I have the same feelings that I did when leaving Wales: England, the whole of the British Isles, is so precious and beautiful. My ears ache with listening and trying to remember the melody of the blackbirds and my eyes and mind hurt with storing the sights around me that I will not see again for years.
Near Marlborough in Wiltshire, a vet stops his car. His name is Martin and he tells me he’s also a runner. When he ran from Land’s End to John O’Groats he used a baby-jogger.
‘Much easier than carrying a backpack. You’re carrying too much weight which long term will ruin your back. You need to get a cart to pull.’
Looking back, I really respected his advice and wished I’d taken it sooner. At the time, though, I thought it could be difficult to camp at night and progress through tracks in woods with a cart.
It means so much that Mark, Clive’s favourite nephew, his wife Mandy and son Andrew drive out to see me. They are such a part of it all, and yet so already is Geoff who I have only ever met once before, at the Omsk Marathon. Geoff runs 20 miles with me and we drink cool lemonade at the end. The most special moments are the two nights with Eve, Pete and my grandson Michael, after I’ve run the canal path from Slough to London. I wake up in the spare bedroom, thinking I have all the time in the world.
Please make time stand still—also please make time pass that I can win through. There’s no point in feeling selfish about this. So many people go through the same thing when they are off on some mission—or off to war. This run is a joy for me to do, but it is also my small personal and fierce war, my little contribution to life, not much compared to what many do. If I was a doctor or nurse I would not run around the world because then I could do more here.
I love my family so much. Eve is like me but much cleverer and more beautiful; Michael is a kindred spirit, though only one and half; Pete’s a Liverpudlian, a designer—one of the best people I’ve ever met. They want me to go on my run; it’s for Clive, but it is for them too.
I also feel very sad when saying goodbye to Catherine in London, and to dear Nedd, the black cat who owns her; I have faith I will see them all again; I have faith it will all work out; but my heart is thudding with the immensity of the journey ahead.
I spend several days running from London to Colchester and on to the east coast. I keep thinking, ’This is just one little step, one little breath, in my aim to circle the globe. I have planned it, prepared for it; been inspired to do it; yet it is still something I never thought I could reach for in my lifetime. It has been full of practical, prosaic plans and strategies and solutions; but still something beyond all the horizons I know.
By 19 October, I’m boarding the ferry to Holland.
The ferry docks at Hook at 4am in the stillness of predawn darkness. I unwrap the bivvi, rest in it awhile, awaken to skies blazing in a tangerine sunrise. The huge clouds across the skies are golden. I understand why in Holland they call clouds ‘the Dutch mountains’. They are the most spectacular peaks around. Soon, early light is reflecting the tops of many glasshouses in town, which sparkle like diamonds. Thousands appear on bikes on their way to work. Everybody is warm and good-humoured, saying good morning to me in English. There’s the smell of hot coffee, fresh croissants and cakes in the chocolatiers and bakeries.
I begin the 50km run to Haarlem. The path is through a forest, then along dykes and canals. A mist descends. Boats emerging out of the fog seem close enough to touch. It almost seems I’m travelling beside them in the same element, on the water. There are misty windmills, endless dykes. I’ve been to Holland several times, but it’s never felt like this. I realise, through the two-week run in Holland, it’s the way of travelling that matters. I bless the heavy pack that’s crippling me, because I’m so slow. Slowness gives you eyes in your feet and can be a catalyst for the senses.
Klaas Hoeve is publishing two of my sailing books in Dutch. He and his assistant Madelon take me to lunch in Haarlem, bringing chocolate whose giant chocolate letters say Rosie. He’s meeting me again in the north of Holland at Leewarden. I eat one letter of my name every day for extra energy, continuing along little roads and paths weaving through marshlands, dykes and more empty landscape than I imagined existed in Holland in a misty landscape of sudden shafts of light, with rainstorms, windmills and farms often only just visible as if on a delicate, washed-out artist’s canvas.
I’m using a lot of energy and need to eat often. I buy food in little shops in isolated villages. Grocers are understanding when I purchase just a few potatoes, three carrots, one onion. Vegetables are delicious but heavy to carry. It changes my way of shopping completely when I have to carry it all on my back. I’m also rediscovering spaghetti—wonderful with Dutch cheese. There are 500gm per pack and 100gm is 300 calories. If you add various bits and pieces, it’s a good budget meal. My tiny stove becomes the centre of my life. There aren’t many cafes in the countryside, even in Holland. Even if I find a restaurant, I often don’t stop. I must economise as my budget for the entire run is very small. A few thousand pounds a year.
The first frost comes on 23 October: a scattering of snow followed by driving sleet and rain. I’m happy I’ve picked up a parcel of heavier-duty clothes and kit sent ahead to my publisher. The weather is always good from inside a PHD Khumbu storm-proof Gortex jacket.
On 25 October I run across the first 15km of the Afsluitdijk dam that stretches 35km in a beautiful, dramatic way between the open water of Waddensee and the inland Ijsselmeer seas, a vast engineering feat that’s the only route between the west of Holland and Friesland. It feels almost like the parting of the waves of Jordan, with the sea either side letting you through.
Later, offshore lights rock and sway as ships and boats are tossed on the waves; cars along the dam crash up skeins of water from the deluges as they proceed. I’m like a sea-beacon of light by the side of the road, wearing my newest reflectors and shining lights on the pack and adorning my coat. Drivers are courteous, lowering their headlight beams to spare me. I put my head down and run with a will.
I make it to Leewarden and, though sleepy and like a wet dog with my breath all steamy and hair like sodden fur, I feel so pleased. I’m warmly welcomed by Leewarden College students. Soon I feel great again thanks to them, dry the most essential items out, have a hot shower and rest. Then the real events of the day start. The roads become packed with runners, all wearing Rosie’s Run T-shirts. We do 25km around sublime wooded Friesian countryside, with traditional homes with carved porches and a feeling all its own.
The support is such that I don’t feel tired; the occasion ends with a concert by the local Shantykoor choir who sing great sea shanties and other songs. The words of ‘Molly Malone’ and ‘Irish Eyes are Smiling’ are still echoing in my head as I continue running towards Germany.
I head over the border on 2 November, one month since I’ve set off. I’ve now done 500 miles though the next 10,000 miles are going to be in kilometres, which is nice and encouraging. Kilometres may not be as lovable as miles (you never reach ‘a kilometre-stone in life’) but give the illusion of making progress by adding up more quickly.
I cross the border some distance beyond the last Dutch town of Groningham. No passport stamp, no officials. You’d hardly know you were in a different country. But I’m given a beautiful path beyond Bunde that will avoid all the busy roads.
The rain has started, everything keeps getting wet. I can’t keep my eyes open all the same as the excitement of the last week is catching up. I’m so tired, I have to drop where I stop, which happens to be in the most beautiful late autumn forest. I’m never going to get over how I’ve always thought of Germany as an industrial country, yet it also has the most glorious broad-leaf forests I have ever seen. I prop up the bivvi, stuff myself into my great big double sleeping bag, and I’m gone, lost to the world.
One night I wake up in a terrible fright. Something has crashed into the bivvi. There’s a loud squeal and heavy