I woke up to the sound of people coming in, and found Barry and a few others in the kitchen. I got chatting to a woman who had links to the North-East, and she signed. Soon, it was quiet again, and I left flyers and my address for an A4SML in Barry's pigeonhole, and was off, to the Town Hall.
Outside, I gave flyers to two guys you were working on the roads, because the guitar had grabbed their attention. Inside, the guys on reception thought I was mad, but I managed to get the phoneline of the press oficer, who had received the press release from Victoria, and -as he was in another building across town - didn't really know what else he could do except give me the number of the Leicester(....Mercury? Chronicle?). I phoned the paper from this Cafe Nero:
...and they did an interview over the phone, and told me to hang around for an hour or so. This I did, taking the time to wear the T-shirt right through the centre of town, and past its sporty statue:
..and to re-vist the Marcher's church in daylight:
..and the church hall they slept in:
Amazingly, for such an historic place, look at the name of its road:
Straight away, I got a call from 'Beth' -the photographer, who told me to meet her back in the square outside the Town Hall in 15 minutes. I hotfooted it back through town, and met her. She was a great girl, and very interested in the idea, the walk, and the guitar. in seconds, I was walking around Leicester's main square playing the blues, with her snapping away:
We were there for a good 15 minutes, and straight after, a young girl ran up to take another photo. In another 2 minutes she was back again, saying her grandad wanted to know what I was marching for. He got a flyer, which -as we all know by now - explains everything. After her, two older guys came over. I gave them a flyer, but neither of them were really 'with it' - I think they were vagrants, because they asked me to go in the shelter at the other side of the square with them to have a cup of tea, but...I had to be off.
It was much later than I'd planned to leave, and I still had other places to visit..At the Guildhall, I got the kind of welcome that it's difficult to leave. I was straight in conversation with Ben and Mary there, and soon we were in total agreement about the conservation of heritage; they issue a leaflet put together by concerned citizens, which had on it three pictures, the last of which was a 60s concrete flyover: the subject of the last of the three words 'the good, the bad..and the ugly' on the leaflet's cover. I learned how the current hot potato in Leicester concerned the 'Pump and Tap' and the 'railway bridge by the river'. The land has been bought by De Montfort University, and is due to be developed into a sports complex etc.. I said I'd head straight down there, and left a pile of flyers.
Next stop was 'The Jewry Wall' - once part of the Roman Bath complex when Leicester was known as 'Ratae'. Apparently this is the largest intact piece of Roman masonry in Britain..
...although I'm sure there's the base of that Roman lighthouse on the coast somewhere down south, and then there's Hadrian's Wall, as well. Perhaps I'd misheard Ian, the night before. But the entire site is very impressive in its scale, and just as I'd got there, Ben from the Guildhall rang to let them know who I was, and for them to tell me more about the 'pub and bridge'. The guy was -I think - called Chris, and after I'd flyered everywhere there I could, he led me out, on a 'smoke break ' to point me in the exact direction, but first towards the ancient church Saint Mary de Castro:
...and behind it, the gate in Leicester's medieval wall:
..via a statue of Richard III:
And then it was off to find the pub and bridge...
...It didn't take long: they were a minute away:
This whole area is due to be demolished very soon, and I wish the best to those who are trying to prevent it. I don't know why the word 'integrate' is rarely used in plans, and it's beyond me how some people are so clever that they can instantly equate the word 'old' with 'ugly'. People have been trying to define the last word for thousands of years, and...still no closer. Look at the viaduct part on the right of the picture. Leeds has got something just like that, and there's talk of turning it into a gigantic, green, elevated cycle and walkway right into the city centre - why can't they do that here? I look forward to seeing this area inact-but-cleaner when I'm next in Leicester, but I doubt it.
After that, it was time to find the canal, and leave:
I was soon passing Leicester City Football ground :
and this very industrial-looking view:
To avoid a detour along a loop of the canal (that's a laugh considering the miles I ended up doing that day) I joined the main road out of town, through suburbs, and past the place where I tweeted that 62 stationary cars ALL looked at the T-shirt as I passed - it wasn't a lie! Turning left at Glen Parva, I tried to get back on to the towpath, but there was one level of houses between the two of us. I say a cut between them, with the words 'footpath' on it, but ended up at this bridge:
..over the canal, but not down to it. No worry though, soon I found this path:
...and was back on the towpath, which was a little impassable in certain places:
It was a good walking day, in the perfect walking place. I followed the map, but what I didn't grasp was how many miles taking this route was adding to the journey. I knew it was a winding one, but not how winding. The trouble was..I forgot, because the walk was so attractive: you could say that I lost myself in the whole 'ambience' of it all. Being a monday, there were less people than previously, and it was just me and the dragonflies:
...this one was colourful, and might have been a damselfly, but the dragons were real monsters: most of them were about 4 inches long, and would buzz straight into you before swooping off over the canal. Brilliant creatures though - I want one as a pet. I could take it for a 'fly' down the cinder path on a string of dental floss.
Because all of this day was spent walking along the canal, most of the events were things I stumbled across, and were totally unrelated. I was soon entering this pub:
...well it would have been rude not to, wouldn't it? A group for four were flyered there. Then I got best wishes shouted at me from these three guys in pedal boats:
The kids on the side overtook me, stopped while I overtook them,overtook me again.. constantly for about two hours during the afternoon, but they were good kids; just looking for locks to dangle their feet in. I also passed this offputting sight:
..and this kid, who was over the moon about the perch he'd just caught:
It was all great, but as I turned page upon page over in the canal map I'd bought, it became obvious that Market Harborough was a lot further this way than the highway. I was constantly turning around meanders into new, beautiful views that lead to more meanders, and the final straw was when i DID turn over the page with MH on, only to see that the canal did a huge loop of an extra five miles, before it got into town. I spied a road on the map, and headed on past one of the hubs of the British canal system, Foxton Locks:
Here, after half a mile or so, I left the canal, and headed through Foxton village, and into the Black Horse for a coke break:
Here, the locals were so friendly, that I broke my one and only taboo on this walk...Yip, I will admit that I had a drink of alochol BEFORE the day's walk had finished. I thought I only had a mile of so left, and the old guy at the bar had started making funny-but-friendly comments about Geordies, so after the flyers, I thought it was only decent to partake:
After another sip, it was all looking a bit like this:
Luckily, I got some crisps and water, aswell, because as I sauntered out of the pub, I found that it was a further three miles to MH, and I upped the tempo onto a long country road.. It was getting near eight at night, now ,and the sun was setting:
...over a guy who was just finishing off with his tractor for the day:
And even the fields looked like they were winding down for the night:
Only two miles left: I was trying to run again at this point, although the 'Leicester yomp' experience had largely destroyed what little enthusiasm I had left after the chafing, so I simply 'walked very quickly'. A hurry it may have been, but not enough to stop me stopping to snap this..on the road...again...I'd lost count of how many by this time:
Luckily, Market Harborough is not such a large place, and after the sign telling me I was there, it was little more than ten minutes until I was in the centre, meeting my contact, Graham Johnson, just outside the large church, Saint Dionysius. Luckier still, he led me to his house, barely five more minutes from the centre, and we had a quiet night. There was a real musical aspect to the the house - one of his sons is the organist at Saint Paul's Cathedral, and the other, I believe, is head of music in Westminster Choir School. I got another lovely room, but something had changed about how comfortable I was feeling. Nothing to do with the surroundings; instead, I realised it when I worked out just how far the deviation around the canal had added to my jouney - I had planned to walk about 15 miles along the road that day, but the scenery had tempted me into a walk of about 23 - the longest walk of the lot. My feet were starting to hurt, and all this was with the longest legs just around the corner..
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