Stones on the Pathway: Writings during times of uncertainty: Writings during times of uncertainty

By David Bamford

This is a collection of writings, in prose and poetry, mainly related to walking, something of which I do quite a lot. It was begun during the time of the Covid pandemic, when movement was restricted. It had been my intention during that time to walk the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage route which ends in the city of Santiago de Comp

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Bamford
• Release date: Nov 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9781916820517

Book preview

Stones on the Pathway

Writings during times of uncertainty

by

David Bamford

Copyright © 2023 David Bamford

ISBN: 9781916820517

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored, in any form or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author.

Contents

Introduction: Stones on the Pathway

Limbo

Limbo 1

Limbo 2

2020

Buridan’s Ass

Thinking About Moving

(In)decision

A Moving Experience

Lockdown

Life in the Coronaverse

Legacy

A Psalm in the Time of Covid-19

Monotone Monochrome

Quiet Desperation

NO MORE

Self-isolation

Solitude

The Tunnel

Vicissitudes

Waiting Room

The Whithorn Way

Room-inations

Leaving Self

Pilgrim-age

Rain

Barrhill to New Luce

Glenluce

St Ninian’s Cave

A Pot of Pebbles

Aftermath

A Soaking

Keswick in Grey

Meadow

Omicron

Pandemic (another acrostic)

Lockdown (and another)

Opinions of Oneself

Terms of Address

The Meeting that Didn’t Happen

The Three Least Helpful Words of Advice

The Year the Pud Came Good

Cock Pheasant

Howgills

Putin’s epitaph

Mariupol

Of Rivers

Spadeadam Waste

Crammel Linn

Willowford Bridge

Milecastle 49

Birdoswald

Coombe Crag

Stepping Stones

Lanercost Bridge

Brampton Old Churchyard

Near Irthington

Gelt Newby East bridge

Confluence

The Camino de Santiago

On the Brink

The Check-in Queue

Iglesia de Santiago, Puente la Reina.

Early

Emerging Day

The Shadow

The Way

Burgos

Campanions on the Way

The Meseta

Harmony

Moving Onwards

Autumn on the Camino

The Cathedral, Santiago de Compostela

The Gaitero of Santiago

Compostela

Last Words

Old Year

Consequence

A Winter Squall

Marine Sunset

A New Year Resolution

A resolution for 2023

Introduction: Stones on the Pathway

When we walk on uneven terrain, it is necessary to keep an eye on the ground in order to make sure that we are avoiding obstacles which may be lying in our way. There may be mud, boggy patches, tree roots, dog turds or other unsavouries. Also stones.

A stone may be an obstacle; it may be an annoyance, especially if it gets into a shoe. It can also be a thing of beauty: bright, shining, jewel-like, beautiful to look at and to hold, especially if it’s found on a beach and has been worn by ages of tidal washing and being smoothed by being rolled and rubbed against the millions of others with which it shares the space. I have one such. I picked it up on the beach near St Ninian’s Cave, Isle of Whithorn, in Dumfries and Galloway. I was nearing the end of a pilgrimage, having walked the Whithorn Way, from Glagow. The pilgrimage is chronicled in these pages. The stone, therefore, has a special significance for me. I keep it on my desk, where it serves as a paperweight.

During the vicissitudes of the extraordinary year, 2020, when the world was knocked off its axis by Covid-19, there were many setbacks, obstacles, annoyances, frustrations and disappointments to exasperate and hinder us. There were also spots of brightness, rays of hope, moving gestures of altruism and philanthropy which helped us all to appreciate the good that may be found in human nature. This collection is an attempt to capture something of the highs and lows of a unique time.

A great deal of this has to do with perspective, the angle from which we view objects, events, our surroundings. Much of what had been considered and planned had to be discarded, postponed or at least rethought. It had been on my bucket list to attend the Oberammergau Passion Play; this had been something which I had wanted to do since I was about 11 or 12 years old, since my preparatory school headmaster had told my class about it. This was in 1955 or 1956. I considered that, if we did not go in 2020, we might not have another chance. Therefore, we made arrangements to go while this opportunity presented itself. However, the event was postponed until 2022. Another venture on my bucket list was to walk to Santiago de Compostela. Travel restrictions and rules of quarantine caused this to be postponed twice. A planned trip to the Edinburgh Festival with two friends had to be cancelled because the festival did not take place. That happened in 2023.

On balance, the period from 2020 t0 2022 led to a great degree of falling into place. We sold our home of ten years and bought a house which was one of four in a new development; a former primary school which had been given the name Scholars’ Rise (I insist on the apostrophe, as, without it, the phrase means something different). This has now wrapped around us the mantle of home. I completed the Santiago pilgrimage, and we feel able to turn a varied collection of stones, pebbles, boulders over in our hands and enjoy the memories that they evoke.

Limbo

The year 2020 introduced the world to a situation of a kind that we are unlikely to experience more than once in a lifetime, if that. Everything went on hold, except, at least in the early stages of the first lockdown, such needless extravagance as the panic buying of lavatory paper. It was, in many senses, a limbo, a state defined by Merriam-Webster in the following words:

1 often capitalized: an abode of souls that are according to Roman Catholic theology barred from heaven because of not having received Christian baptism

2, a: a place or state of restraint or confinement (trapping travelers (sic) in an airless limbo— Sam Boal)

b: a place or state of neglect or oblivion (proposals kept in limbo)

c: an intermediate