The Woman Who Walked

By Sarah Yallop

The writings of a middle-aged woman describing her walk from Cumbria to Somerset , over 3 weeks, staying with different people, all of whom were strangers before she arrived.

It’s a personal, Christian tale, written with humour and honesty and featuring a support cast of many.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Printing UK
• Release date: Apr 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781911113430

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The Woman

Who Walked

Sarah Yallop

The Woman Who Walked

Copyright © Sarah Yallop 2016 All Rights Reserved

The rights of Sarah Yallop to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced, adapted, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author or publisher.

Spiderwize

Remus House

Coltsfoot Drive

Woodston

Peterborough

PE2 9BF

www.spiderwize.com

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

For my precious girls, Amy and Becca and wonderful Mum.

For so many special people mentioned herein, and for those of you who walk in Faith.

There are a whole raft of reasons why any of us do anything. Sometimes the reasons are obvious and logical to all. Sometimes logic eludes everyone except the people doing it. And occasionally that logic isn’t even obvious to the person right at the centre of the decision.

My walk in the summer of 2014 falls right in the middle of this last group. It wouldn’t have been such an odd thing for someone younger than me, fitter than me and with more organization about them. But this is a tale of odd reasoning, with a not very obvious participant.

Many of you reading this will know me, or at least know of me. I am hoping though this may reach a slightly wider audience and for your benefit I will introduce myself.

I am fifty two years old; a fact that my two daughters never shy away from reminding me. I am unfit even though I am in a job that requires quite a lot of walking; it is sedentary walking if that makes sense. Finally although it galls me to admit it, I am overweight. Not prime athletic material me-thinks! What else to say – I have worked in agriculture, science and support work for adults with learning difficulties. I still do both of the last two and hanker after the first on occasions. I live in the north of the country, having migrated from the south, a move that has been good apart from the distance from precious friends.

So that’s me – ordinary in the extreme.

The reason for this walk is difficult to explain and is tied up with the fact that I have a belief and faith in God. Please if you’re not a fellow Christian don’t stop reading. After all, you’ve paid good money for this – it would be a shame to waste it, and I will promise that despite His pivotal role, God features only intermittently.

Let me explain how He came to be the reason for me starting out on this adventure, because it was something adventurous for me – not knuckle biting but quite exciting nonetheless.

Nearly two years ago-September 3rd to be exact, my husband left me, his daughters, left the family home, his job, and largely our lives. Apologies for the dramatic change of subject without warning but, in the words of Miranda, comedy goddess, ‘bear with ……….’

His leaving threw me into a state of bewilderment – I was bereft, angry and hurt beyond words. I never saw it coming – we had that morning, discussed the evening meal – in a way of many couples at breakfast. I left for work – a new job that day, even though it was a return to a place I had worked before (and a job I had done before so it wasn’t all new), and that was the last I saw of him. He packed and left to begin a new life with a new girl. I never had a chance to fight for my marriage.

We knew nothing of his whereabouts – his note told us little and what there was turned out to be lies for the most part. After almost a week, during which time the girls and I functioned in a state of shock, the police located him two hours away by car.

So point of all this: in my troubled place, I turned for strength to God. He has always been my refuge and I knew that as before He would uphold me. The only surprise for me was the extent to which I was to experience his grace and mercy and endless love, comfort and strength.

It is difficult to put into words how this comes about if it is not something you have experienced. It would be like an astronaut explaining to me the feeling of being in space. I would never be able to understand it completely unless I had actually been there.

Shortly after God, I turned to the ‘Desperate Housewives’ (DH), not the TV series, but the church house group that I belonged to at the time, all ladies and all housewives. They were the first people I told, after family, some 10 days later, and I chose them because I have seen them in action, so to speak; their compassion, prayers and love for others. I couldn’t face them, but the letter I wrote had the effect I knew it would………

God’s presence meant that in the days that were, without a doubt, the worst days of my life, I felt surrounded, protected and held. He sent me angels – so many of them, who cooked for us, provided for us – food and money, almost always anonymously, prayed with us, and for us, and when it came to it, who helped us move house. It wasn’t all DH, but word leaked out and help poured in. Believe me – coming home to find a food parcel on the doorstep or some home cooking says so much more than ‘here’s something to eat’.

Texting – in some ways a 21st century curse, was a perfect medium for people taking time out to tell me that I was in their thoughts; and I know my girls had this form of support to an even greater extent from their own dear friends.

I tell you all this because without it happening, I would never have embarked on this walk. It would never have occurred to me, and most importantly, I would never have heard God prompting me. It was only through this closeness that I was in tune with Him. Rob Bell, a famous Christian evangelist, speaks of hearing the tune or the song of God; of being so in tune that it is the same song we sing. This happens rarely for most people, and not at all for some. But it is a precious thing when you know you are hearing God speak – clearly and deliberately.

Anyway this is how it happened. A church meeting cast doubt on the future of ‘The Bridge’ which is the outreach centre for our Church. It had been at one time a hotel, and Penrith Methodist Church (PMC) bought it over 10 years ago. It is a vitally important place, doing excellent work in the community and its closure would be nothing short of catastrophic. It serves the toddlers (and mums), youth and more senior of Penrith, in a series of groups, cafes and clubs, and teaching, both Christian and non-Christian.

Many in our church feel the same – that it could not, indeed cannot, be allowed to close. With this in mind and during my prayers, God laid on my heart a walk. Over the next few days, this image didn’t go away; indeed it grew both in distance and conviction.

I repeatedly batted away the idea which was preposterous – apart from anything, where would I walk? A 20 mile sponsored walk would raise little interest and little money, and I knew that God had in mind something that would be a talking point.

I have family and friends in Suffolk and that would be a good distance. However it would mean nothing to anyone except me – there would be no point in the destination.

Several weeks after the first thought, the perfect destination came to mind. Every summer young people from our church and surrounding area, travel to a large Christian gathering called Soul Survivor. There are forty or fifty of them among ten thousand teenagers and it was the perfect place to go. It was during the summer holiday and having just moved back to school for work, I now had long holidays. Clearly God’s planning had been way in advance of mine.

The sticking point of Soul Survivor was the location. It’s at Shepton Mallet (Bath and Wells showground), in Somerset, a little bit of a hike from Cumbria – downhill, I grant you, but according to Google maps some 270 miles.

Time to lodge the idea firmly in the back of my mind.

God can be a nag, in the nicest possible sense of the word. He won’t let an idea rest if we are supposed to run with it. You’ll understand that at this point, I had said nothing to anyone – for fear of tittering laughter maybe, or worse, affirmation that I should do it. I wanted neither response.

I was able to console myself that the right people to talk to (Phil the Minister or Maureen – wise and gracious church member), were not around at times when I could approach them. They were always busy in conversation and it would be rude to interrupt!

A day in the middle of June dawned – must have been a weekend, when I found myself in Booths (northern grocer and café).

It’s is an apt and completely appropriate place for this story, proper, to begin, because as you will see the consumption of coffee becomes a major part of the whole and often defines the daily blog.

So to Booths – where customer cardholders can have one free hot drink per day. Had this not been so, I might have been tempted to Costa, where for my money, the latte is without rival. So with i-paper in hand – the crossword is something of an obsession (thanks Lisa), I joined the queue, and saw, having breakfast by himself, Phil the minister.

I knew this was my moment so to speak and that to avoid it would be a slap in the face of God.

Having drunk my coffee and done some of the crossword, I sauntered over to Phil and asked if I could have a word. He smiled and waved at the seat opposite.

So we engaged in some small talk – he was there because his wife and boys were away. I was there…… well I was there because I was supposed to be, and now I was going public so to speak.

I explained my thoughts that wouldn’t go away, and the idea of a walk, and then I mentioned Soul Survivor. He was momentarily dumb and then said he thought it was a great idea. No smirking and no exclamations of incredulity even though he may have thought them. However, I know that Phil also believes that God often calls us to step out of our comfort zone, in this case way outside, so he maybe wasn’t so surprised.

Then the questions – how far? So I told him. HOW FAR?

-who with? By myself, I thought

-how long? Approximately three weeks I thought

-staying where? I haven’t got a clue

It was obvious that I was not in control of this at all.

Phil thought that the first thing to do was to mention it to a few of the church faithful – for them to pray about it and then hopefully we would, as a collective, discern if this was from God and not just the musings of a middle aged lunatic. I felt sure I knew the answer as I don’t take prescription drugs, or anything else that might induce imaginings, but it seemed like a good idea, and would also buy me a bit of time to delay the actuality of concrete planning.

Some two weeks later – we are now at the end of June, it seemed that any thoughts should be coherent and time was getting short – seriously short. Not surprisingly there were not any obvious reasons why this was a bad idea, although ironically at the same time there were lots of reasons why it was a bad idea. The consensus seemed to be ‘go for it’. God could well be behind it.

So the last Sunday in June I spoke to the congregations of both morning services. I told them of my plans – sketchy as they were. That I was going to try to map out a route with specific stopping places, and that if anyone had family or friends who would be happy to offer a bed and a meal then I would be grateful. I also needed their prayers for strength of body, and some organisation.

There was I think some incredulity, and some incomprehension, especially among those unfamiliar with the whole Soul Survivor thing, and just how far it was going to be. I think the overriding opinion was that I was just a little bit barking.

It’s important to point out that I wasn’t going to do this as a fundraiser. It was an attempt to focus attention and prayers on ‘The Bridge’. To say that we need this place; it is an integral part of the church and we need to be faithful that it should remain open. There were murmurings about money, and ultimately people did donate, but that was never the motive. To remain faithful that God will provide was the aim.

Finding a route was a tricky business. The person at Church most valuable in matters of hiking, Jon, was himself on a great adventure for some six weeks and was unlikely to have any spare time. I spent a while with Andrew looking at the best types of maps to use, but while the OS clearly stood out for detail and accuracy, it was just too big and I would’ve ended up taking several maps with me. Another option was to download something suitable, but without 3G (and I am without 3G), I would not be able to access maps while walking. That makes them largely useless. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of 3G then worry not – it’s of no relevance to the story.

So I decided with time running short, I would just use Google maps with all their flaws. I printed out the steps, which were very detailed, and it came to nine sides of A4