Today I walked 23 miles. That probably sounds like a long way to anybody, but it’s much longer if you’ve been thinking of the day’s walk as 20 miles and then work out along the way that there are three more miles.

That’s the kind of thing that can take a long day that’s included a morning of rain and make a walker a bit… cranky. How cranky? Well, around mile 21, I read in my guide, with it’s painstakingly detailed trail directions, the following aside about the small community of Iver: “Would Iver like to be regarded as a town or a village?” To which I very grumpily replied, out loud, on the trail, “Who the hell cares?” Only I didn’t use the word hell, opting for a more vigorous celebration of Anglo-Saxon’s heritage of foul language.

I had to take a deep breath and remind myself that even with rain and wet socks (forgot to pack my extra socks in the daypack, and lived to regret that) and aching legs, it was a good day.

Not to get all Pollyanna. But I did retain my sense of humor to the bitter end. For the last four miles or so, I amused myself coming up to lyrics for my new ditty, “Hamburger Feet.”

Hamburger feet
My hamburger feet
They’ve been turned to meat
My hamburger feet

Hamburger feet
With blisters replete
No longer so fleet
My hamburger feet

Hamburger feet
Gangrene is so sweet
You won’t want to meet
My hamburger feet

Etc.

I’m pretty sure I’ve got a hit there.

But let’s start at the beginning. After a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, my hosts drove me to town on their way to church. It was overcast and there was in the air something not quite drizzle, just mist falling gently. I left Marlow through a maze of public path alleys and got along the Thames path with the river on my right. I knew from looking at the trail guide that I’d be on the river path for a good long four miles. I believed, not having read the trail guide very carefully and compared it to my simple accommodation notes (which each day name where I am staying, a mileage, and directions for where to leave the trail), that I had 20 miles to walk. Four quick miles on the flat would make a good start. Oh, naïve boy.

 

The mist gradually turned to drizzle as I passed rowing crews and kayakers and joggers and dog walkers. Well, a little wet never hurt anyone, and it does keep me cool while walking at a good pace.

By the time I cut away from the river, my feet were a bit damp, since my boots have achieved that late-life stage of water-proofness at which they are water-proof as long as you don’t get them wet. And leaving the riverfront path meant going across fields of wet grass, so my feet got genuinely wet. This is when I realized the first, lesser, of my two miscalculations for the day, the lack of spare socks. But oh well. Onward, up some gentle hills into very pretty country, and the rain was easing off back to mist.

The other day I talked about trail etiquette, and my sister wondered how trail etiquette would change as I got closer to the city. I am still a long way off in some sense (forty-some miles of trail, but probably thirty as the red kite flies), but that means I am back in the crowd, as evidenced by litter and graffiti on certain stretches of the trail. And people’s walking demeanor has changed. I’ve passed people who don’t make that initial eye contact in advance that prepares both parties for a greeting. Just a dead-ahead stare, as if they’re intent on navigating the distant horizon and my presence coming the other way doesn’t matter.

But that’s not everyone. Many people still said hello. At one point I stopped for water in a little roadside picnic and parking area that had a larger fenced-in wood. A woman came out of the wood with her wet happy dog, and while she got him back into his cage in the van, we said hello, and got into a nice little chat about walking. She explained that she’s here on weekends to care for her mother with Alzheimers, but lives in Oxfordshire. She showed a touching faith that I would know the location of the town she lives in if she just described it in terms of it’s relation to the M40 (or whatever the big highway is from London to Oxford). It was a nice chat, and then we went our separate ways.

The path, having risen from the river to higher ground (but we’re out of the Chilterns now, so only gentler hills) ambles through woods and then hits little pockets of houses. Not much walking by agricultural fields today.

I bought a meat pie for lunch on a quick pass through a town, and ate it on the trail because I didn’t want to sit down in a town with cars going by, and once I was on the trail I just couldn’t find a place to sit that seemed good. So, meal on the hoof. Around mile 14, I sat down for a rest on a bench in front of the town hall of a village on a much smaller road, where I saw maybe three cars in fifteen minutes. I thought to myself as I set off, ‘well, just six more miles. This won’t be that bad.’ And the trail then surprised with a long stretch through a large nature preserve with wide walking paths and fun carved benches (see photo).

But that was just a prelude to the massive public park that I soon passed through. It had winding paths and a ha-ha (the difference between a ha-ha and a dyke? Mostly, seems to me, that a dyke like Offa’s Dyke on which I walked, has both the trench and a mound running alongside the trench, while a ha-ha can be just a trench? I dunno, and I’m too tired to google it) and ice cream trucks parked at parking areas, and public art, and people.

So many people. I’ve been out in the country where seeing another person is notable. In a stretch of a mile I saw hundreds of people, families out for a Sunday stroll in the park, people having picnics, big groups who had set up tents for a shady place, joggers and bikers on mountain bikes, and just so many people.

It was at the end of this park that I looked at my accommodation notes, which instructed me to leave the trail at the Union Wharf Flats, and compared that to the trail, and worked out that I had those accursed three extra miles to go. In the park, I’d been thinking ‘well, I’ve just got two miles or so to go,’ but suddenly I had five miles to go. Down toward the Grand Union Canal through the hellburg of Iver (neither town nor village, however it wants to be considered), and tried to retain some positive mood while my feet, wet and sore and definitely getting a new blister or two from all that squishy dampness, expressed their opinion of the trail. Thus, “Hamburger Feet” was born.

I have mentioned before that I get bits of song stuck in my head and sing on the trail, right? Today had a lot of musicals, a seemingly random assortment that included Sondheim (bits from Sunday in the Park with George and Company), but also Andrew Lloyd Weber (Cats, the Old Deuteronomy song) and even Godspell. It was, to put it mildly, rather a random mix. Before shifting to the self-amusement of “Hamburger Feet,” I had even passed some time doing my patented ‘Julie Andrews sings unlikely song choices’ routine: Julie sings the theme from Smoky and the Bandit (each word of ‘east bound and down, eighteen wheels a-rolling’ perfectly enunciated) and trying out a few new songs for Julie, such as ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” Still cracks me up.

Got onto the path along the canal, and made into West Drayton, which at least from the area I’ve seen walking up the Station Road from the path to my hotel, is a bit rough around the edges. No quaint country pubs here; a pub advertised big screens to see all the sport, and the restaurant options were fish and chips and a curry place that looked, um…I’m sure it’s filling?

I arrived at my hotel, with a locked front door, and rang the bell. The man who answered seemed puzzled, and said he wasn’t aware of any reservation, but he’d call his manager. He was nice enough to get me a glass of ice water while he called. I had that end-of-a-long-day dread that there had been a screw-up and my bags were currently at some other hotel, perhaps in Manchester or Edinburgh. But his manager sorted him out, explaining that my luggage was already in my room and which room that was. Phew. Tired and not quite hungry because I was so tired, I took off my shoes. Well, I still have my lovely smile… I was too tired and sore to leave the hotel and walk the four or five hundred yards to the nearest food option, that pub with big screens (and I knew there’s a big soccer match), so I dined on two Clif bars and water, watched some British television, and called it a night.

Tomorrow, I go ten miles according to the accommodation notes. And yes, I checked it against the trail guide. If I’ve read the location right, it’s more like nine. Please, let my befuddled guide reading be right.