Monday was a travel day (well, they’re all travel days, but this is one in which I am not in control of the mode of transport). After a ridiculously oversized breakfast of eggs and bacon (seriously, it must have been five eggs), I packed up my gear and hauled it across Bath to the train station.  I had hours to kill, so I walked up the hill to the Abbey again, bought some postcards and a refrigerator magnet (silly, I know), dawdled in a coffee shop for as long as was decent, and then hauled my stuff back down to the train station. (Alas, the luggage service isn’t moving my big bag from the end of hike 1 to the start of hike 2, so I have not just my day pack, but the bag with all my dirty laundry, my other clothes, all the maps and guide book for Offa’s Dyke (and a deliciously large pile of ordinance survey maps it is…), sneakers and of course the computer. What I wouldn’t give for a MacBook Air or an iPad on a day like this.

Still had several hours to kill sitting at the train station, but I’m glad I got there early, because I had a very nice chat with a poet from Cardiff on her way home from a weekend in Bath. We talked about walking, and writing, and editing and collaborating. She’s working on a project with some visual artists on a project in Pontypridd (the hometown of Tom Jones, as she helpfully explained, though I still couldn’t place it on a map). She’s collecting local song lyrics and poetry and bits of writing from the area, and the visual artists are working with her to create some kind of art that will be placed int he pavement around the town. Sounds very cool, but she noted that the town needs something going on because it’s been in decline, killed off by the Walmartification effect (yup, they have this problem here too) and the bad economy and other things.

Finally, my train arrived, and whisked me over the miles, across the Severn, and into Wales. After a change of trains at Newport, I arrived in Chepstow, where I took a taxi to my B&B (the only sensible option with 40 pounds of luggage). So, overall, a strangely motor-transport focused day to get here, but as I write now, in the very early hours of Tuesday morning in my bedroom at a farmhouse outside Chepstow, I’m ready to set off again, restless to get miles on my boots.