A Homecoming of Sorts
Five days healing in the Cheviots
By Trevor H. Smith
August 2023
Part Seven: My hiking superpower.
In 2007, when Derek and I made our first attempt on the Pennine Way, we shared a tiny two-man tent seemingly built for slender fell-running types rather than these two thirty and girthy gentlemen. Sleep had been at a premium since the first night, after which Derek declared he had ‘seen every hour pass’. To me that offered proof of little more than him having been awake for a total of seven minutes, albeit each of those minutes was exactly an hour since the last. I still felt I had a point. By day three we were sleepwalking across Saddleworth Moor when we agreed to take a break with bags off. While Derek sat on his bag eating a flapjack, I lay down using mine as a pillow. The next thing I recall is waking up to Derek taking a picture of me, flat on my back.
In 2018, on day eleven of our second attempt at the Pennine Way, I experienced my only jelly-legged moment of the trip as we ascended Great Dun Fell. Derek and I agreed that this was the right place and time for a break with bags off. This time I made no such pretence of merely resting. I lay down on my pack-pillow, drew my bucket hat over my face, closed my eyes, and sank into instant, restorative sleep.
In 2013 I shared a tent with my brother-in-law, Thom, as we hiked the Cotswold Way. After our chat about the day’s events I declared myself ‘ready for bed now’ and promptly closed my eyes and fell asleep. Awakened moments later by the sound of my own snoring, I saw Thom, who had not moved a muscle save for the raising of his eyebrows in shock at how suddenly I had been able to nod off.
A couple of hours into day two of A Homecoming of Sorts, I had reached five and a half miles and was flagging. I felt the warm August breeze whispering at me to slow down. As I rounded the corner of an L-shaped field, a tangle of old farm machinery silently implored me to stop. I looked out across the River Coquet, wide and shallow, to the fields and trees opposite, and knew what I had to do. Bag off. I laid my waterproof jacket on the floor to keep by backside dry and set myself down. At this point my intention was for nothing more than simple rest and recouperation. A couple of jelly caterpillars, a drink, and a quick look at my phone and I would be on my way again in no time.
It was Sunday morning, there was nobody around and the balmy summer air enveloped me like a comfort blanket. My eyelids grew heavy and knew better than to fight it. I put away my bag of jellies, stuck my leg through the straps of my pack in case an opportunist thief might try to steal it from me, dipped my cap over my eyes, and let myself drift off. I say drift but it was closer to dropping over a cliff. Seventeen minutes later my alarm brought me back to the field, the warm air, and my pack wrapped aroung my feet. That was one of the soundest naps of my life, and I’ve had a few.
‘Mint bait at The Star, I’ll book us a table.’
I hadn’t seen or spoken to Steven Studley since exam year at High School, 1993. We had always got on well enough, shared a few classes, had some laughs in middle school, but never knowingly socialised or sought each other out during our time as classmates. Forward twenty years to the age of social media, where my generation of old schoolmates liked to take a peek at the life choices of our childhood acquaintences, and I had noted Steven’s active outdoor lifestyle, espousal of family values, and generally positive vibes. When I returned to walking seriously in 2018, he was one of the first to add his comments of support to my posts. The connection made sense, and so I reached out to him with a view to meeting up at some point during my five days in the Cheviots. My nervousness around whether we would have enough to talk about proved groundless as we nattered through our meals and coffees without pause. I suppose that, were it not for the 300 miles that separate us, there is enough commonality in our attitudes and lifestyles to assume we might at least take the occasional walk together and sup the occasional pint. As with all my encounters with long-lost friends and classmates over the years, it proved a resounding success, and we will meet again one day, perhaps next time in the hills with tents on our backs.