So what’s next? (The end of life as we knew it!)

My whole world view has changed.

Is it perhaps the new and exciting Carolean age we have entered? Is it the pleasing late evening sunshine that has begun to tease us that summer may be around the corner?

No – it is the fact that I have finally finished my everlasting traipsing around the far-flung west-country cliff paths of England (ie. I have now completed all 630 miles of the official South West Coast Path), proving (a) that it wasn’t everlasting after all, and (b) that I seem to need another project to rumble along in the background of my day-to-day existence.

I have just written up an account of the final 54 miles of the SouthWest Coast Path (see here on my holiday blog) and suddenly it hit me – I am bereft! Nay, I exaggerate, but I am most certainly confused. One of my foundations has shifted. That silly walk has been an ever-present ‘to-do’ on my conscious and subconscious list for the most recent third of my life, always an option when thinking about holidays, an excuse for a short escape on the train (especially since I got my old person’s discount) and sometimes just another reason to beat myself up about how ridiculously slow I’ve been. It has almost been a defining part of me in the last few years at least. And now it’s not there any more.

I am proud to have completed it all, with no cheating and with considerable enjoyment in most parts.

As ever, it seems I can’t just enjoy the fact that I have completed it. I have to write up the holiday blog (tick) of course, and now wring yet more material from the experience here in this blog. I have also determined that I should write an account of the entire walk for submission to the South West Coast Path Association – whose lifetime membership I purchased many years ago (one of my more prescient decisions it seems). They publish Finishers’ stories in their newsletters so, as a writer, it would seem lazy not to contribute my own sorry, but ultimately triumphant, tale.

Everyone to whom I have imparted the momentous knowledge that I have completed the SWCP has asked me what I am going to do next. I don’t have a ready answer, although I will certainly walk more of the Great Britain Coastal Path because I love being beside the sea. I intend to buy a map which I can colour in with each section I complete.

Aside from that, I do of course have endless vague plans for train trips in Europe and the USA, and an addict’s weakness for the British Airways ‘Where We Fly’ web-page.

I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.