Everybody Hurts

C2C – Day 10: Monday 11 April – KELD to REETH (13 miles)

Today, Monday 11 April, is World Parkinson’s Day. The date marks the anniversary of the birthday of Dr James Parkinson who, in 1817, first recognised the condition. The main reason for this annual commemoration is to raise awareness of Parkinson’s, a disease that affects around 145,000 people in the UK with a confirmed diagnosis, and an estimated ten million globally.

Parkinson’s UK, for whom Rob and I are fundraising on our C2C walk, were founded in 1969 and are working tirelessly on treatments and towards a cure, whilst supporting sufferers, raising awareness, and changing attitudes to the condition. They have supported us throughout our trek, for which our sincere thanks. For those interested their website can be accessed by clicking on the following link:

Today, we have had a couple of informal photo-shoots in our Parkinson’s regalia – we have been sending photos of our walk to Stephanie and Anita at Parkinson’s UK, and we hope that we can do our bit towards raising awareness.

As it is World Parkinson’s Day today, we were each asked yesterday to participate in the Parkinson’s UK ‘five-line poem’ collection. These are the offerings we sent them:

As for progress on our C2C Walk, we were joined last night by two of Rob’s friends, Andrea and Lee, plus their dog Forest, a Hungarian pointer. We all had a pleasant meal in Keld Lodge (previously the Keld Youth Hostel, where I recall taking our young family many years ago), before meeting up again for breakfast this morning.

Our walk took us down to the waterfalls below Keld, where a frantic tributary meets the Swale, before a brief climb ahead of the long descent down the wonderful upper reaches of the Swale valley. What views!

Eventually our route flattened as we made our way past stone barns and across the grazing pastures that bound the River Swale. At every turn of the path we were greeted by new glimpses of the tree-lined river, rocky outcrops, grazing land, and yet another moorland view. It is simply wondrous here, wandering through secret glades scented with wild garlic and rejoicing in the sounds of babbling water, birdsong, and the bleating of sheep in nearby meadows.

Having re-traced, in the opposite direction, four miles of my LETJOG trek of last year, we continued on the path downstream, past the village of Gunnerside, before picnicking beside the Swale. Our short afternoon ramble saw us climb to the hamlet of Healaugh, then down across lush meadows to Reeth for tea, and for the conclusion of a most wonderful walking day in Swaledale!

FOOTNOTE:

The lyrics to today’s song title, Everybody Hurts, date from 1992 and were penned by REM drummer Bill Berry (though credited to all four members of REM, Messrs Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe – as is their way with all their compositions). The words seem apt for World Parkinson’s Day, so I’ve copied them here – it’s a wonderfully emotive song and well worth a listen, whether or not you are familiar with it:

Everybody Hurts

When your day is long
And the night, the night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough
Of this life, well hang on

Don’t let yourself go
‘Cause everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it’s time to sing along

When your day is night alone (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go (hold on)
If you think you’ve had too much
Of this life, well hang on

‘Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts

Don’t throw your hand, oh no
Don’t throw your hand
If you feel like you’re alone
No, no, no, you are not alone

If you’re on your own in this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you’ve had too much
Of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody cries
Everybody hurts, sometimes

And everybody hurts sometimes
So hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on

Everybody hurts