Tuesday 26th January

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Such prospects. One night over means one last sleep until I get on the road again. The eighth of February is the grande depart along the route I tried back in December 2014. My bed is found for the first two nights. Down in London and Canterbury the graceful Society of St Francis will allow me a night to get in order. I've booked a one way trip to King's Cross at a cost effective £23.50 and I will walk down Kingsway to Southwark bridge. They expect me at 3pm. My thoughts suggest I should walk a little out of London on Shrove Tuesday before I depart east into Kent. Up to Greenwich is a pleasant walk indeed, or Deptford for a moment with Christopher Marlow - I can get an out wards bound train from Lewisham I think! Or perhaps the DLR. I am not following the A2 anywhere. I know Harry Bucknall did but I can't see him struggling with the noise demons?

Yesterday I saw Gemma from Leeds Mind and hopefully they will be able to share my journey to those in search of another way out of mental health's grip? But it doesn't matter. The real challenge is going back to a single point traveling linear through the perpetual circuits that too many people hardly batter their eyes at. Every day the morning is not new there; but I know that it is always box fresh. How did we leave those small clans to move into these tighter and tighter gravitational cities and then forget any reason? Clarity. To reach a moment of knowledge. That will be worth blisters, fatigue, barren lands, muddy boots, drenched skin and loneliness. My loneliness is a hundred fold in cities, asleep in my cell. On the road I am alone, but there is a spirit, a mystery, a miracle, a something other; a clarion calling me: do not be afraid.

As the rain starts I am returning to Wetherby to walk Lola. She's not overly happy with the wetness until she's got out and started sniffing when in a rush she scatters about playfully. To see the joy on the face of a dog; the excitement. It could be my perception of it is wrong: anthropomorphising her, but dogs do smile. When she stretches on the carpeted floor in a morning for a tickle and she pretends to bite - with eyes so alive - I want to be in the moment that animals participate and not to be forever distracted from here and now.

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