Tiny riot.

Barbury Castle - Avebury

As I stepped away from the shelter at Barbury Castle, the wind made clear its mission to blast off the left side of my head and nick my poncho. Despite tucking the ends tightly beneath my vest, nature’s attack on the foil was equally deafening and agitating.

I spent the entire crossing of the great field bent at a 90 degree angle with my head tipped right, to protect my face from the horizontal rain. The body position made it challenging, but not impossible, to search for the steep chalk descent I’d always found elusive. Fortunately, reflex and memory directed my feet, so when I finally paused to look up and get my bearings, I was nearly upon it.

It was little surprise to find my penultimate descent a sludgy and slippery mess right the way down. As per, my chronic decision paralysis joined the party at the most inopportune moment, making it near impossible to determine which rut seemed safest while I was getting battered by the elements. That phantom difficulty always manages to sneak into my skull when I’m at my most vulnerable and immersed in some kind of urgency, but arriving right here, right now absolutely took the biscuit. It felt as if nature had finally sealed the deal with the chimp to derail me once and for all.

I told that devious monkey what it could do and where it could go, with vigour, before punting it on its way. It wouldn’t return.

Seeing as how I’m typing this right now, clearly I managed to descend without death, still feeling that schlupp! schlupp! schlupp! beneath my feet despite it remaining inaudible over the roar of the Great Windswept Poncho. I could feel the earth trying to suck me in all the way down, probably to hold me hostage until spring finally sprung. But the realisation that I only had 10k to Avebury filled me with relief that I’d entered the final hours of this last long day at the office.

That noise raged as I trudged onward, and I spent an incredibly long time wondering how much sharper the wind would get, how much heavier the rain would fall, and how much more flapping foil volume I could stand before my head actually exploded.

Eventually, the single, identifiable benefit of walking while folded like origami made itself known, as I spotted a heart-shaped rock embedded in the ground, which I felt the need to photograph for a friend who is forever spotting Trail Hearts. I somehow managed to get a few shots and neither drown nor drop my phone in the deluge. I soon realised this game could be an incredible ally if it continued to distract me from the searing pain in my feet, so I expected I’d be on heart watch until the day lost its light.

I staggered past a familiar sight I call the ‘Broccoli’ – a stand of trees in the middle of nowhwere, skinny and tall with that telltale puff up top. (You don’t need me to explain any more, right?)

Now to Hackpen Hill, lingering in my memory as a flinty and sharp obstacle course, today nothing but a sea of rocky pips peeking out of the sludge, probably actually giggling as I stepped on them, unawares. Nothing, but nothing, was the same as it had ever been. I marvelled at the consistency of the inconsistency for the past few days. It was entirely par for this course, beyond question. Still, I was glad for the ease underfoot while lamenting how all my previous running on cobbles over time in preparation wasn’t even getting a look in on this occasion.

The terrain beyond had always been supremely runnable every time I’d recced it – an easing in to the descent, find that finger post, hook right, and down you go, merrily, merrily, to journey’s end. Today, the scene was an unrecognisable, flooded mess. Some six rutted channels were carved across the path, waggling their flooded fingers at me, asking which ankle breaker do you desire, pray tell, madummm?

Here we offer an overwhelming chasm of chalk sludge! Off to your right, you’ll find some scintillating slippy mud-grass! Perhaps here will entice, behold this rutted pond with invisible floor! No? Surely then you’ll covet this ankle-busting half width track, merely one step wrong and you’re ringing 999 with fingers that won’t stop shaking because that hypothermia has FINALLY found you, doll! Ding ding ding do we have a winnah?!

And on and on.

Long past 7 pm now, the sun was thinking hard about retirement, which jolted me away from the rowdy ringmaster in my head as I realised that nightfall eliminated the ability to see anything at all. I rooted around for my headlamp and whacked it on, feeling triumphant I’d at least planned that out in advance. After staggering and zig zagging along at a snail’s pace while trying to avoid cracking my bones, I decided I needed to sit and let the feet freak, hit my mental reset button, and dig right to the bottom of my well with that cup if I were to find my way to the end of this particular road. It was a good few minutes off to the side on another incredibly comfortable boulder before I magicked up the balls to get rocking again.

Oh, but that rain was not even considering a rest! That bloody nauseating, sideways, foil shaking, raging, vicious, relentless rain! As if it weren’t difficult enough to find my footing, I couldn’t see a damn thing for all the rain. Streams of water shot across my plane of vision like daggers, and the wind was absolutely raging against the foil, now making my fillings rattle.

(FlashFlashFlash)

Now?! NOW???!!!

My headlamp battery warned me that it was about to follow the sun in slumber. That triple flash I last saw in a panic during my first Shropshire Way 80k thought it’d join the party, just when the party was winding down.

Bastard.

I had a replacement battery in the pack but didn’t dare mess about in these conditions until I absolutely had to, lest I soak the lot and have to mince my way through the chalk mud circus in the dark, with the final descent a chalk mud slip and slide.

I let it go.

I let it go, like so many other things along this trail and off it, things embedded in my real life and those which need removing from it.

I let it go. The light flashing, telling me it was going to die out, while I kept on believing that light would stay long enough to guide me home, would help me find my way, would direct my feet and my heart to the place I needed them to go, after all this time.

I let it go.

(FlashFlashFlash)

Bent in half again, rain hammering at me, wind trying to chew off my face –

(FlashFlashFlash)

Poncho trying to make a run for it, I can’t see the path, I can’t see my feet, I can’t see anything –

(FlashFlashFlash)

Stumble, up, down, slip, stop, swear –

Don’tcrackyourankleyou’llfreezetodeath on superlooper in my head, looking, seeking, searching, where is that bloody finger post?

The sign, the Avebury sign, where do I turn? Where do I—?

A post to my right.

Another to my left. I’d been here. It looked right, but it looked wrong.

But it looked right.

Glasses absolutely submerged now, my waterproof mittens refusing to wipe anything clean. I leaned in, squinting against the storm, positively tiptoeing towards that sign, feeling in retrospect that I may have looked a bit like Helen Hunt in the pouring rain at the end of Castaway telling her love how much he had always meant to her, how she’d never let him go, and here, I was head over heels in love with this moment, I had dreamt of this moment for so long, imagined the shape of it, the smell of it, and despite it being entirely unrecognisable from that dream, it was here that I stood, frozen in place and desperately afraid to close the book, for the lack of knowing what would come next.

I’m peering at the sign, knowing it should say Avebury and a distance figure, but it says…nothing. It is battered, and I am unable to see anything at all.

It is so old. So flattened by time.

And then I think, is that me, or that post, really?

I can’t see anything but an A. The start. A beginning.

Meanwhile Hobs is texting via the group chat: Turn right. Steady down…

The simplest of instructions. Damn shame I couldn’t hear that ping over the rattling poncho, over my heart thumping in my ears, over the rain and the past and the struggle and the defiance and the triumph drumming and thrumming and lifting me somewhere completely beyond that point in space.

I was in the right place, and all I had to do was do the right thing and make the right turn. Oblivious to that prompt, I thought to ask the chat but it was too wet to drag out the phone. I walked around the post to check if the other side was more legible. Nope.

Nope.

No clarity in this moment other than the need to move beyond it. But I almost wanted to stay in it forever. This moment. THIS one.

I am here. It is absolutely, finally, now.

I look up, still squinting, I look around, it’s bloody dark, three flashes of the dying of the light (rage! rage!) now I’m at the sign, not clear, is that an A? Yes that’s an A, just the same as the other side, and the sign over the way is definitely familiar, is this it?

This must be it. Surely this it.

I decided this is it.

I decided it is now.

I turned right. I went steady down.

Lights in the distance. It looked like I would never reach them in this lifetime.

That descent lasted an eternity. More slow attempts to not slip, to not end wrong but on my feet, in my time, for the first time. The wind eased with every step down, and the closer I got, the more I knew exactly how close I was.

I began searching for the narrowing of the trail to the fenceline, remembering how the road was usually a bit flooded. Tonight when I looked to my left all I saw was a black, muddy river.

The Grateful Dead sang in my head while triumph began to sing in my heart.

I will walk alone, by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own…

At last the road rose and the river receded. I could see the lights of Avebury winking me out of the darkness. And I could see a headlamp off to the left.

It was Hobs.

A decade in Essex poured out of my face: ‘shut UP!’ What a joy to have company at this moment. I punched the air with my sticks.

And so, it was done.

We headed up the road to the gate through to the ancient stone circle. I leaned in to kiss a stone but was thwarted by the brim of my baseball hat. Perfect. I settled in for a hug. I knelt to the ground and leaned on my sticks, trying to explain precisely how marvellous it was to achieve something I’d been dreaming of for so long and most likely talking clean out of my arse. The scene in one of the photographs hints of a knight with a sword in the ground, in prayer. How apt – I genuinely felt as if I’d completed some lifelong quest. I’d done it. I’d finally done it.

I was beaming.

I didn't really know what to feel other than finished. And whole.

And proud.

And thirsty.

We popped in to the pub to source me a celebratory Guinness and that friend of friends even carted my clattering carcass back to that jolly base camp, still full of the food I hadn’t eaten, the gear I hadn’t carried, and all the detritus I’d dumped off those hours and hours ago, when I was about to find a way to make my way to the finish.

I found my way alright. I finally know how that journey ended.

Better still, I know how the next one began.

___

There's a feeling, there's a fire
There's a whisper preaching to the choir
Take the leaders and the liars
Throw your fears on the funeral pyre

Keep on breathing, don't go under
Keep your ear to the ground, hear the thunder
When the earth quakes, and the ground shakes
Throw your caution to the wind when the storm breaks

Mother, sister, father, brother
Step into the light and start a tiny riot
Stop being so goddamn quiet
Got a spark in your heart, so strike it
Wash away your pain
Turn the pouring rain to a tidal wave and ride it
Got something inside, don't hide it
Like dynamite ignited
Wash away your pain
Turn the pouring rain to the wave of a tiny riot

Take the music, learn to use it
Turn it up 'til your speakers blow fuses
Learn the rhythm, and never lose it
Keep on moving 'til you know what the truth is

If butterflies can use their wings to turn the wind to hurricanes
You and I can break the chains, it takes a day

To start a tiny riot
Stop being so goddamn quiet
Got a spark in your heart, so strike it
Wash away your pain
Turn the pouring rain to a tidal wave and ride it
Got something inside, don't hide it
Like dynamite ignited
Wash away your pain
Turn the pouring rain to the wave of a tiny riot

- Sam Ryder, Tiny Riot

(12 / x)