Walking

If yesterday was about waiting, today was definitely about walking. Men's breakfast at church this morning, so after that Mrs TPV and I together with our son set out to walk the first section of the Thames Path. We are actually doing chunks of it, but not necessarily in the right order!

Having gathered our information and expecting our chosen section to be between 7 and 8 miles we set out, and dropped one car off at the finish point and then drove the other to as close as we could to Thames Head. We had to walk an extra 0.75 miles or so from where we parked to get there, but that wasn't too bad.

The first picture on the left of the collage proves we got to the start, and the one on the top right is the supposed source ... although you can see that this spring was definitely not springing anything today! In fact it was a couple of miles before we saw any water in the river bed at all and that was just a small muddy puddle. It wasn't until we left Ewen some 3+ miles into our journey that we really saw any water at all, and even that could barely be described as 'flowing'. Over the next few miles we gradually saw some more water, but we also enjoyed a kingfisher and a wren on one stretch, some sheep who decided to cross from one field through water into the field we were in, only then to run down the field in front of us. (We weren't running I hasten to add!).
We also met a delightful family, all with their wellies on who were having great fun walking downstream in the water and playing all sorts of games. We could hear them for a while and heard such comments as - "I've found some quicksand" - and - "its like walking in Angel Delight!"
At one point we spotted this wild poppy growing in a patch of stinging nettles, and then further on as we passed through the edge of one village spotted these two "cars" parked neatly beside the garage of one house. Not sure how the drivers got out though!
The journey continued and it felt like the end kept getting further away - or maybe we were just tired - but when we got back to the car we discovered, courtesy of our son's geocaching GPS, that we had actually walked 9.75 miles and we didn't deviate from the track either.

Yesterday it was waiting, waiting for God to direct, and to act.
Today walking - I reckon its pretty important to 'walk by faith' following faithfully in the master's footsteps - after all - life is a journey, so what better than to follow in the footsteps of the author of all life.