Day 7

May 7th, 2013

Brooks

Day 7

Start: Wotten-under-Edge

Stop: Little Sodbury

Mileage: 12 miles, plus a few extra jaunts up and down a couple of hills!

Today we descended off the last hilltop of the escarpment itself. Immediately the countryside started looking very different. Instead of steep ascents with long, long vistas while we roamed around up top and then steep descents into a quaint little village, now we are walking through gentle rolling hills and patchworks of fields, each with a border of high shrubs. There’s still the occasional forest that we still get to wander through, each one literally carpeted with bluebells, cowslips, and primroses and the air is alive with the pungency of the thousands of wild garlic blooming. Dorky though it sounds, I almost have to laugh…because it’s actually true…the birds are singing, the bees are humming, the flowers are blooming and there’s hardly a cloud in the sky!

Rick of google map fame deserted us a couple of days ago, but I still will always feel indebted as he really helped us out on the one day we needed him in particular. Since then, we have tried to pay close attention to our map, read the very wordy trail guide and not lose our way. Alas, it seems part of the whole experience is to have to retrace our steps at least once a day and find the usually in plain sight acorn marker pointing us along the Cotswold Way or make slight adjustments when there is no marker at all.

So far the only casualties of our trek have been one very sore little toe. All things considered, we feel very fortunate, indeed! My toe survives the day wrapped in various clear things and orange things and wrapped securely finally in white tape. Since the beginning of our adventure we have experienced every kind of weather but rain. We started off in long johns, knit hats and gloves… along with four layers of clothing! Today it was so hot we were down to short sleeved t-shirts and wished we had some shorts to put on! Tomorrow promises to be even warmer and then Wednesday there is the expecation of rain. We are rather excited at the prospect as we have been carrying our rain gear for the past 8 days and would love to have the chance to use it!

If you can even imagine, after giving me the #1 item on my bucket list, Roger’s marriage question for the day was, “Now that you’ve done the Cotswold Way (or are doing it), what’s next on your list?” For me, this long distance walk has been everything I could ever have hoped or dreamed, so really, what else is there? Thankfully, it’s Roger’s turn next year to choose something off his list, so I’ve a while to think before declaring my next #1 thing.

I’d love to hear if you have a “bucket list,” and if so, what’s on it. Maybe I’ll get some good ideas! While we were at my favorite place we’ve stayed so far, I noticed some East African trinkets lying around. I asked Pam, our hostess, if she had ever been to Africa. She very excitedly asked me if I had ever heard of a bucket list. Then, she went onto tell me that she had always wanted to go to Kenya and go on safari, so a few years ago she took her grown son and off they went for 14 days out into the wilds of Africa. I’ve come to be a strong believer in making such a list. There is so much to see, so much to do that I’d surely hate for life to pass me by without doing the things I’d really love to do. Roger and I have certain things on our list that we’d like to do with or for our kids, each other and places we’d like to go or things we’d like to experience. You wouldn’t believe all of the things on our lists that have actually happened. It’s been amazing! If you’ve got your list, I’d love for you to share it; if you haven’t got one, I encourage you to think about it. Who knows what might actually happen.