5 February 2025

Charity Walk February 2025

 Wells to Yarmouth

In memory of Amanda




My aim was to walk about 60 miles of the Norfolk Coast Path, from Wells-next-the-sea to Great Yarmouth, setting out on the first anniversary of my wife Amanda's death, and completing the trek within four days.

And my aim was to raise money for the National Brain Appeal.



Accordingly, my friend John drops me off in Wells early on Saturday February 1st, and I start out, a little nervously.....




It is a still, cool, grey morning, but there is hardly anyone about.  The path is puddled and slippery in places, but, despite some worries about my fitness and my knees, the miles begin to fall away.




I encounter a few birdwatchers - one of whom lets me observe a Peregrine on the beach through his telescope - and dog walkers, but through Stiffkey, and Morston, it is quiet.




In Blakeney I stop for a quick drink at the King's Arms, where I stayed with my late friend Lindsay in 2012.  It is unchanged.  Same family ownership; same cosy atmosphere; same beer [Surely a new barrel?  Ed]




Then across the marshes and on to Cley, where a pork pie from the Deli picks me up before the going gets tough on the shingle.




I was dreading this bit, and it is hard going, but the tide is out and so there's a firm strand to follow.  I walk to the rhythm of the plash, surge and withdrawal of the waves - splash, splurge, shlurp; plash, scourge and scrunch - my mind a polished empty plate, as feet and water merge along the miles of empty beach.

These are the deep waters of the German Sea -  Ah yes, what some call the North....  has long been known as the German ..... Pace Mr Strumpot: so little do you understand.

I spy some figures fishing in the distance, near Salthouse.  Then one breaks away and comes toward me, and, for a moment I see Amanda, her hair blowing across her smiling face.  But, all too soon, she is gone, and I am left alone again, thinking of those last few years, when her eyes, so long the sparkling sapphires of her soul, dimmed to dark pebbles in the depth of pools of sadness. 




I spend the night in Weybourne, sixteen miles into my plan, and hardly the worse for the first day.

In the morning the sun shines across frost, and my spirits lift a little.  Much of today is spent tracking the edges of crumbling cliffs, and it's by no means flat - between Weybourne and Cromer I ascend and descend 636 feet in eight miles. 




Amanda and I had a short holiday in Cromer many years ago and I return to the Red Lion for a drink - it hasn't changed much, though it is a sunny Sunday and there are plenty of people about.




Over the golf course, where she and I walked, to Overstrand, where the beach huts are firmly closed,




Then back up and along the crumbling cliffs to Trimingham.  I meet my shadow high above the beach - but I reach out to drag him back....




Another eight miles, and 580 feet elevation gain, and I reach Mundesley - not picturesque, but I have a comfortable room and rest.




Day three dawns bleakly. It is cold (two degrees) and misty and I follow the beach for a while, before taking the signposted cliff path towards Bacton.  What the signpost didn't tell me is that the path is closed at the giant Bacton Gas Terminal....




And it isn't possible to reach the beach from here, so I have to make a miserable detour, following the closely guarded and cctv surveilled fence for what seems like miles.  I then encounter a brace of armed policemen, who fortunately accept my excuses and allow me to traipse on along the busy main road before eventually rejoining the coastal path.

This isn't picturesque scenic Norfolk.  It is a mix of holiday camps, thousands of static caravans and chalets, and wartime relics.




But then the imposing church of St Mary the Virgin at Happisburgh hoves into view, and I know I can find sanctuary.




And as the clock strikes twelve the doors open and I find soup and ale in an old favourite of mine (another that hasn't changed over the years):




But it is all subdued.  There is no sense of summer.  The pub will be there, I am told, until it falls into the sea.....




Yes, some things are reminders of past times.  But....




What good are memories?  These little tombs of the past are dirty and spent.  Not so  very different from remains of the Roman occupation.  Not really so different from the occasional fossil that marks where some forgotten creature died, millions of years ago.....

However some quiet habitations bear traces of life, and I love the idea of these curious refuges:  Sandy Lodge - Sea View - Cliff Top -  Sea Breeze - Dun Roamin - Gulls and Buoys......




Day four and, after a touching conversation with part-time taxi driver Monica from Mulingar, who had recently lost her mother to dementia and who is now watching her father succumb to the same fate,  I start along the dunes, overlooking adult grey seals, grunting and moulting and relaxing after their parental experiences [I feel for them.  Ed]




I meet Larry, a Volunteer Seal Warden at Horsey.  He too has family and friends who are suffering from conditions of dementia, and, bless him,  he makes a donation to my cause.

On to Hemsby, where a sign simply tells me that the footpath is closed.  A cataclysmic tumble has brought the cliffs down to block both the beach and the upper path.  No direction home.  




I slog up past desperate  tattoo parlours and amusement arcades, chip shops and Chinese restaurants.  The bus stops offer no respite, but then a bus careers past me as I hike along the main road.  Fortunately Trivet, a man of about my age, who was born in his home, Dove Hill Farm, is gathering faggots for his wood burner, and he kindly directs me and allows me to pass through his garden to avoid the fearsome traffic.

And so I hit the coast path again, and wearily work my way along the sands toward Yarmouth, thinking all the while of Charles Dickens and Peggotty and David Copperfield and the author's comment that Yarmouth was the strangest place in the wide world and I hold my breath as I pass Caister and its Roman Camp,




And then here it is, part derelict:




Part wishful thinking:




And part fantasy:




But, 62.5 miles on, and barely a blister, and I have achieved my target, exorcised some of my sorrow.

As I sit on a bench and shake the sand out of my boots I reflect on my experience. I recall our move, four years ago, to Norfolk and how Amanda would sit confusedly on the bottom stair, in her coat and hat, with her bag (mobile phone, purse and sheets of pictograms) by her side, waiting for the door to open and somehow for her to be returned to her known erstwhile 'Home.'

And then the descent into incoherence, incontinence, inability to raise herself, feed herself or speak.  She swam slowly deeper into murky depths, encountering strange creatures that would loom out of the blur, and she would look at me, and her distressed eyes would implore me to help her in some way.  Please, I thought she said, dear lord, take me now......




So, there we are.  I have achieved this aim, though quite what it has meant I don't know.  At this point in time, some 100 or so friends/supporters have donated £3167.64 (with an extra £516.75 through Gift Aid) to the National Brain Appeal, either inspired by Amanda's story or by my walk, or both.  

I hope that there may be some more and that, perhaps, some who haven't yet contributed may now feel they can.....

Should you wish to be a part of this, please see my Just Giving page, at:





Thank you

Richard


******



O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

W B Yeats
Among School Children


******

This is for Amanda, and my mother Anna, and Robert, and for all those who suffer from dementia and for those who care for them








27 January 2025

Memory: Loss

 A short walk along the Norfolk Coast.....




Well.... Here goes.... Back down memory lane for a moment.....


Amanda with Henry Moore's Large Figure in a Shelter.

Last year, in January, shortly before Amanda died, I walked from our home in Snettisham, via Amanda in her care home, then along the Norfolk Coast Path to Wells-next-the-sea (a total of 32 miles in two days). This raised £4,568.96 + £739.00 Gift Aid for The National Brain Appeal....

{....and should you wish to know more about that, please see: https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2024/01/fundraising-for-national-brain-appeal.html}


Amanda at Wells-next-the-sea in 2004


Amanda died, however, on February 1st last year, and so, starting on the anniversary this year, I aim to complete the Coast Path from Wells to Great Yarmouth, a distance of approximately 60 miles.  I hope to reach Weybourne on the first day....




Then on to Mundesley for the second night, Ingham for the third, and, if the stars align and god wills it, I shall stumble into Great Yarmouth on the fourth day.




It is going to be quite tough, I think, partly because the weather forecast isn't great, and partly because, having just topped 74 years, my knees aren't quite as good as they were, and I have recently been diagnosed with wear and tear in my meniscuses..... [Any old iscuse.... Ed]


Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold - W B Yeats


However, driven on by my memories of loss, I am eager to raise money for The National Brain Appeal, which provides much-needed funds to support The National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery and the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology {– together known as Queen Square (London). This is one of the world’s leading centres for the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with neurological and neuromuscular conditions. These include stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia.}  




Queen Square supported Amanda and me throughout the twelve or so years of her dementia, and, given that there are 14.7 million people affected by neurological conditions in the UK, that 600,000 people are diagnosed with a neurological condition each year and that currently at least 850,000 people act as carers for those affected, I believe the NBA is a really worthwhile cause.




But, sadly, we have moved on, and as Gertrude reminds her son:

..... all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

William Shakespeare
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2

We have to deal with our memories, and our losses.  Life is not, despite what some will have you believe, a competition, so we must not fall into the trap of being sore losers (nor seek pardon).  Years ago I resolved never to make New Year Resolutions, but, if I were to make one now, it might be to make the most of the infinitely expanded present.....




*****

Should you wish to contribute to the National Brain Appeal, sponsoring my walk, please follow this link:



*****

Come, see
real flowers
of this painful world.

BASHO






6 January 2025

Looking back....

Janus, the spirit of comings and goings.....




In these dark northern days, shortness of sky, lack of light, prevalence of precipitation..... abundance of alliteration....

We are in the jaws of Janus: Arches/doorways/beginnings/endings.....

I have been reviewing pictures of the past. And, with the utmost respect to Janus's duplicitous features, I look back with both affection and trepidation. I love the past, but I fear it too. I cannot live there. The shades pursue me.

But it can be a wonderful world, while I must also look to the future....




Without prejudice, and without politics, I have chosen pictures here that reflect my love for Italy, and the life that, for well over twenty years, I spent in that complex and benighted land.

Of course there is no right way, nor wrong way, to portray a country that did not exist c150 years ago,  but whose geography has bound it together through the years, and whose notional history has fried itself into the collective minds of those who don't, like me, have the right to comment....




My personal relationship with Italy is inevitably (though not exclusively) linked to the delightful woman (Amanda) who for more than forty years put up with me....  Who danced in the Via dei Fori Imperiale and anywhere there was music; who shared everything and everywhere.....  Mussolini could not have deterred her.  We loved it all....  

For many years we lived on the shores of Lake Bracciano:




In the village of Trevignano Romano:



But initially, I lived in Trastevere, close by Santa Maria:



And the city of Rome, my home for years, is manageable, so long as you take it in your stride:



Or stand back a little:




Or look at it askance:




Or admire its viscera:




I love the ingenuity of this world.  Here a Muse rests her immortal chin on her knuckle within a now defunct power station. How many centuries separate past and present is not the issue.  The extraordinary continuum is what takes my breath away....




And then, not far away, a relatively forgotten stone recalls the horrors that hardly a lifetime ago deprived Rome of all dignity or humanity.  The history of Rome is, like so many other histories, full of infamy, stained with blood and pain. Ignominy is so often the middle name of rulers.....


A memorial to a now contested incident - though it represents a period when many uncontested executions were certainly carried out......

But, burying my head in the mud, I love Italy.  So much of my life unravelled within the highs and lows of this beautiful part of the world.  So many nights playing hoopla in Trajan's Forum:




So many nights wandering home through dark streets near dawn, pretending to be Marcello Mastroianni, or blowing imaginary kisses to Anna Magnani.....




But Italy is not Rome.  Look at Pisa, by day:



Or by night:


Admire the profile of Monte Amiata under restless skies:





Or spend an evening as the full moon rises over San Gimignano:


Relax by, and swim in the effervescent waters of Lago di Vico:



Or savour the salt, swim with the fish, dine on spaghetti alle vongole at Santa Severa:




Don't let's worry about the monsters:




Think about the joys of the Nile - or anywhere....




Sing along with Verdi:




Tap your feet to the local band:




Have an aperitivo overlooking the Campo in Siena:




Or a small carafe of wine:




Or, if the mood takes you, a jug of something local (Grazie, Antonio):




Share an al fresco lunch with friends (Grazie, Gino):




Pay your respects to the Etruscans:




Check out the heart of Lucca:




Or the arts of Subiaco:




Breathe the sun going down over the sea:




Or scent the darkness over Tuscan hills, an evening confusion of rosemary with fig, helichrysum italicum with ginestra..... while a wood fire toasts fegatelli on the grill.  Oh.....




I watch the nuns of Santa Brigida fade, giggling, into the night in Farfa:




I sleep in the bed where Verdi was born:




I don the clothes of a cloistered monk to dead-head my roses:




I park where I like:




I will take confession (if that is what you wish...)




And I will give you a ride on my shiny shoed horse, if you will inform on your best friend:





And I will show you the tomb where America buried Italy, if you will follow me:




Yes.  Look at me looking at myself, but not knowing what I see (Grazie, Caravaggio).....




Italy has always been an enigma, and will continue to be a prickly pear, a fruit with beauty enclosed in a difficult skin.  Persist and you will be rewarded.  Shy back and you will miss the joy.



All relationships have their highlights and their shadows.  Here Amanda poses in the doorway of a pizzeria that, having been a stable and then a garage, was moulded into a successful bar in the Suburra by friends who accepted me into a short-lived partnership, which could have changed our lives.....  [Another story?  Ed]



Ah.  yes.  All those years ago.....  And this is Lago di Bracciano, by which we lived, and where Amanda rests now, swimming, smiling in her sleep at all this nostalgia:



We are in January, remembering the Roman god who looked both ways, back and forward.  It is our destiny to be consumed by our past and to fret about our future, but Janus teaches us to be calm and to take it in our stride.  His expressions are neither fraught nor discomfited.  Ahead and behind are essentially the same - just two aspects that combine to make one whole.

Dance on my little one: