Ickworth House walk 11th August 2021

My first solo Walk away form home.

Well it’s a glorious day in Suffolk, not many hills, but still plenty of places to walk. I did a 7 mile wander around the grounds of a National Trust property. But more importantly it was the first solo walk I have done since losing my wife.

It was nice to get back in the countryside but painful that I was there on my own, so many couples just wandering hand in hand, which I probably will never get used too. There was a couple, about my age, so been around for a while, sitting on a bench cuddling each other, the presumed husband was looking and listening to his wife with such sincerity whilst she was overlooking fields of golden crops, edged by beautiful green woodlands and framed by a blue near cloudless sky. I paused an watched them with a mixture of envy and heartbreak but more happiness for them. Everything I wanted was in front of me but something that I will probably only have as a memory. It was so lovely seeing though.

As I walked past them along the path towards a gate, I thought this is my first walk on my own, on a path that I have never trod, ahead of me is a gate with several paths beyond. I realised that that gate was a symbol of going forward the paths were my destiny, with fate deciding the eventual end. Nature is so beautiful but so cruel, it gives us all such sights to behold but it took my sweetheart away, but still I tread, blisters and all, forward into the unknown leaving familiar things of a hand to hold that was mine to hold, a shared rest on a bench arm in arm with the one I love.

My future is through a gate to unknown end with found memories and a broken heart in equal portions as companions. This is more than my first solo walk this is the start of my new journey. I only hope that the sun on my face is your warm embrace and the wind that I feel is love in my heart helping it heal.

God bless you my sweetheart wife.