I am on the taxi rank, aching in every possible muscle. I am even aching in the muscles that I didn’t use, they have come out in a sort of sympathy vote with the others. I am pink from the sunshine, and weary, and gritty eyed, but it has been a lovely day, and entirely worth it.
Last night turned into the busiest night we have had for ages, which I don’t mind telling you was more of a relief than you can imagine. The summer has been slow to start, the tourists have been sparse, and the takings, quite frankly, have been rubbish. We had started plotting a Plan B, in this case for Mark to go and work in the oil extraction business again.
Last night there were lots of people, and everything was all right. We sighed with relief, and started imagining impossible luxuries, like paying off the overdraft and buying some new flip flops.
The consequence of this was that we were tired, although definitely jubilant, before we even set off.
We rumbled into the school car park just before six o’ clock this morning, and collapsed into bed.
This was not exactly a refreshing interlude. The coach which was transporting the keen sixteen mile walkers loaded just beside us at eight, making the dogs bark and growl frantically, presumably to deter anybody who might be considering coming in and stealing our walking boots.
After they had gone I slipped into endless anxious dreams during which we had missed the bus for our own walk, and where Lucy had turned up with an unexpected boyfriend, and where out-of-control things went impossibly wrong. I was not sorry when Oliver banged on the door shortly afterwards, and all sleep was banished.
It was ace to see him, and before very long Lucy arrived as well, flapping and pleased to have found us, having driven herself up from school and accidentally finished up in a farmyard due to an incompetent sat nav. We stowed the flask of coffee in our rucksack and went to join the milling throng.
There were parents and children and teachers, and absolutely dozens of dogs. Roger Poopy was beside himself with the excitement of this, but for once he was firmly attached to the end of a lead, and had to content himself with shivering all over and whimpering with excitement.
We were dispatched to the start of the walk in a couple of coaches. It is the most beautiful rolling countryside, Yorkshire is actually jolly lovely, and the sun beamed on us, warm and gentle and friendly. It could not have been nicer.
We have done the school sponsored walk before, when Oliver was in the first year, and we remembered bits of it. It is a long meander along a river and through farms and woodland, monitored at spots along the way by school staff handing out doughnuts and drinks.
We set off along the river path, and everybody released their dogs, who charged up and down the line of walkers with great enthusiasm, barking at everything and sinking their noses ecstatically into the unfamiliar and interesting smells. Roger Poopy was thrilled by it all, and cantered around with his nose in the air, bounding joyfully over the little tussocks of grass and splashing through the little streams.
We had gone about two miles before we realised that we had lost him.
We yelled and whistled and bellowed to no avail.
We knew that he must have rushed off back along the line of walkers, so we stopped and waited to see if he would find his way back.
He didn’t.
In the end Mark and Lucy set off along the walk again, and Oliver and I went back to find him.
All of the walkers behind us assured us that they had seen him belting along the path, heading back to the start.
We were almost there when we found him.
He was in a terrible state of panic. He had lost us and rushed about trying to find us, and if he had found our scent amongst all of the other dog-and-people smells all along the path, he had followed it the wrong way.
He was very relieved indeed to see us.
We started off on the walk all over again.
We met Mark and Lucy at the halfway point, where they had waited for us. They were pleasantly rested, and full of pork pies and doughnuts, and school, helpfully, had laid on wine.
Oliver and I, who had walked a very long way by now, collapsed.
Roger Poopy had a joyful reunion with his father, who was the only one who could be said to be pleased to see him.
Once I had complained a bit, and glugged down some wine, and we had refreshed ourselves with toffee chocolate doughnuts, we set off again.
The next bit was the bit where you walked blindfold.
School had thoughtfully chosen a flat uneventful section of the walk for this, although it might have been a wiser idea to include it before the wine rather than afterwards. Mark and I managed rather nicely, but Lucy and Oliver giggled and tripped over things and had accidental encounters with stinging nettles, and Roger Poopy, who was not blindfolded and had no excuse, got confused and ran into a live electric fence.
In the end of course we staggered back into school, where hundreds of parents were milling about already. We crumpled into exhausted heaps on the grass, where we joined Son Of Oligarch for a coffee-and-doughnut picnic until at last it was time to go our separate ways.
Lucy has got her first A Level tomorrow. She went off to rub her aching muscles, and observed resignedly that however awful the A Level might turn out to be, at least it was not walking.
Mark and I drove home and had to come straight out to work.
We are here now.
Another hour and it will all be over.
I think it has all gone jolly well.
LATER NOTE: If you haven’t already shelled out a sponsorship, and would like to, the link is:https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aysgarth-walk , and it would be very much appreciated by everybody.
