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<\/a><\/p>\nI have to say, the mix of sociability and isolation that characterizes the Challenge is one of its chief appeals. \u00a0There’s a subtle but universally understood protocol (informed, I speculate, by British reserve and self-distancing) that keeps people apart as the default condition and together by choice. \u00a0It’s an interesting state for an American.<\/p>\n
In a telling moment a week earlier, I had been walking with two other people (one of whom was doing the Challenge with two people whom he wasn’t with much of the time). \u00a0They were faster than me and slowly pulled away.<\/p>\n
We came to a wooden corduroy bridge over a small creek. \u00a0The end of my trekking pole went between two boards and left behind the rubber tip, wedged between them. \u00a0I didn’t notice this until on the other side each pole-plant made a metallic report instead of a dull rubbery one.<\/p>\n
I stopped and walked back to the bridge. \u00a0Luckily, the rubber tip was still there; it hadn’t fallen through. \u00a0I retrieved it, put it back where it belonged and proceeded on my way.<\/p>\n
When I looked up, the two people ahead of me were looking back. \u00a0They were aware enough of my presence to sense I’d stopped, and had turned around. \u00a0They’d observed my chore and one of them gave me a thumbs-up sign. \u00a0But they didn’t wait for me to catch up.<\/p>\n
That’s the Challenge in a nutshell.<\/p>\n
Anyway, it was a beautiful day, even for a brooder like me.<\/p>\n
There was an exceptional number of birds on the wing. \u00a0I was walking into a the wind, and black and white birds with beautiful crests evident only when they landed seemed to be following me. \u00a0They were lapwings, also known as pewits.<\/p>\n
For a while I thought I might be disturbing their nests and they were scaring me off (or at least showing me to the door). \u00a0But there were so many, and they kept bucking the wind and then turning to fly with that I concluded they were just having fun.<\/p>\n
There was also the occasional curlew, a brown curve-billed pigeon-sized bird whose American cousin is extinct. \u00a0Lots of songbirds I didn’t recognize. \u00a0And oystercatchers.<\/p>\n
I don’t know much about birds, but I do recognize oystercatchers. \u00a0They’re hard to miss, black, white, with orange bills and a distinctive call. \u00a0But what were oystercatchers doing in a place with no oysters? \u00a0No salt water even. \u00a0I can’t answer except to say: \u00a0we weren’t actually that far from salt water. \u00a0The North Sea was just a day’s walk away.<\/p>\n I’d forgotten that.<\/p>\n Eventually–and eventually comes fairly quickly–my feet were hurting enough to take my afternoon break. \u00a0I’d say it was the “usual afternoon break” except I’d only done it \u00a0three or four times. \u00a0But I was beginning to think of it as the thing to do.<\/p>\n I stopped next to the river and made my way down to the shallows. I took off my boots and put my feet in the water. \u00a0It was too warm to do much work, so I didn’t get out the stove and make soup and tea. \u00a0I filled the Nalgene with water from the river, drank and ate my British oat cereal bar. \u00a0This is what I saw.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n