I’m
back. Feet are healed and I’m ready for
the open road again, thanks to Roisin McSwiggan for the expert advice and to
Mary Ann for the excellent nursing care she has ministered. I was very disappointed that I was unable to
finish the walk at the first attempt. It
is not exactly Everest, but walking on those complaining feet made it seem like
my Everest minus the danger of falling down a cliff or being obliterated in an
avalanche. Hopefully I will be able to
avoid a blister repeat. I have been
educating myself in ways to avoid them, but with those rough roads in the
south, I know it will be a challenge and I am not setting out as cocky as I was
first time round. Wisdom for some of us
only comes from a gradual accumulation of mistakes. It’s called learning the hard way.
I have trod
about fifty miles over the past week in preparation for the second half of the
walk. I will start in Ballymahon just
North of Athlone which is about 25 miles north of where I left off in
Ferbane. I’ll count the fifty miles
walked this week in lieu of that. I have
driven that road from Athlone to Ballymahon a few times recently and it is
really too dangerous to walk on. It is
very twisty, narrow and in some stretches does not even have a grass verge to
step on to avoid oncoming vehicles. It
is also a very busy main road. It would
therefore, I’ve decided, be too dangerous a venture both for me and for drivers
coming round a sharp corner and having to swerve to avoid the vision in front
of them. I set out again then on Sunday
morning June 2nd, full of hope but a chastened man. I will be keeping you all updated on progress
any time I have access to a computer on my journey.
The funding
total is currently well over £13,000.00.
It is a magnificent sum and thanks to so many people who have given so
generously and to those who have organised fundraising events. I have been overwhelmed by the generosity I
have encountered and greatly heartened by the sheer goodness of so many
people. For that alone the venture has
been well worth while. It has however
taken over our lives these past three months, Mary Ann’s as much as mine. It has turned out to be a much larger
operation than we could have imagined.
When I’m on the road putting one foot in front of the other I often
think of the difference it will make to so many people in Malawi, such a poor
part of the world where I spent five wonderful years and where I met Mary
Ann. And as the poet says “And that has
made all the difference”
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