A Walk Down Memory Lane (or The Tale of a Bitch Named Trixie) – 19th April 2014 – Home to Home, via Caddington, Woodside, Slip End, Downside, Kensworth Quarry, Dunstable Downs, Green Lanes and Sewell

After the failure that was last week’s training walk, I was determined to put in a really good weekend of walking. I’d had the flu all of the last weekend and had to take two days off work as well, but I’d managed to muddle my way through two days of court and I was raring to get back out on the footpaths and bridleways to rack up some training miles. The plan was to tackle at least three shorter walks, of 10 miles or so, over the four day bank holiday weekend, back to back, to build up the endurance of the old legs and the toughness of the old feet.

 

I had most of the kit laid out and ready to go on Thursday night... problem was that Super Wife wasn’t feeling all that super. After a few tearful moments at about 4am on a Good Friday, that didn’t start so “good,” I had been firmly talked out of going on a stroll by my darling, pregnant, and dare I say dangerously hormonal, missus... plus I hadn’t had my obligatory morning tea and muesli. 

 

Saturday morning – take two.  Ready to go again and... more of the same. To be fair Super Wife had a day of work ahead of her, and a walk into town of her own to drop off the baby with my mum, so the slightly down atmosphere in the Redmond family residence was not all that surprising. This time however, I managed to negotiate my way through the hazardous terrain of early morning marital discussion; Super Wife had regained her super human powers armed with a steaming hot mug of coffee, juice plus tablets and a bowl of muesli; and I was out on the road, adorned with my green Macmillan livery only an hour later than envisaged.

 

I didn’t realise how fast I was trundling along, but in absolutely no time at all I had left Luton Road and Station Road in my wake. It was quite strange setting out in the morning light rather than in the darkness save for the multicoloured glow of streetlights.

 

I wandered up the footpath that runs along the paddocks at the foot of the Blows Downs, from the edge of the busway and Great Northern Road to the end of Half Moon Lane. The going was firm compared to the sludge I had experienced along this stretch about a month ago, which was fantastic for the muscles in my thighs but less good for the soles of my feet. The trusty boots that have seen me through all of the training miles so far (and a fair few trips to the Highlands for that matter) are starting to wear painfully thin – in fact the original insoles are non-existent and there is a sizeable hole in the heel of the left one - but even with a pair of new “sports” insoles in these boots and my wonder socks from Sealskinz – I could still feel every furrow in the track.

 

I spun a left along the bottom of the Blows Downs and along the track towards the Bulldog – it was a lovely morning – a bit nippy, but to be honest after about 10-15 minutes of walking I generally maintain a pretty decent temperature. So whilst everyone else is stomping their feet or rubbing their hands together frantically to keep warm around me, I come steaming by... quite literally.

 

It was as I emerged into the clearing near the back of Jeans Way, just before you reach the chalky summit of the Bulldog, that I came face to furry face with a West Highland Terrier.

Before I go any further I should set out my canine credentials. I’m a dog lover – I own two dogs, a Rottweiler named Big Red and a German Shepherd named The Duke. They are unquestionably two large dogs whose breeds have a notorious, and largely undeserved, reputation for being aggressive. I’m a firm believer that it’s the owners not genetics that lead to aggression in dogs, but I also appreciate that these breeds have all the physical tools to put you in the hurt locker and therefore it is all the more important to train them properly and treat them right.

Now... with those views firmly stated. Why is it that some people, who own smaller, less intimidating breeds, clearly make no attempt to train their dogs in any way whatsoever? Case in point... this fecking Westie! Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce you to Trixie, my hairy midget canine nemesis... This little fluffy terror came flying across the open clearing like a bat out of hell, yapping the entire way as she closed the 100 metre gap between her elderly owner and me.  Not usually problem... as I say, I love dogs. I carried on at a steady pace, looked at the dog without staring at it and said the words “hello mate” in as chirpy a voice as I could muster, as I expected this mutt to either sniff me, lick me or simply continue haring on past.

I could just about make out the words “she’s alright, wouldn’t hurt a fly” in a raspy male tone momentarily before this tiny bundle of dread sank her jaws into my right ankle!

Not nipped at my right ankle... oh no! Properly wrapped her tiny little dagger teeth around my bloody leg! Thankfully, it was only momentarily and my jeans and Sealskinz, wetsuit like, sock offered me a surprising degree of protection. Nevertheless, I audibly cursed as Trixie released my leg, circled around the back of me and dashed about halfway back towards her clueless eejit of a master... and I use that term extremely loosely.

I managed to maintain my calm at this stage, but Trixie (old raspy was by now repeatedly shouting her name) leant into her turn as she came flying back towards me for a second sortie. I carried on walking in the direction of the Bulldog (the direction she was pelting from) and as she closed to about 3 metres from me I allowed my left boot to swing forward for about a second or so longer than one would normally employ for a normal step.

Safe to say that having come into abrupt contact with the toe end of a size 12 walking boot, old Trixie decided to finally return to her loving owner. Now – let’s be clear. I did not attempt to kick a three point through the posts with this yappy critter, I merely dissuaded her continued assault with the persuasive employment of boot leather on bonce. But here’s the real kicker... the elderly gentleman who had been “walking” Trixie started hurling abuse at me!

The air was quite literally blue! This guy was about 70-75 years old, an inch or two smaller than me and about half my weight. He was walking with the assistance of a walking stick – not a hiking pole – an old man’s walking stick which – once I had walked to about 10 metres of him – he began frantically waving about. Once he was within touching distance he began thrusting the offending piece of walking apparatus about an inch from my nose, spluttering all over my face. I was initially surprised at the venomous attitude of this particular senior citizen, then mildly amused by the use of language from an otherwise respectable looking pensioner, and then increasingly affronted and angry at the audacity of this idiot (regardless of his age) to start having a pop at me when it was his out of control hound that tried to take a chunk out of me only moments before. That said on the exterior I remained silent and stoic, I simply kept breathing in and out, allowing myself to calm down whilst maintaining eye contact with this lovely fellow and paying particular attention to the stick that was flirting with striking my face. The temptation to snatch his stick and snap it over my knee was immense but I managed to resist that overwhelming urge acutely away that I was in the green of Macmillan Cancer Support and an ambassador for the charity today.

I should also stress that I did not just boot his dog either... that is not in my nature at all -  but I was going to be damned if I was going to let her have another bite out of my leg – which was most certainly it’s feverish intent.

When I finally spoke I simply said in the least aggressive tone I could muster – I make no claims as to my success in that regard – “Maybe you should invest in a bloody lead mate... and a muzzle!” Then side stepping this aged wannabe tough nut I carried on my way up towards the gate that leads onto the Bulldog, the sound of raspy curse words left hanging in the air behind me.

Once out of sight I checked my ankle for damage – fortunately just a sore area at the front of my ankle and base of my shin (which actually culminated in a large bruise later that evening) and some additional tearing to the bottom of my jeans – and then I pressed on past the base of the chalky hillock of the Bulldog tweeting a “Good morning Dunstable” message as I went.

It is truly amazing how fast you walk when you’re a bit pissed off. Before I knew it I had reached the footpath at the end of Hatters Way, had stormed up the hill and along the fields to the Caddington Golf Club.

The footpath was an absolute delight at this time in the morning. Not a soul stirred as far as the eye could see as I rambled on through fields and fields of rapeseed glowing with its yellow haze against the blue-grey morning sky.

The blossoms, sparkling white, hung still to the trees and the fields that were not filled with rapeseed and the trees were a deep, rich, luxuriant green. 

It is impossible to stay angry when you’re out on a morning such as this was and by the time I reached the edge of the residential caravan site on Folly Lane in Caddington, all thoughts of the pillock and his devil hound were distant from my mind. Still I’ll have to get annoyed more often if it’s going to get me doing 4 miles in marginally over an hour!

TI continued on through Caddington, armed with the knowledge from another training walk, I headed straight for Heathfield Path around the perimeter fences of the village schools and past a patch of woodland covered in bluebells.

I then struck out again across the yellow horizon towards the Woodside residential caravan site.

When I had nearly crossed the expanse I came across another elderly gent accompanied by what I think was a King Charles Cavalier cross. This particular dog took very little interest in me at all but his owner seemed chirpy enough. I offered a “good morning” and received a light-hearted “bit nippy” in reply. Truthfully, I hadn’t noticed.

I emerged onto the Woodside Road in the heart of the little hamlet of Woodside and so my walk down memory lane began. There is a little pub in Woodside, called The Plough I think, that I remember my dad taking me to when I was very small when he went to meet a work colleague for a pint. I sat there with a coke bottle and a bag of cheese and onion crisps with my legs swinging from the beer garden bench, too short for my feet to touch the floor – I felt like a proper grown up and proud to be out with my dad on my own.

From Woodside I trundled along the pavement towards the crossroads at the centre of Slip End. My grandparents raised their family in Slip End, just a few doors down from the crossroads on Front Street.

My grandmother, Ann Redmond nee Dyer, was born a few doors further still up Front Street. I paused to think about all the times I had spent as a young child at my grandparents’ house, sitting on the floor in front of my granddad sat in his chair smoking a cigarette and listening to a small portable radio on the side to his right. My aunts and uncles who, all but one, still lived at home at that time, would be squeezed onto the sofa watching the television in the corner, the Redmond family history proudly emblazoned on the wall behind them, together with many other pictures and ornaments. As a child it was a treasure trove of wonder.

My nan would be out in the kitchen washing up or cooking in front of the window that looked out onto the small garden, whilst my Auntie Tish and my Uncle Les played trivial pursuits sat at the little folded table that sat on the carpeted half of that room. As I walked past the house in Front Street those memories came flooding back made all the more potent by the fact that my nan passed away, having succumbed to cancer, only a few days before.  

I decided to walk down Church Road towards St Andrews Church past buildings that once had amongst them a small newsagents with a tankard like front window in which my dad used to work as a shop assistant, having already worked a double shift at the old Delco factory in Dunstable and cycled the distance back to Slip End. That newsagents isn’t there anymore.

What does still stand however, and as beautiful as it was on the day that I married my darling wife, is the lovely little parish church at St Andrews. Having taken a photograph for this blog, I text my wife to let her know where I was and what I was thinking – brownie points for me I think!

I then walked back up Church Road, past the Rising Sun, the pub in which I enjoyed my last beverage in as an unmarried man accompanied by my two brothers-in-law, my three ushers, my groomsman and my best man. Two strange things happened in that pub that morning... first, I didn’t have a Jameson and coke... in fact I only drank an orange juice, feeling worse for wear having survived my stag night the very eve before the wedding. Second, the resident bulldog, a lovely pedigree bitch whose I cannot remember the name, took an obsessive affection to the aroma wafting from under young Mr McClements kilt... much to the amusement of all present.

I walked up Markyate Road towards the A5 and turned sharply up an alleyway squeezed tightly between two houses. It’s a funny thing... walking up a legitimate footpath such as this in the early morning when there is no one around leaves an incredible feeling of guilty conscience on you, despite your legitimate use. A sense that the world suspects you of being present only to scope out future burglary targets! When you look like me, donned in a flat cap, scuttling along an alleyway such as this, you tend to scuttle that little bit faster.

The footpath carries on, back across Woodside Road, and back into the fields of rapeseed... indeed back in the general direction of the Caddington Village Schools. It was at this point that I saw a fox bounding through a field of fresh green. Not the sort of fox that you sometimes witness in the suburbs of Dunstable or Luton, slightly greyed and mangy, digging through the bin bags piled against a commercial bin. This was the size of a medium-sized dog, deep reddish brown in colour with a large bushy tail – healthy – vital - magnificent. Unfortunately, I was too slow to get my camera out, partly due to astonishment, partly due to clumsy, sausage like fingers lacking all dexterity, but it would have been a picture to make Attenborough proud.

I popped out onto Manor Road through a gate that I could barely squeeze through at all and stumbled up that road back into the heart of Caddington, past the Caddington Football and Social Club, before turning down the Dunstable Road, past the allotments and then right onto another footpath that led towards the corner of Folly Wood and then touched the edge of Cradle Spinney before turning sharply northwest towards Castlecroft Wood.

I then took a bit of a wrong turn... all I can say is, thank goodness for a compass. I walked about a quarter of a mile southwest and then north in correction, eventually finding my way back on to the route just east of Dame Ellen’s Wood. Although my path did not take me into those woods from where I walked I could see a blanket of bluebells at the foot of the trees. There is no finer sight in my opinion than a woodland floor covered in those pretty blue flowers.

From there I wandered through the fields and woods of the nature reserve on the outskirts of Dunstable, pausing on the hillside only to take a photo of the view out across Downside and the new buildings popping up by the hotel on the furthest reaches of town.

I came down from the Blows Downs, emerging from the countryside onto a playground at the edge of the Downside estate, from where I ambled up Southwood Road towards the High Street. The town was still quiet. The only people I saw as I passed through Downside was a couple of lads walking a large well-behaved American Bulldog on a lead along Graham Road (take note old codger with the westie!), a young lad with a large microphone shaped afro wheeling down the slope of Southwood Road on the handles of a shopping trolley who gave me a polite nod as we passed each other and three reasonably large men trying to shoe horn themselves into a fiesta being driven by an exasperated young woman who struck me as one of their long suffering girlfriend.

I trundled past the sign welcoming visitors into Dunstable as I again wandered out of its limits, before heading up Beech Road, past the end of Lowther Road, and up a chalk bank to the open field that leads onwards to the edge of Kensworth Quarry.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again... I’m an absolute fool! That quarry is absolutely massive! How I managed to live in the same town for my entire youth completely oblivious of its existence is beyond comprehension.

It must constitute one of the significant employers in the region as it takes an absolute age to walk around the edge of it. I could see several tiny specks moving around the various tiers of the quarry shelves, clearly gigantic earth moving vehicles reduced to the size of large insects from my vantage point. The sun began to shine brightly and the blue of the large pool at the base of the quarry shone like a sapphire beneath it.

From there it was along another dirt track surrounded by beautiful green foliage until I came to the road at the top of Dunstable Downs.

This section of my walk is a very familiar friend by now. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the countryside looked splendid in its colourful array, and the hilltops were as lively as ever. It looked to me as though the Regimental Fitness team were out putting their clients through their paces, a swarm of colourful training tops circling over by the new glass building a bit further on from where the hut used to be.

I also noticed several large wooden apparatus positioned along the top of the Downs – well... I say noticed. They were pretty hard to miss. I can only assume that they will be forming part of an upcoming endurance race. It looked pretty fun to me, although perhaps a little challenging, and in proper girly mode my first thoughts ran along the lines of “think of the splinters!”

I paused along the top of the Five Knolls to take a few photographs as it was such a fine day before heading down the other side along the chalk path that runs beside the back fences of the residences down to West Street.

From there I crossed over to the Green Lanes which I followed down to the colourful painted wooden sign that marks the entrance to the Totternhoe Lanes and Knolls, before turning northeast along the field edges and then northwest towards Sewell.

I then walked down the lanes to the Sewell footbridge where I past two amicable ladies out riding their horses in the morning sunshine who merrily wished me a good morning and a lovely day.

At this point I thought I had barely covered 10-11 miles – I hadn’t actually measured my route this time out – so I was keen to add to my mileage which is why I had set off in the direction of Sewell in the first place and not just turned off the Green Lanes by Spinney Crescent. I did however turn around at Sewell and headed off back in the direction of Dunstable along the Sewell Greenway.

Once I had traversed the Sewell Greenway, it was then the familiar route along the cycleway from Frenchs Avenue to Creasey Park, out on to Brewers Hill Road and up to Brewers Hill Park. Then it was through to Ashcroft and down to Loring Road.

Once at Loring Road I took a pit stop and a sweet cup of tea at my mum’s (not to mention to pick up my beautiful daughter Niamhy and push her back home in her buggy).

When I got home from my mum’s, having walked just under two miles pushing a buggy, but no longer carrying a pack, I discovered that I had phenomenally underestimated my day’s mileage.

In fact I had walked just under 19 miles in the space of about 6.5 hours – which is not too shoddy... even if I do say so myself.

 Can you spare a few quid in support of the MS Society, Macmillan Cancer Support and Help for Heroes?

 

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Massive thanks to the boxing community

Massive thanks to all of the members of the boxing community who have sent messages of support or have posted a message on their pages spreading the word about the walk. Fantastic response. Thanks guys.  

 

(Pictured are Ben Robinson, PJ Pat Gallagher, Jay Connolly Art, Damon Ware, Bob Williams, George Jupp, Aarron Morgan, Johnny Coyle, Lucas Browne, Bradley Skeete, Danny Kelly, Ben Doughty, John Wilson, Graham Tyson Tirrell, Aji Sharif, Lyndon Lightsout Newman, Johnny Eames, Rendall Munroe, Kash Ali, Alec Wilkey, Marcello Renda, RockinRobin Deakin, Storm Gym Amir Subasic, Ste Williams, Lovemore Ndou, Martin Concepcion, Amir Unsworth, Terry Holmes, Lewis 'badbreed' Pettitt, Nathan Dale, Graham Earl, Brian O'shaughnessy, Billy Rumbol, Frankie Monkhouse, Tony Cesay, Andy Gatenby, Lee Connelly, Ovill Mckenzie, Jeff Thomas, Colin Mcmillan, Frank Buglioni, Wayne Elcock, Billy Schwer, James Full Monty Montgomery, Anne Boxologist Whitlock, Paul Smith, Kevin Mitchell and John Henry Stracey.)

Attack of the killer man flu... 12th April 2014 – from Dunstable to Punchbowl Lane near St Albans, via the edges of Kensworth, Markyate and Flamstead along the A5 and through Redbourn

I awoke this morning with some serious stomach cramps. The kind of stomach cramps where you feel a lengthy stay on the toilet seat is going to be required and yet when you get there... no dice. Now... I know I’m turning into the grumpy, moaning old man from hell – whinging about everything and anything including my bodily movements – but this start to the day is going to become very relevant a bit later on... unfortunately.

Despite my minor health gripes (!) I got myself sorted out to go for a bit of a training walk with the intention to go on the pavements from Dunstable to St Albans Cathedral and back again. The fantastic team at Sealskinz had sent me some top of the range hiking socks which were unbelievably comfortable and Super Wife had managed to get hold of some new cushioned insoles for my heavily battered hiking boots. I donned a black hoody with my bright orange MS Society t-shirt worn over the top of it and I was out of the door by 5am.

 

I walked in the dark down Luton Road and then Great Northern Road, with hardly a car in sight and only the occasional glimpse of a feral cat in the streetlights before turning onto High Street South and up the A5 in the direction of Downside. I came over all nostalgic as I passed the newsagents opposite Periwinkle Lane having seen the early morning newspaper stacks set out for putting together through the dimly lit front window. Memories of being about 12-13 years old down at old Cliff Thompson’s newsagents on Chiltern Road at 4am, before school, loading up two huge luminous yellow sacks with papers and straining against the weight as I stumbled off into the cold morning darkness. It was tough work for a youngster but it was the only way to make £14.50 a week at that age. As I made my way up the A5 the trip down memory lane continued to play in my mind as I passed the garages on Southfields Road where I had spent many an early morning in miserable weather with my father in law to be loading scaffold towers that he stored in two or three garages onto the flatbed of a transit. Even the simple act of passing the partially lit Highwayman pub triggered the recollection of having to get up around 4 to 5 in morning when I lived and worked at the Nags Head in Dunstable to meet the draymen bleary-eyed and yawning like a mad man. I used to just about have enough time to get the barrels and boxes in position, Brasso the pumps and fixtures, clean the optics and then run upstairs and get changed ready to dash off up West Street to attend Queensbury Sixth Form – that was on the occasions that I did attend to be truthful. The good thing about all these random thoughts swimming around my head was that they were taking my mind of the searing pain that I had begun to experience on the left hand side of my abdomen.

 

I ignored the discomfort and plodded on up the A5, past Manshead School, past Turnpike Farm, wandering in the beginnings of the morning light on the never-ending tarmac trail with green hills to my left and yellow rapeseed fields to my right.

 

I carried on past the Packhorse pub sitting stranded on its plot entirely surrounded by a triangular junction of roads; past the caravan plots on my side of the road with the guard dogs who clearly don’t bearded walkers wearing bright orange coming near their patch; and onwards along the wall of Cell Park towards the subway at Markyate.

 

Markyate itself appeared to have come to a grinding halt, with its main street cordoned off and clearly a large amount of works underway. Not that it particularly affected me at all as I clung to the A5 walking in the direction of River Hill. The one thing I have noticed about walking this route is that this stretch of road feels so long! In reality the distance between Dunstable and St Albans is only around 12 to 13 miles which is not particularly long in the context of all the training I’ve been doing, but the sheer monotony of trudging along the soulless A5 makes the walk feel quite literally twice as long. You have to remind yourself to lift your gaze from the pavement in front of you and up to the quite lovely countryside that lays just to your right in the general direction of Flamstead. It’s a lesson that I intend to take with me for those first 4-5 days walking down the A99 from John O’Groats at the start of my Little Stroll.

 

Having past the rows of saplings and mature trees that line the considerable plot of Majestic Trees and the hot pink trimmed log cabin façade of the Waggon & Horses, I eventually came to junction 9 of the M1... where I promptly spent the next few minutes vomiting profusely into a hedge near the end of Watery Lane. Stay classy Mr Redmond... stay classy!

 

Once I’d managed to compose myself, I decided that the worst of my feeling unwell was probably behind me and as such I began the steady ramble up the steady hill from the M1 to the edge of Redbourn, passing as I did so the Hertfordshire County Showground – empty fields this morning but still lined with Union and Hertfordshire flags hanging rather forlornly in the absence of a morning breeze.

 

As I plodded down Dunstable Road leading onto Redbourn’s high street I remembered to take a quick pick and post it to Twitter – social media whizz kid that I am – and I attracted a few loud good mornings from the passing elderly gents, papers tucked under their arms, who had obviously decided that a man in a bright orange charity t-shirt constituted no threat, regardless of how transient and wild he might look.

 

It was as I emerged from the other end of Redbourn, crossing the roundabout towards the Chequers at the bottom of Redbourn Road that things began to take a turn for the worse.

 

At this stage I’d covered somewhere between 9-10 miles and physically I was firing on all cylinders bar one. My feet felt fantastic – the Sealskinz socks working their protective magic like a dream. The insoles were holding up nicely as well but I did notice that my boots felt a touch tighter than per usual at the toe end – not enough to have bothered me as yet but potentially may have been problematic at around the 20 mile mark.

 

The real issue – the more pressing and alarming issue – was that my stomach cramps had gone into overdrive. Have you ever experienced that sweat inducing, goose bump raising, chill down the spine feeling that comes with tensing every muscle fibre of your being to avoid the indescribable? I staggered on for nearly another mile before circumstances overtook my bravado and I resorted to crashing through a hedgerow, stumbling down a ditch and providing the edge of some poor farmer’s field with a touch more fertilisation than he probably would have bargained for. I emerged about five minutes later shaken and stirred but in orderly fashion and thanking my lucky stars that other than a few speeding vehicles there had been no one around to actually cast eyes on my moment of indignity.

 

As stupid as it may now sound when writing this blog from the comfort of my armchair, I was still at that time thinking of carrying on with the training walk. I reasoned that if this had occurred on the big walk itself I would have no option but to down a handful of Immodium and crack on regardless. In reality this was a training walk; I was still feeling like I could have a repeat performance of the M1 incident at any moment; the muscles in my neck were right royally strained and I had work to be fit for on Monday. I called Super Wife to ask for instructions – the trait of the experienced married man – and was told in no uncertain terms to stop being an eejit and get straight on the bus back to Dunstable. I still needed to pick up Niamh from my mum’s house and then walk her back in the buggy nearly two miles across Dunstable and then take care of her for the rest of the day. The priority therefore was to get my poorly butt back home pronto.

 

I wandered back to the bus stop at the end of Punch Bowl Lane just down from the pub which is currently in a state of ruin that closely mirrored the state of my own decrepit intestinal system. Thankfully I didn’t have more than a few minutes to wait before the number 34 bus trundled up – my salvation.

 

By the time I got back to my own house later that morning I had walked about 13 miles – pretty disappointing really – but in the circumstances not too bad I suppose. The one thing I can take from today’s walk is that I can rack up 10 to 11 miles in just over 3 hours and with very little after effect. Push comes to shove on the big walk – if I can nail 15 miles in the morning before 10-11am then I could always rest up for as much as a few hours before dealing with the other 7.5 at a leisurely rate.     

Can you spare a few quid in support of the MS Society, Macmillan Cancer Support and Help for Heroes?

 

Donate by clicking here - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/bigdaveslittlestroll/