T is for TRAIL

It starts and ends wherever you want it to and can take as long or as short a time as you wish. For me, it begins about one hundred yards from home at the bottom of a steep hill that once was graced with an apple tree orchard on one side of which was the beginning of the trail, leading all the way from the lane right down to the banks of the river.The initial path was overshadowed by a row of beech, chestnut, oak and other tree varieties that had stood for more than a century but in the ensuing reorganisation farmland of the late seventies had failed to survive and thus made, like the orchard for one large green field. So now the first signs of any path or trail is when you reach the river at one of its most extreme meanderings, a turn that I thought, as a young student, would probably lead to an ox bow lake by the time I was older, but it has never happened.

There is no official trail, just a track worn down by thousands of footprints over the years, that runs alongside the river bank, sometimes close to the edge, at other places, several feet above on a raised height, but all of it on somebody else's land so I guess every time I walk its length, you could call it trespassing. Yet because I've lived here all my life, I feel a certain sense of ownership of its privacy and the freedom to walk where it takes me. And where it takes me is just as interesting, for after ambling through ancient trees that line its bank and the fallen trunks of others that once stood so tall, but now lie leafless and motionless, after crawling through one or two barbed wire fences and climbing over gates, I arrive at what we traditionally have called 'Hall's Island'. This is not an island in the true sense of the word, since no lake or sea encircles its boundaries though on recent trips, there is ample evidence in the waterlogged fields around it of the incessant rainfall that has been our winter and where it is necessary to squelch through several inches of water to reach its 'shore'. No, this island is made up of a slightly raised patch of circular land, about thirty yards in diameter, that rises to be a small hill in the middle where the remnant walls of a stone house still stand enshrouded by about sixty or seventy tall trees across the circular area. I think dad said that a Hall family once lived here though I don't know anything more about their history and certainly it is possible though the house now stands some distance from the main roads in the area. In more modern times, the 'island' has been home to gaming enthusiasts during the shooting season, though there is little evidence to suggest their presence recently.

As I walk along the path, weaving between the trees, the soft, shifting silt beneath my feet, deposited after the recent flooding and the line of empty plastic bottles and the occasional deflated football marking the boundary of where the river waters invaded the fields, I remember the times I have walked this trail and how, so often, it has taken me to another place, this time in my thoughts. A trail I followed in my imaginary cogitations as a young boy, in my solitary preparations for job interviews, in times when family illness had invaded my privacy and oh so many days when I just needed time and space to be alone with my thoughts. And now, after not treading the path for so long, I again find myself walking its length and finding the solitariness and the calmness that I once knew but that actually always existed in this place., even when I wasn't here

And so I remember too that when the Prodigal son could no longer find peace and enjoyment in the things that he chased, he would return to the well worn path and the refuge of home, where he knew things would still be the same and the welcome was always warm and inviting. The writer of Proverbs says 'Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path' and the Psalmist records 'Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.' As I return home from my walk, the trail I have trod for so long leads upwards to the top of a steep hill. The climb is strenuous but the view at the top is magnificent! In Proverbs we read 'The path of life leads upward for the wise' and it's only as we climb to a higher place with God that we see the greater picture of His glory and the wonder of His majesty and creation. Take some time today to walk the trail and don't be afraid to climb the hill.