Maybe it was the heat -a landlocked heat unleavened by sea breeze- but I woke surprisingly early the next morning. So did the two Joes. We decided to walk to 'British Camp'. It isn't actually called 'British Camp' but I had always known it as that. It is, in fact a pub, which is a few miles down the river Severn... I had made the walk before, with Al and his cousin Tyndale, back in the summer of 1998.
This is Holywell Hill. Joe and myself, just before we started the walk properly needed to buy something to eat and drink. I used to walk up this remarkably steep alley to get to uni (or college as it was then). One day going to a sociology lecture I was walking with our then pregnant housemate who had a remarkable attack of morning sickness at the top.
We started on the walk. Joe Walmsley was very hungover. Joe Bird had bought Eva the dog with us. It was a hot, bright day. As we walked the phone rang. I saw that it was Claire, from work. Wondering what she wanted, I answered, when, of course, she told me that the call centre had gone into liquidation.
This is me about five minutes after the fateful phonecall...
The thing about the Worcestershire landscape that I had forgotten was how deep it was. This was not the pale scrubby Sussex Downs, but a wilder, almost primal kind of countryside. An impossible green everywhere, the air thick with floating seeds, and that pungent fecund smell of early summer. Tangled and thick, this was a countryside that you could get lost in...
We finally made it to the pub. I was in a mixture of job loss shock mixed with mild sunstroke and slight hangover. Had I been more sane I could have taken some interesting photographs. The place was overrun by peacocks and other strange birds...
We finally headed back.
It had been a strange walk, and the news of my job loss had leant an already surreal weekend a feverish air. Everyone stayed in that night, and I fell asleep early, a headache caused by the unbelievably hot sun pounding deep rhythms through my head. I had strange dreams - about being up by Loch Ness for some reason. When I woke I still had the headache. Joe Bird headed off for his cricket match in the Malvern Hills, leaving Joe and myself behind.
Well, of course, I think I shall leave that to part three.
