A Change of Direction
By Steve Carter
Home comforts
I am guessing that my family household is very similar to many others, the oldest child married and in a place of their own, while the younger one treats the home more like a hotel and for some strange reason sees me in a butler’s uniform. When the cupboard containing the glassware or crockery is running low the butler, or the maid, will pop up to the 22 year old’s bedroom and collect said glassware and crockery for recycling. Sound familiar?
The chores around the house tend to be divided up accordingly, me getting off quite lightly with walking the dog, putting the bins out and mowing the lawn being the mainstay of my repertoire. Don’t get me wrong, I am always ready and willing to have a go at other tasks, but these tend to be done while I am out walking the dog. I think there is probably a message in there somewhere.
It’s the norm
I am very fortunate in that where I live, I am spoilt for choice with the dog walks. I am a 2 minute stroll from the countryside, in another direction I have a small lake and a forest park or, alternatively, have a river and disused canal to walk alongside in a different direction. I want to focus on the latter as it provided me with the inspiration to write this particular blog.
Access to the river and disused canal is under a railway bridge and then around the perimeter of a field. Almost immediately you are walking alongside the river in the opposite direction to its natural flow. Very quickly you then come upon a bridge which takes you across the river and onto a towpath that runs in parallel with the river and the disused canal. For more years than I care to remember, my routine has been the same. I step up onto that small wooden bridge, I stop halfway across and momentarily watch the river flow underneath me. Rarely is there anyone else around and in those moments peace and tranquillity prevail. I then walk a few more steps and complete my crossing on to the towpath. At this point I turn right and begin the trek with the river on one side and the canal on the other. I always turn right, have done for years, as I know where it comes out and leads me in a big loop back towards where I live. Always right, never left and I think that is because I have the perception that by going left, I am going to walk farther out into the countryside and, at some point, have to turn around and retrace my steps back along the same pathway that I have just walked down.
A break in the old routine
Always right, never left, until last night. As I reached the halfway point on the bridge, I must have disturbed a Heron sat on the bank of the river. The Heron shot up high above the river and began to head right but almost immediately circled around and went left. Intrigued, I stepped on to the towpath and turned left myself. It was a beautiful spring evening, plenty of sunshine left in the day, so why not head left, and see what is down there, where the Heron has landed. The dog looked at me in disbelief as if to question my decision, we never go left, what are you doing?
As we began to follow the path, the canal became even more overgrown, and the view of the river lessened considerably as trees and bramble thickened. I got odd glimpses of the flowing water and it seemed as if the path of the river was starting to veer away in a different direction to that of the towpath. I briefly considered stopping and heading back to the tried and trusted pathway, but curiosity drove me on. I was sure that I hadn’t yet arrived at the point where the Heron had descended so decided to go a bit further. After a few twists and turns in the path I arrived at a very small bridge that went across the now, extremely, disused canal. There was no choice but to go over the bridge as the pathway ended at this point. The bridge was quite narrow and had no side rails. With the dog on a very short lead, I began to walk across. The river was now flowing underneath me again, but I was at a much higher point than I had been on the previous bridge and the river was certainly deeper and flowing faster. It was a wonderful sight, and I had no idea that it was there. I took it in for a few moments, mindful of the fact that there was no side railing, and then continued across. On the other side of the canal, I could see there was a bit of a pathway through plenty of thick bramble and low hanging branches and could see that the pathway had a twist or two in it. I had got this far, so lets just see where this path leads me to, I thought to myself. It came out into a meadow with very lush, green grass. The meadow was on quite an incline and I was stood at the top of it. Looking down, I could see a metal style placed in the hedgerow and beyond that style could make out an expanse of water that was shimmering in the evening sun.
Where did this place come from?
I stood for a while and surveyed everything around me. There were other people in this meadow, joggers, children; they knew this place existed so why didn’t I? My coordination had deserted me, I had an idea of roughly where I was but wasn’t completely sure. There was no way I was going back now, this was all new to me, so I had to go and see what was on the other side of that style, what was this stretch of water, had I seen it before?
Having made my way down and through the style, I was stood on a pathway on the side of a lake or lagoon and here it is:
I now had an idea where I was but asked somebody stood close by for absolute certainty. I had come out at the back end of a place called Moulden Hill Country Park. I had no idea that I could get to this place so easily or what a lovely setting it was. This was all because I had always gone in a certain direction and not looked at what else was available to me by exploring a different option.
As I walked around the pathway, I saw other metal styles that would all lead back in the general direction of home, but I would explore those on future occasions. I then came out into a car park, accessible from a very busy dual carriageway, a road which I had driven up and down hundreds of times. There was another pathway that ran parallel with the dual carriageway. I could hear the heavy traffic but couldn’t see it, just as when I am driving along that road, I can’t see the pathway so am unaware of its existence. I followed it and came out somewhere close to where my normal, well-trodden, route would have taken me.
What am I missing out on?
As I ambled through familiar territory on the final part of my walk, I reflected on what had just happened and began to liken it to the workplace.
How many times do we go down the same route, day after day, because we know that route, because we feel safe going down that route? How many times do we think about deviating from that route and trying something either partially, or completely, different but never actually do it because we are a bit unsure? Over the last year, faced with the uncertainty of a pandemic, many of us will have had to try different avenues some of which may have turned out to be cul-de-sacs, but others will have been successful and will have added additional strings to our bows. What would have stopped us trying out some of those things previously? Not sure what the result will be? Not the way it is done normally? What if it doesn’t lead anywhere?
What I know from the walk that I was on last night, is that if I hadn’t wondered where that Heron was heading or why it was landing where it did, I would have ended up following the path that I have always taken, the path I know well, the one that I can probably do with my eyes shut. Nothing wrong with that but without following that Heron, I wouldn’t have had my eyes opened to what else was around me and wouldn’t have discovered the varied routes that I can now take. In fact, I will probably go that way again this evening and explore one of the other styles and see where that leads me, only don’t let on to the dog, otherwise I will get the here we go again look.
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