Photograph

LETJOG E2W – Day 1: Sunday 14 April – LOWESTOFT NESS to BECCLES (13.3 miles)

My early alarm was not required this morning. Like a birthday child I was awake with the dawn, a bundle of anticipatory energy. Rachel’s mum Ann, up even before me, provided us with the rare treat of ‘bed tea’ and then furnished us with a super cooked breakfast, before Rachel and I set off for the drive to Lowestoft. At long last, LETJOG E2W is underway!

Luckily for us the local ASDA was open for a coffee, and then Rachel and I parted for a few hours, as I made my way out of the town and onto the broadland marshes alongside the Waveney river. What luck with the weather, and what a fantastic walking day, along the reed-lined tracks and dykes of the Angles Way across Carlton, Castle and Beccles Marshes.

Today was indeed a flat walk – just 110 metres of cumulative ascent all day. But there was no mud (I suspect these Lowestoftians get significantly less rain than we do in and around London), and the sun has been shining all day. Add to this the silence of the marshes, ever-present birdsong, and many an early peacock butterfly, and my walk today became a truly splendid start to my marathon LETJOG E2W trek. Here are a few pictures of my day.

Rachel kindly picked me up in Beccles, at the end of a super first day on the trail, and together we re-traced our journey back to Langham.

My song title choice for today’s Blog heading, arrived at in discussion in the car with Rachel after today’s walk, just had to be an Ed Sheeran number, given that my LETJOG E2W trek sets off in his neck of the woods. ‘Photograph’ seemed to capture the mood of our morning together quite well – a 30-minute ‘shoot’ on the seafront of Lowestoft Ness, followed by an impending long-distance relationship that is acknowledged in the song’s lyrics: ‘we keep this love in a photograph . . . wait for me to come home’. Written by Sheeran, alongside Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol, the number was the fifth and final single off his 2014 album ‘X’ (times).