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CHAPTER 4 Eyes in Your Feet
England–Holland–Germany, October 2003
Choppy waves in the fresh breeze. Darkness falls as I gaze back at England.
It’s 225 miles since I crossed the Severn Bridge. Seagulls cry as the ferry pulls out. I’m standing on deck, looking as the lights come on in Harwich, and darkness falls.
‘October blackberries are the Devil’s fruit,’ my grandmother Carlie used to say but I think they’re the most tempting of any fruit. They make handy fuelling stations for a runner and I feast on them. There has been a full moon above the sweeping soft English autumn countryside and the days are sparkling and sunny though sometimes chilly. It’s been a beautiful run.
Among the most powerful images of this part of the route are the distinguished buildings and grounds of great stately-looking places like the Marlborough Public School buildings and grounds, and quaint houses and tiny cottages in quiet villages and small market towns like Castle Combe, Chipping Sodbury and others. Even Slough, which I have always only driven through, I now see in a new way too.
Everywhere I’m cheered on and helped with good humour and kindness; especially outside pubs along the canal path from Slough to London, where people sit with their pints, their reflections in the clear water turning them into double pints. En route, I see foxes and badgers, and the blackbird’s morning song follows me everywhere.
I have the same feelings that I did when leaving Wales: England, the whole of the British Isles, is so precious and beautiful. My ears ache with listening and trying to remember the melody of the blackbirds and my eyes and mind hurt with storing the sights around me that I will not see again for years.
Near Marlborough in Wiltshire, a vet stops his car. His name is Martin and he tells me he’s also a runner. When he ran from Land’s End to John O’Groats he used a baby-jogger.
‘Much easier than carrying a backpack. You’re carrying too much weight which long term will ruin your back. You need to get a cart to pull.’
Looking back, I really respected his advice and wished I’d taken it sooner. At the time, though, I thought it could be difficult to camp at night and progress through tracks in woods with a cart.
It means so much that Mark, Clive’s favourite nephew, his wife Mandy and son Andrew drive out to see me. They are such a part of it all, and yet so already is Geoff who I have only ever met once before, at the Omsk Marathon. Geoff runs 20 miles with me and we drink cool lemonade at the end. The most special moments are the two nights with Eve, Pete and my grandson Michael, after I’ve run the canal path from Slough to London. I wake up in the spare bedroom, thinking I have all the time in the world.
Please make time stand still—also please make time pass that I can win through. There’s no point in feeling selfish about this. So many people go through the same thing when they are off on some mission—or off to war. This run is a joy for me to do, but it is also my small personal and fierce war, my little contribution to life, not much compared to what many do. If I was a doctor or nurse I would not run around the world because then I could do more here.
I love my family so much. Eve is like me but much cleverer and more beautiful; Michael is a kindred spirit, though only one and half; Pete’s a Liverpudlian, a designer—one of the best people I’ve ever met. They want me to go on my run; it’s for Clive, but it is for them too.
I also feel very sad when saying goodbye to Catherine in London, and to dear Nedd, the black cat who owns her; I have faith I will see them all again; I have faith it will all work out; but my heart is thudding with the immensity of the journey ahead.
I spend several days running from London to Colchester and on to the east coast. I keep thinking, ’This is just one little step, one little breath, in my aim to circle the globe. I have planned it, prepared for it; been inspired to do it; yet it is still something I never thought I could reach for in my lifetime. It has been full of practical, prosaic plans and strategies and solutions; but still something beyond all the horizons I know.
By 19 October, I’m boarding the ferry to Holland.
The ferry docks at Hook at 4am in the stillness of predawn darkness. I unwrap the bivvi, rest in it awhile, awaken to skies blazing in a tangerine sunrise. The huge clouds across the skies are golden. I understand why in Holland they call clouds ‘the Dutch mountains’. They are the most spectacular peaks around. Soon, early light is reflecting the tops of many glasshouses in town, which sparkle like diamonds. Thousands appear on bikes on their way to work. Everybody is warm and good-humoured, saying good morning to me in English. There’s the smell of hot coffee, fresh croissants and cakes in the chocolatiers and bakeries.
I begin the 50km run to Haarlem. The path is through a forest, then along dykes and canals. A mist descends. Boats emerging out of the fog seem close enough to touch. It almost seems I’m travelling beside them in the same element, on the water. There are misty windmills, endless dykes. I’ve been to Holland several times, but it’s never felt like this. I realise, through the two-week run in Holland, it’s the way of travelling that matters. I bless the heavy pack that’s crippling me, because I’m so slow. Slowness gives you eyes in your feet and can be a catalyst for the senses.
Klaas Hoeve is publishing two of my sailing books in Dutch. He and his assistant Madelon take me to lunch in Haarlem, bringing chocolate whose giant chocolate letters say Rosie. He’s meeting me again in the north of Holland at Leewarden. I eat one letter of my name every day for extra energy, continuing along little roads and paths weaving through marshlands, dykes and more empty landscape than I imagined existed in Holland in a misty landscape of sudden shafts of light, with rainstorms, windmills and farms often only just visible as if on a delicate, washed-out artist’s canvas.
I’m using a lot of energy and need to eat often. I buy food in little shops in isolated villages. Grocers are understanding when I purchase just a few potatoes, three carrots, one onion. Vegetables are delicious but heavy to carry. It changes my way of shopping completely when I have to carry it all on my back. I’m also rediscovering spaghetti—wonderful with Dutch cheese. There are 500gm per pack and 100gm is 300 calories. If you add various bits and pieces, it’s a good budget meal. My tiny stove becomes the centre of my life. There aren’t many cafes in the countryside, even in Holland. Even if I find a restaurant, I often don’t stop. I must economise as my budget for the entire run is very small. A few thousand pounds a year.
The first frost comes on 23 October: a scattering of snow followed by driving sleet and rain. I’m happy I’ve picked up a parcel of heavier-duty clothes and kit sent ahead to my publisher. The weather is always good from inside a PHD Khumbu storm-proof Gortex jacket.
On 25 October I run across the first 15km of the Afsluitdijk dam that stretches 35km in a beautiful, dramatic way between the open water of Waddensee and the inland Ijsselmeer seas, a vast engineering feat that’s the only route between the west of Holland and Friesland. It feels almost like the parting of the waves of Jordan, with the sea either side letting you through.
Later, offshore lights rock and sway as ships and boats are tossed on the waves; cars along the dam crash up skeins of water from the deluges as they proceed. I’m like a sea-beacon of light by the side of the road, wearing my newest reflectors and shining lights on the pack and adorning my coat. Drivers are courteous, lowering their headlight beams to spare me. I put my head down and run with a will.
I make it to Leewarden and, though sleepy and like a wet dog with my breath all steamy and hair like sodden fur, I feel so pleased. I’m warmly welcomed by Leewarden College students. Soon I feel great again thanks to them, dry the most essential items out, have a hot shower and rest. Then the real events of the day start. The roads become packed with runners, all wearing Rosie’s Run T-shirts. We do 25km around sublime wooded Friesian countryside, with traditional homes with carved porches and a feeling all its own.
The support is such that I don’t feel tired; the occasion ends with a concert by the local Shantykoor choir who sing great sea shanties and other songs. The words of ‘Molly Malone’ and ‘Irish Eyes are Smiling’ are still echoing in my head as I continue running towards Germany.
I head over the border on 2 November, one month since I’ve set off. I’ve now done 500 miles though the next 10,000 miles are going to be in kilometres, which is nice and encouraging. Kilometres may not be as lovable as miles (you never reach ‘a kilometre-stone in life’) but give the illusion of making progress by adding up more quickly.
I cross the border some distance beyond the last Dutch town of Groningham. No passport stamp, no officials. You’d hardly know you were in a different country. But I’m given a beautiful path beyond Bunde that will avoid all the busy roads.
The rain has started, everything keeps getting wet. I can’t keep my eyes open all the same as the excitement of the last week is catching up. I’m so tired, I have to drop where I stop, which happens to be in the most beautiful late autumn forest. I’m never going to get over how I’ve always thought of Germany as an industrial country, yet it also has the most glorious broad-leaf forests I have ever seen. I prop up the bivvi, stuff myself into my great big double sleeping bag, and I’m gone, lost to the world.
One night I wake up in a terrible fright. Something has crashed into the bivvi. There’s a loud squeal and heavy breathing outside. I say a lot of prayers all at once. I’m shaking all over, trying to gather my wits as I grab the torch.
CHAPTER 5 Eric the Wild Boar
Germany, November 2003
Something very alive, large, and struggling frantically, falls on top of me.
It’s crazy trying to get the zip open, as everything is being flung all over the place. The bivvi hits a tree, and I get a thud on the head. I drop the torch, and am squashed flat in the dark. Luckily the torch is within my grasp.
I manage to get the strained zip open at last, and almost drop dead from astonishment. I’m still frightened but can’t stop laughing either. Shaking almost as much as me and regarding me with little black short-sighted eyes, twitching his snout with fine whiskers and a pair of small tusks, is a wild boar. He seems quite young though large and appears to have collided with my home by accident. Probably out looking for truffles or something. He looks so sweet but I’ve heard that wild boars are dangerous. He’s got himself caught up with the trotters in the guy rope, which on the bivvi are very low and he’s twisting around until practically wearing the bivouac. We’re both too squashed to move. I’ve heard that when dealing with bears, which I’ve never done before, you have to talk to them, so I say, ‘It’s OK, Eric —’ (the first name that comes to mind) ‘— I don’t want any bacon for breakfast. Obelix might eat three wild boars for breakfast but not me!’
I’m so worried the bivvi will get wrecked, but he’s standing stock still now although wound in it so tightly and it’s all wedged around a tree root. I can hardly move either. It seems like hours have passed, though it’s only moments since it all began. I never ever thought I’d end up being joined at the hip with a wild boar. Finally I sacrifice one of the guy ropes, cutting it with my small knife. Eric shakes himself free as if to see if he’s really at liberty, then twists his little tail round and tears away with one last snort.
It’s well after dawn. Sunshine comes through the golden leaves on the oak trees. Everything is drenched from the rain which has stopped without my noticing.
My tent is a scene of chaos but has somehow held together, although my precious Marmite and lavender oil have blended together, putting me off both for quite some time.
I’ll never forget Eric the Wild Boar and the lesson he’s taught me. This is a multifaceted journey, not just a run. In future I put little white ties on the guy-ropes to warn any short-sighted creatures that I’m there. Wild animals don’t often attack you, but it doesn’t pay to startle them. I’m to learn that they’re not keen on a fight, as they don’t wish to become injured themselves. There’s not much joy in being an injured predator, because that way you don’t get to eat. But I have to avoid another confrontation even like the one with berry- and truffle-eating Eric, however much we’d got along OK in the end, because the kit won’t stand it.
I manage to gather my equipment together; it’s pretty muddy and needs patching. I don’t fancy sleeping in it before cleaning it up but I could do—it isn’t too bad. I pack everything and have a good 35km run to Leer, the first German town. Ahead of me is the most beautiful sight: a hotel with pretty flower-boxes, the warmth and smell of hot coffee and signs for home-made apple strudel and delicious German sausages and sauerkraut.
I reach for the emergency pack of euros my brother Nicolas gave me before I left. The manager, dressed in black jacket and pin-striped trousers, grabs my soggy, muddy backpack as if it were Gucci luggage—only 40 euros with breakfast, he says. He dances me up the carpeted staircase, showing me into a room with a four-poster bed, pointing to the spacious gleaming bathroom, plucking a rose from a vase on the way up and flinging it into the washbasin, then leaves me to it. I’m so glad he doesn’t reappear half an hour later. He’d never have recognised the place: my sleeping bags are hanging over plastic bags to catch the drops, with muddy leggings draped about the place. The great thing about hotel rooms is that the kit enjoys it as much as you do. I sink a small bottle of champagne that he’s thoughtfully left beside the bed and fall fast asleep.
CHAPTER 6 Need Makes the Naked Lady Spin
Germany, November 2003
These are the foothills of the epic adventures ahead. I am in a hidden Germany I’ve never known existed: white-tailed deer leaping and bounding so high you’d think they had wings; cottages out of Hansel and Gretel; more hogs (though none behave like Eric); foxes and owls hunting at night, falcons and kestrels and hundreds of songbirds by day. As I nibble at black bread and cheese, the smaller birds often hop along with me, jumping on the crumbs.
I arrive at the historical town of Oldenburg among pretty buildings and churches with tall spires. I’d like to stay in Oldenburg one day with someone I love. I put the idea in a little bag inside my head called ‘Later’. I hope it’s a strong bag, as it holds a lot.
I think how lucky I’ve been to sleep beneath the beautiful stars in forests at night; to hear the wind stirring after a calm forest night; and get the smells and taste almost of the new day; the wild herbs, berries and fresh wild air—and to be on my way. The mornings are frosty and clear and everything just feels great.
I love these forests and towns that give me a feeling of running through a storybook. ‘I’ll be back, I keep telling myself.’ On foot I am slow enough for the spell of my surroundings to catch and absorb me. They become part of me. Yet this is overshadowed by my emotions about the urgency of trying to keep going as well as I can. Russia lies ahead but it is at least 2,000 miles away.
I’m already on my third pair of shoes and they have looked after me really well, My legs feel fine. Top marathoners sometimes do 150 miles a week, just in training for a race, so the distance, even with the heavy pack, isn’t so extreme as my pace is about 30–35km a day. If I think like this, the running is easier.
Over the next few days I cross footbridges over the huge autobahns or go through dark little tunnels leading beneath them, following mostly farm tracks and cycle paths. I’m so slow people often stop me to find out what I’m doing and give me valuable local directions. I am getting on reasonably well in German with the help of a phrase book, and going slowly makes me feel part of the communities I am running through, which makes me less lonely, and everybody is good to me. Some of the byways aren’t on any map I’ve bought. I go north of Bremen after negotiating the bridge on the outskirts across the river, eventually reaching Buxthude and I’m 20km from Hamburg where I need to collect a parcel.
I’m given keys to a closed campsite so I can shower in the toilet block. The showers work but the lights are dim and while I’m showering I hear crunching beneath my feet and realise the floor’s full of broken glass, as one of the windows has been smashed by the winter storms. I spend a long time picking it out of my feet but think no more of it.
I arrive in Hamburg at last on 11 November, and find a policeman leaning against his motorcycle as I reach the city centre after hours of heading in from the outskirts. He signs my logbook with a flourish, directing me to the Allianz Cornhill building—a glittering skyscraper. One of the most difficult things on this run is getting an address where I can get my kit sent ahead. Geoff Hall who works for Allianz Cornhill in London has arranged for their office in Hamburg to kindly help and receive a box of equipment for me which has arrived. Myrto Reiger and her colleagues greet me cheerfully, dragging in what they call ‘the Rosie Parcel’.
I check out the website which is going so well. I’m inspired all the time by the way people have been helping non-stop; most of all, the heart-warming and exceptional support from my ‘A Team’ back at home who have been in on it from day one. This sustained assistance is so valuable. Ann has even sent a ‘Red Cross parcel’ she’s made up for me, containing fruitcake and home-made apple pie, that’s somehow survived. The items need to be packed into my rucksack. They all help, as the poor pack grows and grows. Cakes and coffee are served, and they produce a gift of a big box of chocolates, sharing my joy as I open letters from family and hand around photos. I get out all the treats, letters from my family, vital winter kit from PHD and new shoes. It’s like a birthday party! I leave a couple of hours later feeling happy and exuberant.
The first place I arrive at that has rooms is a very prosperous bordello, one of the best in town, says the landlady as she shows me up the stairs. They have plenty of rooms for the budget traveller as well. The whole establishment seems to have been designed as a stage set for a Feydeau farce—with separate staircases so those going up for fun won’t collide with those coming down and be embarrassed, she informs me archly, taking me up to my tiny room.
It’s only when I stop and the euphoria of arrival wears off that I become aware of the extreme pain in my left foot. I sink on the bed, close the gingham curtains and examine my foot which had trodden on the glass and which is now very painful. There’s a huge lump like a corn with a glistening sliver of glass still in it and the callous has grown around it. I get out my small knife and dig the glass out a bit ferociously, but it doesn’t work and the foot soon becomes agonising. The little room is spotless but black mice keep darting here and there. If I turn on the light, I even find them sitting on the shelf. So there is wildlife here too. They entertain me all through the night as I can’t sleep.
Next day a nearby pharmacy gives me the name of a doctor. I call Ann in Tenby, still keeping an eye on my finances, and go for it. The nurse wraps a black band with a blood-pressure measuring dial around my left ankle and injects my foot. The doctor proceeds to cut off most of my third toe but it’s probably just the skin. The nurse wraps it all up in thick bandages so it resembles a Yeti’s foot and says I have to buy a giant blue surgical slipper she’s produced.
No running for two weeks, the doctor says.
I retire to my bordello, determined to make it in three days. The foot will heal fast as I’m fit. I’m concerned that I had a visa for the little piece of Russia called Kallingrad, which is all on its own in Europe; an extra visa to get through this area has also been arranged by Liza but will run out if I don’t get there soon enough.
I get ready. It’s 12 November; if I can leave on the 14th, that would be fantastic. Behind my hotel, alternating with the many wild-looking clip joints and naked shows, are small, inexpensive shops selling food from around the world, ranging from African sweet yams to delicious tiny Caribbean bananas and rye-bread.
The kiosk walls in the many small businesses offering cheap phone-calls are paper-thin. As I queue up with others, mostly from a large, hard-working immigrant community living quietly alongside the thriving nightlife, I recognise joy in the voices at once as soon as anyone gets through.
It’s the first time on my run I’ve been amongst others far from their homes who have left families behind in more straitened circumstances of poverty and war than I could ever dream. They are sweet people and very polite to me. We communicate with words and gestures. As an Icelandic friend later tells me, ‘Need makes the naked lady spin.’
The mice look on with definite approval as I unpack my purchases of figs, dates, cheese and bread until I shut the whole lot into a tin with a firm lid.
I call Eve and James, and the line is so clear I feel I am reaching out and hugging them. They are part of me—the very best part—and I feel so close to them. I am happy and cheered knowing that everything is well at home. As many parents with grown-up families do, I feel that Eve and James and Pete are more than daughter and son and son-in-law to me; they are friends who I admire so much as well as love. They are in their thirties and with their own lives, but they are so good to me. They live far from Tenby, and often in the past we’ve been at the end of a phone like now. The difference this time is both that I shall be gone so long; but also that we are perhaps getting even closer in spirit than ever before.
It’s a delightful boost when Geoff flies to Hamburg to walk with me for several kilometres before catching his flight back the same day. He also takes some good photos for the sponsors, which has been hard for me to achieve alone.
As we set off, I find that I can cope without too much trouble with the bad foot. I wear a running shoe on one foot, surgical slipper on the other. With a plastic bag over the bandage, it works OK. Every time I get tired we call into a shop; they pull out a chair so I can rest for a few minutes but I soon get stronger.
The only sad thing on the way from Hamburg is that Tenby Bear gets lost. I feel more than a twinge of sorrow. He’s been firmly tied and squashed into the backpack, but has vanished. Maybe he didn’t approve of the Red Light District or, on the contrary, liked it too much and has rushed back there to join in the fun. I hope some child in Hamburg who needs a beautiful bear will find him and love him a lot.
By 15 November I’ve made 14km. I’m out in the forests again, it’s nearly −8 and the trees look like gossamer with stars caught in the frost branches. It always turns me inside-out with feelings I can’t describe, because of the sheer beauty and the feeling of being all alone in it.
It’s cold but doesn’t rain, which is lucky as the foot stays dry and doesn’t get infected. I’m gradually able to wear a shoe on my bad foot, though without an insole.
By 17 November I’ve reached Ratzeburg. Between here and Gadebusch, I run across the former border of East Germany. There is more difference between the old East Germany and West Germany than I realised. Bus stops in villages don’t have shelters, there are fewer cycle tracks. Houses are older, usually having smaller windows; penny marts and stalls sell everything. They seem quietly spoken, private folk who smile a bit when they hear my efforts at German. I had to learn the basics of five different languages before leaving home because in many cases nobody outside towns can speak English. It also seems to be a courtesy as well as necessity to learn a bit of each language.
In a penny mart I meet Marion, selling salami with her husband. She writes in my book and says she’d love to cycle across Africa one day. ‘A dream is as necessary as being able to eat. It’s even more important when it’s all you have,’ she says. ‘We’ll go one day. Don’t tell my husband yet as it’s a secret.’ I can see he knows, from the affectionate smile he gives her. Maybe they should get a tandem, but then again maybe not. A week ago near Hamburg on a cycle path I saw a couple on a tandem. The man in front was beaming, pedalling fast. Luckily he couldn’t look back to see his wife her face like thunder, and not pedalling at all.
Chunks of snow decorate the sweet-smelling pine forest after the first snowfall. Beneath mighty trees, little spruces and firs, delicately fringed with snow, are waiting to be collected to give pleasure over Christmas. I think, I want one like this next Christmas. I imagine my family sitting around it; parcels beneath. I think, It’s what I have always taken for granted that means the most now. That’s the biggest lesson of my run so far.
People show me paths from farm to farm and through mighty pine woods before I head back onto a big road leading to Schwerin with its Cinderella-like castle. The last big place was Hamburg. I’m finding that reaching a town becomes part of the adventure.
My foot is much better. The rest and recent low mileage have helped too—I ran 46km today to get to Schwerin, but am pretty tired; I decide, it’s definitely time for a treat.
The first hotel I call at is expensive; the elderly blonde woman has a mean mouth. But a handsome young man with flowing hair is in charge of the next. He has a little dog with a bow in its hair that never leaves his heels. He welcomes me and charges half price. I have dinner in a hotel cafe with large aquaria everywhere, so one is truly dining with the fish; there are no other human guests. I retire to a comfy room where I can sort everything out and have a bath, soak the sore foot—and stretch in the warm water and luxuriate deliciously.
Next morning I run in lashing rain across the Rampamoor, leading past mangroves and swamps close to the road between the water. It’s said to be a famous beauty spot but is ghoulish and full of restless ghosts as I cross in a near gale.
A downpour has caused splashes of rainwater to be released in the trees. Each time the branches shake it’s like living under a waterfall so I have to keep moving the bivvi in the middle of the night. Since by now there’s no chance of getting to sleep, I do some writing. As my handwriting is a trainee MI5’s operative’s masterclass in decoding, especially by the flickering torchlight, I have to find new batteries. The bivvi suddenly seems larger once everything is brighter and now I can read what I have written I’m wondering why I bothered in the first place.
I arrive at a strange place in the woods. A sign says it’s Raststate Rosenhof. The door’s unlocked so I push it. There are tree branches inside decorating it, so it still seems like part of the forest. There’s nobody there. Places are laid out with bowls and spoons, as in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I shout out ‘Hello’. A bouncy-looking man with gleaming eyes and a jolly expression appears, introducing himself as Jurgen. He treats me to coffee and produces a tray of freckled eggs in front of my eyes, carrying them off to the kitchen and personally cooking me a delicious breakfast: eggs, bacon and sausage, better than Goldilocks’ porridge. It stops raining and I get going. A car comes roaring up behind me on the country road. It’s Jurgen. As it’s early in the morning he’s dug his wife out of bed to meet up with me. He’s wrapped a blanket around her and brought her curlers and all.
They have come because his parents have both died of cancer. They embrace me and wish me ‘gut speed’. The warmth with which they say it keeps me going a long way.
Bruel is desolate and very windy when I get there. I wash my thermal vest in the Ladies (Damen) in one of the cafes, put it on wet as usual to be dried by my body—I’m my own clothes-horse. Drying is helped by the blast of the slipstream of passing juggernauts. The only problem is I haven’t rinsed the apple shampoo out of my clothes so everything smells of apple. Talk about ‘Cider with Rosie’.
It often occurs to me that running as a way of travelling is a mixture of practical things, myths and unspoken laws:
Say thank you to the ground you have slept on.
Pick up any litter as if it’s 50 euro notes.
Never miss the chance to be happy.
I’ll never get over the feeling of climbing a hill and seeing the red roof of the first house in the next village. In this case it’s Grobraden, where there’s an old Slavonic castle. There are two languages, just like in Wales, and the history goes back thousands of years.
I carry on over the next 150km to Usedom, a historical spot with a thin strip of land binding the Acterwasser or lake along the road that runs to Poland. I am tempted to stay longer in Usedom. There are breathtaking old oaks and beech trees among frosty, feathered pine trees. I see a sign beside a footpath saying there are wolves here, but don’t see any. There are no campsites open so I stay in the woods, tidily and quietly.
