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John o’ Groats to Land’s End virtual walk

What are Bat Snacks, and would I like them?
Ethel Olthwaite's Reet Good Bat Snacks were a short-lived fad in the Dales in the 1980s. Rather like Hedgehog crisps, their popularity as pub food dwindled when it was revealed that they contained no bat whatsoever.
 
Sitting outside a pub in Malham washing down the last of his bat snacks with a bottle of Beaujolais, Lego Marchbanks thinks with a shudder of his fellow hikers who will soon be striding through a muddy wood in Warwickshire by torchlight.

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It’s time to bid the Pennine Way farewell (it continues over this bridge) and cross underneath, taking my first tentative steps along the Rochdale Canal towards a virtual meeting in Manchester. I have to say that after a month of solitude I find the idea of the city - or rather the teeming masses within it - rather alarming, particularly when I look at the map and find my route blocked not only by a million acres of Retail Hell called Trafford Park but also the M60, which seems to have been constructed in a Berlin Wall kind of way with the intention of stopping anyone from entering or leaving Manchester if they are not behind the wheel of a car. Never mind, I have a few days of towpath walking in which to work something out.

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Photo © John Slater (cc-by-sa/2.0)
 
As Lego Marchbanks forged on towards Manchester - here he is practicing his walking-on-water trick on the Rochdale Canal…

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Photo © David Dixon (cc-by-sa/2.0)

…I decided that on such a beautiful day it would be a crime not to go out on a long walk and put a good number of virtual miles in the bank for him to spend. And so, on the Staffs-Worcs border this morning, life imitated art. Obligatory glass of wine not shown.

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Oops, my mistake, although I had to wait until the lunchtime picnic - oh, look… a Batham’s pub! I’ll be back after some afternoon canalside walking…

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…during which I met Gordon. He had George Harrison’s ‘Wah-Wah’ blaring out of his boombox. This led to a long chat about the Beatles. I told him about the almost unbelievable string of ‘what-ifs’ that fell their way according to Mark Lewisohn’s biography. He asked me with a little trepidation what I thought about the ‘Paul is Dead’ theory. Bollocks, I answered. I think he was a little disappointed, but we parted on good terms.

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…and so we come to my reward for adding a record 14.1 miles to the virtual walk today for the little sod to spend. It was worth it! And £3.50 is the answer to your question.

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I see that is just enough mileage to deposit him on Canal Street tonight. He’s probably partying the night away as I type. Good thing tomorrow’s virtual meet is at a hospital, he'll probably deplete their stocks of paracetamol. Hope he manages to blearily zig-zag his way there.
 
When you get there MB, do take a look at the writing in the road outside the main entrance. It’s not the usual ‘STOP’ or ‘GIVE WAY’ stuff, and appeared not long after the start of the pandemic.
 
I'm ashamed to say that I didn't make it to the hospital today. I miscalculated the distance and was marooned half-a-mile short. I realise the disappointment this must have caused the patients who would have been eagerly looking forward to my visit and promise sincerely that I'll be there tomorrow. I do appreciate my obligation to the public - I know that the virtual walk has captured the hearts of the nation, and I have been touched and humbled by the number of flags and amount of bunting that I’ve seen hung along my route, particularly in the last week or so.

Happier news - the 700 milestone was passed today. Kevin Waterhouse ran to the Bridgewater Canal just in time to capture the moment. Photo © him (cc-by-sa/2.0)

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My next virtual meeting - with @Sue Pertwee-Tyr aka Steve. He had suggested we met at the Trafford General Hospital and as I approached through the leafy suburbs, feeling very guilty for being a day later than expected, I passed one of the signs painted by the council in the roads outside during the pandemic.

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Steve explained that in 1948 it had become the first NHS hospital but had recently experienced hard times, losing its A&E and other clinical departments. Not to mention a brief closure after being struck by lightning. I said I'd try to keep my visit low-key and he laughed - in a slightly mysterious way, I thought. We were then greeted by a hospital official who asked me to follow him. I looked round for Steve but he had disappeared, so I followed my guide up the stairs. In a sunlit room I was thanked for routing the virtual walk via the hospital (aha, Steve's idea, I remembered), given a glass of very serviceable red and invited out onto the balcony. Then...

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Delighted to show you round my manor, MB. Trust the NHS plonk was to your satisfaction, knowing your standards I was a little worried. But nice of them to make the effort, I thought.
 
A double landmark yesterday. First, another virtual meeting. This one was with @monstrous lie in the splendid Flax Mill Maltings in Shrewsbury. The five-storey main mill was the first iron-framed building in the world and therefore has a claim to being the first skyscraper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditherington_Flax_Mill

https://www.shrewsburyflaxmillmaltings.org.uk

We met outside the main mill, where I inducted him into the Fellowship of Virtual Meetees in the usual brief but moving ceremony. Having presented him with his illuminated parchment, we moved to the recently-opened café for refreshments. I suspect Mr. lie has considerable clout in Shrewsbury as an official soon appeared and offered to take me on a visit to the very highest point of the buildings, where the original iron sunflowers and coronet have now been put back in place following their renovation.

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Heading southwards from the town I soon hit the 800-mile mark as I was passing a group of allotments. Jeremy Bolwell was kind enough to stop mulching his tomatoes for a second to record the moment for posterity. Photo © him (cc-by-sa/2.0)

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I intend to go back to the Maltings for a non-virtual look quite soon. I’ll wait until I’ve got to Land’s End though - I’m already planning on allowing the real and virtual walks to coincide in time and space next week, and I don’t want to provoke any cosmic unpleasantness by messing about with the relativistic fabric of the universe too much. I’ve sought advice from CERN, who tell me it should be OK if the real and virtual Marchbanks rotate in opposite directions throughout. I haven’t heard back from Brian Cox yet - he’s probably sitting on a mountain-top somewhere being filmed by the BBC while contemplating the vastness of space in voice-over. Perhaps I should ask @Joe P. He knows all about the risks of opening up gateways to parallel universes, unleashing evil twins etc. etc.

On the subject of the real world, during yesterday’s stroll I met Anita as she was mowing the grass verges on the lane outside her farm. “Hello Marchbanks - where are you now?” she asked. I told her I was in Shrewsbury. “Not bad,” she said with the usual mixture of pity and indulgence as she climbed off the mower. “Would you like an ice-cream to help you on the journey up the Big Hill?” Would I! The simple joys of country life..

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(Sorry about the fingernails, I had been potting begonias.)
 
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Marchy, my man.

Did you see a bloke who looks just like you but with a goatee? That's the evil parallel universe Marchy, my man.

Joe
 
I wondered where you had got to!
I looked up from my oatmeal muffin and ginger-pop and you were nowhere to be seen.
I'm glad my steward found you and escorted you to the top of the roof, though; I knew you would like it there.

Well what an afternoon it was, and what an honour for me as a new inductee! I shall treasure my illuminated certificate as gold. In fact I have spent all of today trying it out in different locations around my quarters to see where it looks best.

May strength and courage go with you Mr Marchbanks. It was a pleasure to virtually meet you.
 
Well what an afternoon it was, and what an honour for me as a new inductee! I shall treasure my illuminated certificate as gold. In fact I have spent all of today trying it out in different locations around my quarters to see where it looks best.

May strength and courage go with you Mr Marchbanks. It was a pleasure to virtually meet you.
I’m glad you enjoyed it as much as I did. I can’t apologise enough for the sword incident - I sometimes get a little over-excited during the induction ceremony, but I’ve never drawn blood before. At least, not that much. Still, these things tend to look worse than they are, I like to think.
 
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Wednesday saw another virtual meeting, this one with @eisenach at the Riverside Inn, Aymestrey on a rather damp and blowy day. My spirits lifted greatly when he announced that lunch was on him. Scanning down the menu it only took a matter of seconds to choose the Wood Pigeon starter and rare breed fillet steak main course. Then I decided that I couldn’t resist the Herefordshire snails either, so I’d have those as a kind of amuse-bouche. I thought a NZ Pinot Noir would go with the pigeon and chose the 2014 d’Angludet to accompany the steak. Having reeled that off I looked up to ask my host what he fancied, only to see that he had turned rather pale. I wondered if I had committed some dreadful faux-pas. Of course! I hadn’t performed the initiation ceremony! I apologised profusely and managed to complete both it and the Presentation of the Scroll just as my local rum Ginger Snap aperitif was arriving.

A couple of hours later, I polished off my blue cheese ice cream and second glass of Taylor’s LBV. The skies had cleared, the wind had dropped and the sun was shining. I bade eisenach farewell, and thinking what a fine chap he was, I set off in a slightly wobbly fashion across the fields towards Leominster and the next meetee.

Photo © Fabian Musto (cc-by-sa/2.0)
 
Great to meet you virtually (and by PM), even though in reality, on Wednesday, I was here ...
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(Puy St.Vincent les Prés dans les Hautes Alpes)



The weather was a bit better this morning (Le pré de Mme Carle vers le glacier blanc)
 
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