According to Matthew, Mark and Luke (but curiously John is noticeably silent on this) the last will be first, and the first will be last and so it was on the religious St Cuthberts Way from Melrose to Holy Island, albeit me being the least religious person to trod the sod, that I was the first person leading the walk and the last person running in to Lindisfarne.
In the beginning there was putting on of boots in the Melrose car park followed by grabbing of water bottles as Neil and I lead the pack out of Melrose up the steep hill and onto the Eildon steep steps. What a start – no warm up walk just a steep set of steps followed by a steep climb to the saddle of the Eildons – which idiot designed this long distance footpath?
I stopped to take a photo and found myself swiftly at the end of the urgent walkers all walking in memory of Connell, Lynn and Derek’s son who died of some dreadful disease last year and for the benefit of the Children’s Hospice at Rachel’s House who cared for all of them during the dreadful months of decline and sadly eventual death.
I found myself with the tail girl and her dog, a hot air balloonist (on YouTube apparently) with fainting fits which thankfully left me time to amble up the hill chatting to her, encouraging her onward and not staring at her cleavage every time she collapsed, rather than trying to keep up with the pack who were now patiently waiting for us wondering what I was doing in the gorse with a well endowed lady. Dumping her on Jim I chatted to a chap who it appears I was at his wedding 20 years ago – either I have not changed in 20 years one bit or I am very memorable but he recognised me immediately – the only thing I could recall is that the Ednam House Hotel ran out of beer at the start of evening thus proving that they couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery, although sadly the marriage is at an end, perhaps things would have been different with beer at the reception. Jim grabbed some heather from the side of the Eildons and proudly carried it on his rucksack with the aim of carrying it to the Northumberland Holy Island.
Climbing done it was downhill to Bowden where we were met by a cheery Gordy and his water and beer wagon – he exclaimed religiously ‘Christ you guys are fast I didn’t expect you here so soon’ to which we replied that we were actually the end of the group and he had missed all the others in front of us. Saturated with bottled water and slopping sun tan lotion over our own white bits (we didn’t know each other too well at this time for reciprocal sun tan application) we marched onward to be met with a van with ‘Connell’ written on it – this was an omen – the walk was in remembrance of the death of Connell and here was a franchised delivery van with the name emblazoned across the front – spooky or what I love life’s coincidences.
The endless march in hot sun was made more pleasant by a riverside walk to St Boswells passing my previous existence at the offices in Tweed Horizons (the converted St Columba’s monastery – a much more interesting saint as he was the first to see and report on the Loch Ness Monster). It is often difficult to appreciate the beauty of the Borders unless you march along its highways and riversides – people simply drive through it too fast on their way to and from Edinburgh. I was walking into the lunch spot with Catherine who had prepared for the walk by actually doing the entire walk in stages but had decided to consume an entire bottle of Powerade to help her keep up with the lead group, possibly a desperate attempt to avoid me lagging at the rear, the ploy failing as she was now lagging at the rear with me and she was feeling awful. Kim who had a strategy of avoiding me entirely had powered away in the lead group leaving me to devour my Brie and Asparagus sandwiches and Orange Lucozade ready for the next stretch to Harestanes.
