Distance: 8.31km
Accessibility: Smooth, man-made path. Occasional bumps when the upkeep on the roadis poor.
Landscape: The back end of an industrial estate. Rough countryside and old fences.
After the recent noises in the shadows, I decided to head somewhere that had at least the possibility of seeing other people. This knocked out the most scenic locations. The business of Heplan Went became the obvious next choice.
The side of an industrial estate might sound like a poor walking route, but in my experience they carve a fascinating edge into countryside. You can creep on a razor between the urban and the natural, and find all sorts of hidden corners. Plus if anything strange occurs I can duck into a paper merchant.
Ivy curled around green metal fencing, and lead me on a linear stroll past buildings housed in correlated steel. A pleasing stream dribbled along the right hand side, and a few thin trees passed the time.
The business names gave away little about their innards. Printers, solutions, text tiles. To me they looked like storage units, but people must travel to work here every day. The surrounding scrubland goes back thousands of years, and yet is a neighbour to corporate culture.
Archie some got frustrated that I worked from home. There is such a culture of books with parents going to offices, or with a job like police officer or fireman. If your mums sits in your spare room all day you do not have much to brag about. Even when I told him I was the one who put his books together this did not satisfy him. If anything it was too close to a look behind the magician's curtain.
I turned a corner, and found chaos.
A heap of burnet rubbish confronted me from where the stream met the path. Pieces of rusted oil drum and deflated sacks of concrete lay in a blackened pile. Lumps of something white sparkled in the ash.
On the other side shards of green fencing covered the path. The top spikes bent at mad angles, like broken spears on a Roman battlefield, and flakes of mossy paint and metal studded the road ahead.
Four evenly spaced windows watched me from the wall on the side. A layer of dirt clouded the first three. The furthest right was a smashed frame of glass triangles, revealing gloom inside. Scratches and chips from unknown assailants dotted the surrounding brickwork.
In my head I told myself it was important to look inside to check no one was hurt. Now I write this down, I know part of me wanted to see the grim consequences of a real job.
I did not expect what was inside.
::Is this an admittance of a crime Barbara? Do we need to run this past the lawyers? I do not want to get criticised for breaking and entering. The innards of that building might be the most remarkable section of the book so far, so I am loathe to lose it.
Getting into the rhythm of these walks, even with all the strange happenings. There is a lot to delve into around here. The Butter Mouse sits at the back of my mind for the first time in a long while.::
