A rebel without a clue.

Leeds is such a dirty town And the stench wraps itself With grasping arms  To choke the life out. Such a soreness Pustules and maladies Lingering in doorways Or walking passed lifeless Litter, blowing east Where saviour leans With spice haunted eyes Just the solitary beast: Watching I can't comprehend Where it went wrong? Post-industrial, Post-milltown, Post-worsted, Post-trauma: Please X99 arrive to deliver me From Vagabond folks Emoting something broke. A crack through which I can see What was meant by Conrad 'Exterminate the brutes'. Get me away from this filthy waste! It is up to me. On the plus side I slept peace full Last night.

Central line o o o o that shakespearian rag line. stick with me in this line. shadow of the law line. over the yardarm line. a stitch in time line. a yard of ale line. London town line. a bird in the hand is worth two in bush line Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale or armed and langued azure, line shandy drinking puff line. booze time. England - it's time line. we've run out of bog paper line. solely a political motive line. power corrupts line. divide and conquer line. your finger goes through line. put that in your pipe and smoke it line. pretty vacant sounding like pretty vacunt line. move on time line tuna make me retch line. marmate, love it or hate it line. teatime line. a Pukka pie line. your eyeliner is dark line. 4 and 20 blackbirds line. thin line. thick line. long line. short line. nice line. awful line. a fine line Ontological line. just stop-starting line. we always pretend line. in line. on the line. over the line. line line. head line....

Piles of refuse, dirty pigeons and vagrants... To me this is Leeds: a filthy stain, dried onto the trudged pavement where the monotony of hungry ghosts' do linger; malcontented and always always vacantly staring. In the station a very sign warning of the untruth of homelessness and want. We do it to ourselves. We gouge away. Cigarettes, alcohol and an ascending/descending array of other poisons. Banal and broken. Yet the three cities I've traveled between in the last couple of days, Bristol, Birmingham and Leeds, are exactly the same. They offer scraps and titbits. Distraction: opiates for the masses. And I think it is over entirely for me. Come the autumn I must venture forth once more unless I rot my core where nothing can repair. Life is a movement forward: an energy to be coupled with. ... A week since I returned from Bristol and how it recedes into the dim past. Most walking memories spring up when I'm feeling low: when I struggle with meaning in my life. They are reca...

A Victorian clock ticking, melancholy Upon the wall and slicing seconds, And minutes, hours, days; enough. Ruby, the Vizsla, sleeps through it Without blinking, her head hanging. Arms and legs knotted together Relaxed, she is, beyond any recall. So often today I've called 'come', But the Swift's have won every say! Now claws and paws pad no more. She has such soft posterior regions: Shammy ears, smooth belly, velvety toes And a pleasing silence. ... But then there is a noise below And off she bolts to the bottom fence When I thought she'd gone... In the distance a siren And a ball being kicked Enticing her back I guide her Inside. She's returned to 'their' bed And I gobble water biscuits And Ossau Iraty. Stillness surrounds the dusk. The clock strikes 8 And I'm upstairs climbing asleep To beckon her to cuddle next to me. And she does!

Yesterday I asked the House Keeper if it would be OK for me to do a brief wash of all my clothing, as it was utterly fetid, and she was fine with it. Once I returned from my morning walking through Clifton, Hotwells, Bristol Docks and Wapping I went upstairs and got all my clothes ready to wash and put the large towel I'd been given around my nether regions. Then I went downstairs to speak to her again to let me know when the wash she was doing would be finished so I could come down and wash everything. At this moment her 'partner', a man dressed only in denim knee length shorts, told me I couldn't walk around in just a towel: at first I thought he was being sarcastic, but slightly later, when he came upstairs to use the toilet, he re-enforced this by seeming to threaten me that if I left my room in only a towel he'd 'do something'. With an aging body covered in wrinkled tattoos he spoke daggers and I could clearly tell he was in no way sarcastic. But I didn...

Five hours before a break then two steak and ale pies from two establishments. I'm stuffed and ready for the last leg of Friday. I'm booked in the Notley Arms, Monksilver on a Friday... It's a pub and it's a Friday... I can see light at the end of the tunnel regards this insanity. Why did I bring the full camping ensemble when I haven't slept sunny side up since Cheddar. I've always good intentions, but they often fall into dust. Fantastic. One hundred degrees warmer than the desolation of The Old Cider House. In the Notley Arms I don't have to disappear into the Ancient Mariner or the George before coming back to sleep. It's Friday and the coast isn't too far distant so I chose Fish and Chips. Two Old Rosie Cider to wash it down. Now I'm au naturel supine on the single long bed in room number 7. The patrons didn't mind me eating the food on my lap or walking about barefoot. They said treat it like your home which is why I'm relaxing as n...

Obviously I misunderstood what the host of the B&B meant. He made me a pack lunch to take with me, but it's possibly a fraction of what I expected. If what he left me to consume before a long day ahead... I'll fail to walk many many miles happily - the old saying that an army marches on its stomach is accurate. Some breeze during the night woke me as it shock the sash windows and the toilet door. It took a while to locate where the constant rattling noise was coming from. Then I struggled with the duvet which was too heavy and put too much pressure on my feet. The bed which I took to be a king sized afair is actually two singles so I could only sleep on one side for fear of being woken. In bed I find any impediment at the edges a cause for concern and I always awake whenever my foot touches a footboard or finds the edge or feels suffocated in the bed. The better of the two pubs appears to be the George with its plentiful doggies. The Ancient Mariner was where I ate. They ha...

In Pedwell a retired couple helped me to recover from the attack of hayfever. She made me a strong tea with plenty of sugar. He slipped me a twenty pound note and told me to enjoy a Ploughman's lunch. Finding nowhere open I made my own picnic. The cash went into cider! Had a half an hour break and brunch in Spaxton. The ladies in the Post Office Village Shop were very helpful and even made me a cafeterie coffee. I've just eaten the strawberries from Warren's Fruit Farm, but I am almost out of energy today. It's so humid. A few tempting spots of rain taking the piss! Set off again at just gone eleven down ancient footways to the Pomewater Lane Greenway and I'm hoping to stumble to the Foxy Bean Cafe shortly. Exhausted. That was a very tiring 11 miles. Tomorrow must be different as I really need to be nearer to Lynton than I am today. Nether Stowey is a pretty village at the base of the Quantocks. Tomorrow I go back up the hill on Castle Street to join the Coleridge W...

Just walked the long 20 minutes into Glastonbury. Bought a few supplies from Earthfare. Perhaps I eat them tonight with the red beans I bought in a Colombian cantina/cafe in Colham? The weight would be better inside me. The girl, Shanti, who showed me into the Airbnb accommodation said I could use all the kitchen facilities. Makes plenty of sense. But it might make the beans and garlic for breakfast to go with the chapattis I've been carrying since Birmingham. Tomorrow I can certainly start the day vegetarian if it's up to me: I think she also said to help myself to coffee. Tomorrow is Bridgwater and back into the tent. I called ahead to the coast to an independent hostel but it's no use me going as it's for 'bubbles' etc and the price is exorbitant; much the same as the YHA. My primary issue with walking in England is the cost of accommodation and the niggling dislike I have of camping. When sunrise is before 5 and sunset around 9 the birds chatter a lot before...

Yesterday I struggled so much with hayfever and then trying to find some solace in bloody Bridgwater. In the Weatherspoons and the Fountain Inn a local refused to stop trying to talk to me. In Weatherspoons I made an excuse and headed indoors, but at the Fountain Inn a crazy woman from Halifax, who claimed me as 'kin' just couldn't understand that I am socially anxious. She claimed she was too, but just wouldn't leave me alone... and as I was sat at the furthest away place outside my only option was to run away screaming which I did indeed! But I did find a fantastic Portuguese Delta café in Eastover area where I finally got over the weary day on Super Bock Preto and bolo. The Admiral Blake Guest House was quiet, but the room I was in only had a sky light window so felt stuffy most of the night. I slept au naturel until my usual time - 5ish - when too many still Somerset scrumpy ciders came out the other orifice. By 6:30 I was desperate to find breakfast. The town centr...

Day three dawns after a perfect evening's sleep. Awake and eating Frijoles Rojos Colombianos by 5:30am. My backpack is thoroughly packed and I'm just enjoying a agave sweetened LOR Classique instant coffee. It'll be ablutions, boots on and away. I found a slight short cut back to Magdalene Street so don't have to follow too much road out of Glastonbury? Yesterday wasn't a lot of walking (10 miles), but it was primarily tarmac. The can of frijoles antioqueños is enough for two plates of refried beans so they're safely stowed in Tupperware. Left Glastonbury via Wirral Hill/Ridge and the later part of The Romam Way as it slumbered and passed through Street as labourers stepped into the healthy morning option 'Greggs' - two mornings ago that was me labouring over two full breakfast baps! Just connect the field ways parallel to the suggested lane coming out of Street, to the South of Walton. Streaming west! It's eight and time for a slash! What hayfever! ...

Didn't sleep well with the church bell cacophony every 15 minutes all through the night. Now I wait by the ancient monument in Westbury sub Mendips for the bus into Wells to find a large breakfast. From there I'll find another way to Glastonbury and, perhaps, Street? While waiting for the bus from Weston-super-Mare I'm finally conquered by hay fever. I felt it a little during the night but walking through those 3 miles of fields between Cheddar and Westbury has done me in... ... Full English up by the Bishop's Eye from TWENTYONE. I'm passing through Wells. That's twice in my lifetime. Suddenly I'm retracing my footsteps back the way I came in 2010 at the end of my summer in Padstow: not literally as I didn't walk that time. Leaving Wells behind after a great breakfast via the Bishop's Palace and Moated complex - there isn't a single thing Godly amongst all these heavy stones and fetid waters. How did a simple message get so distorted into a palat...

Two fully loaded breakfast baps from Greggs(yuck!!!) later and I'm heading out of Bristol towards the Clifton Suspension Bridge. What a view looking up at it and looking outwards towards the Bristol Channel: I never knew that Portishead was on the coast. After I'd been on my feet for 2 hours from Clifton, and leaving behind the heavy Monday morning traffic, I passed through a 'random little village' (Dundry) on this Samaritan's Way around 10:30am and there in the Pub/Shop I bump into a guy who used to sleep below me when I worked in Padstow at Pucelli's in 2010! Small world full of serendipity! He was a great lad, but got moved into another house as soon as possible - I do snore my head off. Looking back I can make out the suspension bridge 5 miles away as I'm about to hit rolling countryside with Chew Valley Lake in the distance. The fecundity of England in June where everything is verdant and nodding in the slightest breeze. A touch of hay fever caught me ...

All is as I like to leave it at number 69: washing done and left tidy, fridge on setting half and all other electricity off. Almost set off without a coat! So hastily headed back to the eleventh floor. Also took a meter reading, but it seems only to show one figure - not a day/night reading - so need to speak to someone at Eon on Monday morning. Ate a very 'soured' porridge, which I left out on the windowsill for two nights. I love soured/fermented oats and it's better for digesting. There is a gentle rain falling on Leeds which might help to refresh my allotment or encourage more thistles to pop out. The coach is going to be full by Nottingham and there is no social distancing in place. Sit back, relax and fear naught: it's 8:05am and I'm finally on my way out of 'war torn' Leeds; Covid has gone on and on and on since December 2020.

5 hours in a cramped Coach, with an hour hovering in Birmingham - a town I've always felt foreign to my charms - and here I am in Colham. Perched above Bristol it is definitely Portobello or Brighton. My gate dragged me to my hostess, Airbnb, far too early so I suggested she doesn't rush back from an afternoon tea on account of me. Now here I am in 'Bravas' pretending in in Iberia and not the South West. It's going to cost a pretty packet so it's neither Malaga or Alicante - another Camino setting off with a slight hangover. How did I do the first day from Alicante up to Cueva de San Pascual with a hangover... I will probably find out tomorrow on my way to Cheddar? I register nothing here though. I'm watching chefs in dirty/discoloured attire... This happens. But there is definitely a surfit of cleanliness in their nether regions. I dislike dirty chef pants and filthy shoes.