Having walked a few long distance paths now, having found ways of coping when the going gets tough, and having found that other people use the same techniques, it's time to break the mystique and share a few of them with the rest of the world.

One of the things I'm not great at is long, steep inclines, and I've done a fair few, including the 'Switch Backs' of Offa's Dyke with a badly sprained ankle.  As I stand at the foot of a hill and look up at where the path will take me, my heart sinks: it is all too big.  So I select an easier target - the first bend, the tall tree, the interestingly shaped rock, promising myself a rest when I get there.  More often than not, I pass the target and am good to go for a good deal further.

Another soul-destroyer on long walks is false summits.  You watch the treeline and it levels out, surely this must be the summit, but no, a twist, a turn and it climbs again.  I have learned never to focus on the perceived summits which sing like sirens and lure the unwary into despond; instead I focus just a few steps ahead, far enough to see the path without being discouraged by what lies ahead.

Then there is the counting technique.  Everyone I know thinks we invented it, and maybe we each did, but it's pretty much universal.  The terrain is hard, the body is tired (the injuries ache and the pain-killers have nearly worn off) and there's a long way to go.  Counting steps - a promised break after 100 steps or 50, or 10 or 5 or whatever it takes.  Little by little the ground is covered and there is a sense of achievement once the goal is reached.

Long-distance walking is not a competition.  It's easy either to feel the need to walk faster than other people or to be discouraged if they overtake you.  Experience shows that irrespective of speed, you keep meeting up with the same people.  Hares need more rests than tortoises, and there are usually only a few stopping points anyway.  I am, ostensibly, a fast walker, but am often overtaken by racing hares who I later pass exhausted and in need of a rest.

Dip days.  Everyone gets them.  On a seven day walk mine is usually day 5; for my wonderful walking friend it is almost always the last day.  What gets us through them is each other.  We each know the other well enough by now to handle the dips, so if I need extra rests my friend waits for me, if she slows significantly I wait for her.  We don't pretend we're fine if we're not and we give each other permission to be true to ourselves.  I worry though, if she stops wanting tea, this is a serious sign that all is not well, and we still joke about the day she wanted neither tea nor flapjack.

Stiles... over 200 on Offa's Dyke, zero in the Great Glen (well there may have been one but you could skirt it).  They are a pain when you have to face them, they slow you down, break your stride, leave you ankle deep in mud (or worse) but once over them you can get on with whatever's next.

Expect the unexpected - crazy landladies in B&B's (my walking friend and I still laugh when we think of 'man' who had the room opposite us at one B&B of whom all we ever saw were his trainers), stray socks, boots, tee-shirts etc strewn across the path, inviting stories about those who have lost them en route (is this some strange form of strip tease or more likely the laundry dropped from a rucksack), moments of breathtaking beauty, shared hilarity with other walkers as you swap tales of B&Bs, struggles and the pretentious people you meet ('my shorts dry in 4 minutes' being one we often recall).

In my quest for a better metaphor for what I am faced with in the next year or so, I wonder if maybe the long distance footpath might be a helpful one.  I feel I've encountered a few stiles already, and know there are many more ahead.  I have become aware of the danger of looking too far ahead and the need to find my own interim pause points.  No doubt a day will come when I need to count my steps just to keep going, or I'll reach what I thought was a plateau only to discover I have been mistaken.  I find myself wondering about the other 'walkers' I will meet - each with their own personalities, their own take on the right equipment to take, their own funny stories.  This specific long distance walk was never in the grand plan but now it's begun, now the itinerary is starting to emerge, now the first few tentative steps have been taken, there is a goal to be reached in my time, at my pace and that has to be good enough for now.

If this is too mean or unfunnyplease assume it's a side effect of low dose sedatives to overcome sleep deprivation and then you might feel more forgiving.

It seems to me there is a certain similarity bewteen the averge small Baptist church and the breast clinics I am starting to frequent - each seems to consist predominantly of women compared with whom I, at 47, am young.  That appeals to my perverse sense of humour.

As the nurse was explaining to me all sorts of stuff yesterday she said that there is one drug cocktail they may elect to use at some point which can cause nail loss, but that this can be prevented by wearing nail varnish, the darker the better.  This caused much amusement as we imagined me  as the Goth Baptist minister with black painted fingernails.  I appreciate that a hijab could/would be mis-understood, but part of me thinks hijab (with a nice text embroidered on it obviously), black nails and an above the knee skirt (a Dibley in-joke) would be quite fun.

On Sunday our choir led us in John Rutter's 'Look at the World' an item chosen by the parents of the baby we welcomed.  This morning after yesterday's rain, Glasgow is refreshed and lovely, bathed in morning sunshine, and hte song came to mind once more.

I found this clip on YouTube with it being sung by a small choir in Edinburgh.  The sound is great but watch the guy in the red sweatshirt, his whole stance and approach is quite funny!

This is a thinking aloud post, well one of those that is especially so.

Many years ago I had a college tutor who was in her late fifties and nearing retirement.  She dreamed of returning to Africa, a continent where she had worked in her youth and where her heart still lay, if truth be told.  About a year before this plan could find expression, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  It seemed to me, and to those who knew her, unfair - this was to be her time after decades in the service of others and now it was to be denied. Never once did she complain or express a sense that this was unjust; she simply continued to be herself gracious, generous and much-loved.

A few years back one of my Dibley flock was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer and showed similar quiet acceptance of her lot, never blaming life or God for came what her way.  Other people told me it was unfair and I concurred; even speaking of the sense of injustice at her funeral, but she never wavered (at least that I saw) in her response.

Now I find myself accepting without questioning that this has happened in my life.  Not in a naive way, not pretending this is some test of my faith or resolve (a naff God that would be), not denying my fear of the unknown or my desire and hope for good recovery.  But, like others before me, I can't name this as unfair.  And that's not so clever really, because I am surrounded by loving people who do name it as unjust, not for themselves and not for the church but for me.  Which makes life tricky, because pastorally they need to space to name it as they experience it, and I mustn't make them feel inadequate or guilty in their truth, a truth which in other circumstances I would share.

Maybe it is a matter of finding a way of holding together acceptance and injustice so that each is named, heard and affirmed without trivialising or demeaning either.  I'm not sure how to do that, but I'm willing to learn.

As someone who spent many years in the Methodist expression of Christianity, I have a deep love of the traditional Methodist covenant prayer:

'I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.'

A lot of people baulk at the line 'put me to suffering' because they read it with C21 eyes and equate suffering with pain, forgetting that it actually refers to what might be termed 'permitting'.... as in 'suffer little children to come unto me'.  So the prayer is actually along the lines of  'let me do or let me done unto'

For Little Miss Independent (aka me) this is a tough line to mean, though mean it I do.  In the next year or so I am going to have to learn what it means to 'be put to permitting.'  At the moment I am inundated with offers of help and support, so much so I can't take it all in; it is incredibly humbling.  At the same time the slightly crazy (in my view) offers are starting, well intentioned and generous to a fault, but maybe not too well considered.  There's a challenge in this somewhere - to permit people to care for me, to care with me, but not to take me over; to be gracious and generous to those who care so much and to see beyond the expression to the intent.

And so, most gracious God, the covenant made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven....