lenten journey 14

lenten journey 14

March 23, 2013, 7:05 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: clear waters rising, Holy Week, Lent, lenten journey, nicholas crane, pilgrimage, staffordshire, the two saints way, two saints way, winter, winter pilgrims

I’ve worked too many days off recently so took a couple of days off to continue my pilgrimage along the Two Saints Way with Mark.  We met in Stafford and spent Thursday walking to Trentham.  This was good winter walking.  We saw the sun occasionally.  We spent time in prayerful silence and time talking and reflecting.  We had a lunchtime warm in a pub in Stone.  We saw plenty of rooks, half a dozen fallow deer skipping through a forest, although a high metal fence kept us separated from the Trentham monkeys.  We reached our warm room before dark.

It snowed overnight (it is still snowing now).  We were lucky.  We weren’t walking across the Alps with Nicholas Crane:

In the opening of day, without the threat of impending darkness, the forest along the cliffs took on the aspect of a winter garden.  The constant snowfall of the previous days had replaced the atto-detail of earth with a glaring uniformity.  Even the trees looked unreal, white now and shadowed by their own limbs.  Under the snow-cover I couldn’t tell where paths might lie; the painted waymarks I’d often relied upon would be buried also.  More than ever, I’d be relying upon the compass.  The edge of the snowdrifts along the cliff merged seamlessly with cloud.

In fact we were very lucky.  It was an adventure.  Snow was drifting on the Staffordshire Hills but our route for the day was mainly urban.  We made our way to the Trent and Mersey Canal and followed it through the Potteries.  This walk through a post-industrial landscape gave plenty to ponder as we prepare for the Pilgrimage of Holy Week. The suffering of the earth and the suffering of people; the hard plod through freezing snow; the joy of warm hospitality from low paid workers; finding and following the Way; will it be always Winter and never Easter?

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