LEJOG
Distance walked – 33km (20.6miles)
Total Distance – 416.7km (260.4miles)
I’m too sexy for my shirt
Too sexy for my shirt
So sexy it hurts
Right said Fred – Too sexy
Today was our lowest day on the path, both in physical height above sea level and emotions. Yesterday’s late finishing slog-fest, (we didn’t get in until after 7:30pm, as it was getting dark), left us with battered feet and me doubting if we were going to be able to finish this walk. Our guidebook had also warned that today was a long boring walk across the Somerset Levels, with little to recommend it, so we had set off feeling down with little expectation.
As it turned out, we were treated to almost perfect weather, the walk was better than expected, and despite our foot pain (ankle pain for Louisa) we made it into Cheddar before 5pm. As some of our running club friends say – `Wasn’t pretty, didn’t die’.
Bridgewater, it is fair to say, is not the prettiest place in the UK. Despite that, it has some interesting old buildings in the town centre, and its eponymous bridge is fine. As we crossed the bridge at 06:15 (we learnt our lesson about late starts yesterday), a homeless man bade us a cheery `hello’.
Things deteriorated from there with a long trudge down a dispiriting shopping street, followed by endless walking through mean housing estates, the dull rumble of a motorway getting progressively louder. As we crossed the M5 the eternally optimistic Louisa noted, ” If you lived there, at least you could get on the motorway quickly. . .”
The Somerset levels that we crossed today are an enormous plain, barely above sea level, that historically was seasonally flooded. Clever drainage and pumping, started in the middle ages, has turned it into a dry agricultural plain, criss-crossed by canals and waterways. As we found, it isn’t all level, the villages built on the high spots or islands in the sea of flatness.
There are few footpaths across the Somerset levels, and the ones that do exist seem to be overgrown and seldom walked. Our way today was often blocked by crops or overgrown fields with difficult to follow paths. Due to this we ended up resorting to a lot of road walking, so it was with some relief that we spied a cycle rail-trail on the map which we took from the village of Bawdrip to Crossington.
It was actually very busy, with many cyclists passing us (cycling seems popular on the quiet long level roads). The route was easy with many sculptures dotted along the way that kept us interested.
As we left Crossington, at the start of a long road walk, the Mendip Hills, that border the Levels, came into view. One of the things we are really enjoying about the walk is ‘living the landscape’ as we see and experience the geography revealing itself to us at such a slow pace, so different to travelling in a car or on a train. Peering through a hedge we were also able to make out Glastonbury Tor, its distinctive shape rising above the surrounding flatness.
The road was long and deserted. As we passed around a corner, a battered old Range Rover came up behind us. The driver pulled up alongside us and greeted us heartily in his broad West Country accent. “Walking to John o’Groats?” he said.
They obviously have so few walkers in this area that anyone walking with a pack is assumed to be a LEJOGger, (he was right!). He was a local farmer out to check on his cows and told us that he met several LEJOGgers every week and was expecting a constant stream until September. The earliest person, he said, in a way that suggested we were perhaps dawdling, had come through several weeks ago. He wished us luck, kicked his dog out of the car, who followed us for the next 100 metres, and led us slowly on to the next corner. Suitably chastised for our tardiness we continued.
At lot more road walking over flat farmland eventually brought us to the village of Blackford, where we had spied a pub on the map for our lunch. We arrived at the Sexeys Arms (great name) at 12:30, but it sadly wasn’t very sexy at all. It seemed on its last legs, run by an elderly shaky publican who sadly informed us there was no food as the chef had left. The only patron then regaled us, in a one-sided fashion, with the following topics as we tried to eat our lunch outside: ethnic minorities and why they shouldn’t be in charge, how great Brexit was, and a variety of Royal topics including, Camilla is a hussy, Harry is a bastard and everyone knows it, and how great the late Queen was. He did, however, advise us against ever returning to Bridgewater, so he was right about one thing.
Ear-sore, we departed. The afternoon was long, but as we gained the last rise, Cheddar and its famous gorge came wonderfully into view, cleaving a rift in the Mendip Hills.
We struggled into Cheddar and eventually limped into the Youth Hostel just before check-in time at 5pm. We had survived another day. Wasn’t pretty, didn’t die.
7 Responses
There’s even a Sexey’s school in Somerset. Many years ago Natalie’s favourite teacher left her job in Bath to move to Sexey’s school. We were very disappointed, but I could see why she would want to take the Sexey job!
You couldn’t turn down a job at a Sexey school 🙂
That’s where Cathy went to school!
Bridgwater or Cheddar??
I lived down the road from sexeys school growing up – it’s on Lusty hill Bruton!! My dad was the school doctor !🤣
I looked up Bridgwater after you mentioned it yesterday… It has a long history… And currently has the highest crime rate in all of Somerset!
Crime rate nothing to do with us, I promise my lord!