The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

This incredible book has been devoured. You know a book has you when you are drying yourself after a shower one handed in order to grab a quick page. At emotionally vulnerable times it could easily have felt corny to seize on a book with a torrid, heart breaking tale, put your favourite sad songs on repeat simply weep.

This book, though, about a journey on our very own South West Coast Path, told by Raynor Winn, but also about the incredible journey of a time in life with her beloved husband Moth, hits that sweet spot emotionally. Stomach twistingly heart breaking, yet so beautiful it paints rainbows across your tears. Winn crafts this deeply personal, brutally honest wander through the roughest tracks of life with such poise, it seems outrageous to think she hasn’t been previously published.

Thrown into the void of life after being evicted from their home, their life’s work gone, the follow up punch comes instantly when Moth is given a terminal diagnosis. What to do? They head for Minehead.

And from there, learning the errors of their preparation, or lack of it, as they go, they set off for Lands End (and beyond?) on foot. Camping wild and surviving on £40 a week, their wits, their humour and the spark they’ve carried together through their entire adult lives, they battle on.

Progress can be slow, painful or simply non-existent and Winn describes, sometimes agonisingly, often hilariously, the people they meet, the towns and villages they pass through, or linger in, and their encounters with the elements.

So life size is the narration, I found myself smelling their clothes, feeling the drying of their skin, hearing the sounds of the Atlantic, the call of the sea birds and shifting uncomfortably with the book as she describes some of the ground they slept on.

I can’t pretend that the books proximity to home (both in geography, emotion and ambition) doesn’t add an extra personality to its appeal to me personally, but please, please believe me, it is a wonderful thing.

Winn echos the message so delicately reinforced by my very own wondrous adventurer, soul mate and partner for life in reassuring me that hope is actually a GOOD thing. Why not hope, dream, dare or just ****ing DO IT!

If you want your spirits lifted, your emotions exposed, your adventurous bones ignited then this is surely the book for you. It has already become one of our most treasured possessions.

Check out what else I’ve read so far this year HERE.

 

 

 

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Nicky and I shared an early morning run this week. Nothing unusual in that, I hear you whisper. Well, it’s the longest run we’ve done together for weeks, nay months. Our lives have changed dramatically recently and a terrible sadness clouds us. We’ve really tried to keep training, to keep trying to ‘enjoy’ these endurance sports that are such big parts of our life.

I feel the events of the last couple of months are too raw and too personal to be discussed here. The end of the journey for Nicky’s dad came early last week and our world is simply poorer. The struggle for him is over.

So. Nicky and I shared an early morning run this week. Soul mates. Doing what we do best.

I have a tendency to name my runs on Strava and, having paused to enjoy the amazing sunrise on the horizon, we decided to dedicate the run to Frank. Shine on Frank, shine on.

RIP Frank Dudley 1938 – 2018

This blog has become very much part of our journey. Whilst our running adventures, and those of Nicky’s swims and triathlons form the bulk of the content, if you fancy a delve in the 100+ posts you’ll find poetry, short stories, essays and life’s challenges chronicled.

And long may it continue.

The story of me cancelling my entry to Stevenage Marathon in order to join Nicky at The Eden Project Marathon is part of blog folklore now. Why Stevenage indeed! Nicky rolled her eyes that day and I soon found that chasing numbers on the watch, whilst still part of what I do, cannot compete with the adventure and beauty of 28 mile hilly trail marathon. Well Nicky is finding her special adventure finding google app is working at full capacity again…………

Watch this space………… (Spoiler: we both need to be training……..A LOT)

I feel the blog needed to move through this time in our lives but couldn’t do so without paying tribute to Nicky’s dad. Life will never be the same again for us after this journey, but we will not stop…………

 

 

Serious Sweet

SERIOUS SWEET by A.L. Kennedy – A Review

Regular readers (should there still be any!?), will know that Alison Kennedy is one of my favourite ever authors. I was sure to delve into this rather hefty novel on the front foot, although rest assured if I hadn’t loved it, I wouldn’t be writing about it now.

Nicky (my rather splendid, completely beautiful and awe inspiring lady wife) always claims I have a leaning towards, as she says, ‘high brow’ books. I think the industry calls it ‘literary fiction’, although I couldn’t give a shit what it’s called, I either enjoy a book or I don’t. And, Nicky, i do believe you’re currently reading the vintage autobiographical novel, Heartburn, by Nora Ephron. High brow indeed!

This heartbreaking, yet heart warming, tale is told without any suggestion of formula. The prose combines a personal third person narration with soul searching internal dialogue. And the same method is applied to both the main characters.

Powerful it is. Floyd’s ‘Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl’ lyric would surely be on the soundtrack to the movie this book DEMANDS to be made into.

A flawed love story of flawed love as our two main characters battle their way through 24 London hours. There’s a darkness to Jon and Meg, our hopes for them never soar too ambitiously as we fear for their fate. Jon, in late middle age, working within the inner reaches of the civil service and privy to the hideous secrets that come with that, finds a unusual outlet for his feelings and emotions. Meg, a recovering alcoholic and bankrupt accountant, lost and alone in a crowded city, takes the bait and seeks refuge in Jon’s words.

Will destiny allow this unlikely pair to find romance? Told by the two protagonists in short bursts, the day starts and finishes in darkness, but will there be light?

The attention to detail, the imagery, the complex plot and history, together with the deeply personal voices make this a compelling read. It has to be read, there’s no room for skimming or presumption. Falling asleep with this book in my hands was always a frustration, I would grab it on awaking and even read a page whilst the kettle boiled for morning coffee.

Not a small book and it demands the readers’ involvement, but boy it’s good.