Hay on Wye to Knighton

Burfa House

Erica walks the Dyke

Tuesday 2nd June

no miles, no additional calories used but plenty consumed, only walking to the shops

A day off, a day to read the papers, eat a sizeable breakfast, laze in the garden, half asleep in the sun. A day to wander the shops of Hay, to fantasise about buying unusual and beautiful clothes to wear with green shoes and huge earrings, as opposed to the usual tatty jeans and white t shirts. A day to resist the lure of bookshops and antique shops and anything weighing more than a plaster.

Wednesday 3rd June

Newchurch churchyard, welcoming walkers

Hay on Wye to Kington

15 miles, 9.00 to 4.50, calories used 1215.

There is nothing like a day off to make you ready to walk again.

It was another hot but hazy day as we set off from Hay in the direction of Clyro. This was the parish of the Reverend Francis Kilvert who wrote a diary of his time as a vicar in this area of the Welsh borders in the 1840s. He was a passionate and kindly man with an eye for beauty: of the landscape, in architecture and of young girls. Read his diaries and muse about our current obsession with the sexual abuse of children and how our fears fit with a society like Kilvert's. Perhaps a less sexualised society has its benefits, one of which may be a restraint on behaviour which which we have lost. I don't mean to minimise the hyprocrisy which underlay much of Victorian society in relation to sex but read Kilvert and there is an odd innocence in his love of beautiful children which is inconceivable in our responses now.

It is an odd reminder of the role of a church as a sanctuary to find that some of the churches on the way welcome walkers and thoughtfully provide seats, water, biscuits and words of encouragement. Here is the churchyard at Newchurch which has all of this, with a handwritten sign by the gate which makes you turn in gratefully, pratical Christianity.

And for much of the day we walked the Dyke too, sometimes large and tree covered and mysterious, sometimes a long low ridge, punctuated by gaps which may be trading gates, to police the traffic between Wales and England. I find I move between taking it utterly for granted and simply trudging along, and suddenly having goosebumps at the breath of the past on the back of my neck.


Up from the dyke we ascend another ridge, the Hergest Ridge, and walk springy grass with mountain ponies wheeling away from us with their foals. There is a breeze up here although it is sunny and clear and Erica pulls out a snood she has purchased with promises that this is the perfect all purpose head gear. She transforms instantly from her cheery, elegant self to my grandma, headscarved up for the day she cleaned the front step with a donkey stone. I chortle, she grins and bounds on.

Coming down we pass Burfa House, the oldest building we will see, beautifully restored in the 1990s.


And coming into Kington we have the perfect moment as we walk past the church looking at some beautiful double fronted stone houses as we scan for our B and B.

"I hope it's that one" I say and it is, Church House, Kington. Its owners are somehow related to Charles Darwin. It has the biggest bathroom and the best bedlinen in the world.

The photos won't behave today and it is a quarter to twelve so I am giving up! I hope you can make sense of them.