Ro on a drive somewhere, talking, or car singing when you just belt it out, or he might be sleeping! He always brought the music! When I had the first van it had a cassette player(!) and he bought a tape from a charity shop called something like summer driving tunes and one of the songs I remember singing along to and laughing as we were singing was September by Earth, Wind & Fire. Sometimes we got in the van and I started driving and said where shall we go today, then we'd list a whole load of dream destinations all over the world and when we couldn't think of anywhere else or got bored of that then we said let's just go to - wherever we were going, it never got old!
Hannah, a good friend of mine and Ro's, reminded me that it was this day 9 years ago he went on Countdown. I'd encouraged him to apply because he was so good with words, he got on and the presenters loved him and were sorry he didn't get through to the next round. He was in the lead at some points and got a 9 letter word and the conundrum at the end. The contestant he was playing against ended up coming second for that series and no one except Ro came close to beating him. Ro was actually glad he didn't get through because it would have meant returning to Manchester the next day for more filming and he'd had to pull a sickie from work and it would have been a lot of hassle to do it again! He did tell his work when it was on (just not when it has been filmed!) and they watched it in the staff room. Reneisha, Ro's sister and I were in the audience for the filming and were so proud when he got the 9 and a huge applause from everyone.
(He gave a different spelling of his name so it would be pronounced correctly)As I was making my way into Epsom, 2 neighbours who were talking stopped me and asked how much my bag weighs. I didn't actually weigh it before I set off as I didn't want to know! But I am interested so at some point I will. I had a short chat with them and continued to the Premier Inn where my friend Miriam had booked me in for the night, she lives nearby but didn't have room for me to stay and has been an incredible host in Epsom.
I arrived around 1.30pm after 11.5 very pleasant miles of walking, and checked in. Miriam on her way to pick her children up from school dropped in with a card and some coffee bags and chocolate my parents had sent down for me, and she gave me a really thoughtful package of snacks and treats, and an amazing poster drawn by her son Zabdiel 'you can do it Nina! Brighton to Bradford, through Epsom. Ro ❤️' I consider this to be an essential item so it's in the bag with me on my journey! Miriam and I had a quick catch up and arranged to meet for dinner.
I rested and enjoyed some of the treats from Miriam, repacked my bag and downloaded the next few days of routes from the Slow Ways website, I'm using the app Komoot to navigate. We went for dinner around 7.30pm and talked about Ro, and Miriam's friend Libby, and about grieving for friends. There was laughter and tears and I'm grateful to have been friends with Miriam for so long, since school, and even though we don't see each other often these days it's always a delight when we spend time together.