Bolt-hole

As the crow flies, from the bolt-hole to the boundary of the park is a little over a mile – or exactly 1.1 miles, as I’d measured with a ruler on the Ordnance Survey map.  To dissuade night-time vandals, the entire periphery of the park is surrounded by a barrier, either a ten-foot stone-built wall or metal railings topped with spikes, with the exits limited to six formal crossing points.  I head for the closest of the exits a little over 1.2 miles away.

Many times as a child I’d seen Sebastian Coe, the legendary middle-distance athlete, training on these very hills.  In his autobiography, he didn’t forget his adopted home city of Sheffield, and he referred to the isolation of his training sessions through the numerous parks of the city and then on to the Peak District beyond.  It is of course this very isolation that I now crave, and I suppose I try to tap into the fortitude and determination he showed to become Olympic champion in order to reach my own goal, albeit one far less honourable than his.

Continuing up through the woods, within a few minutes I reach a fork in the path; to the left are the cricket fields and the duck ponds beyond, but I take the branch to the right, leading me past a couple of bowling greens, a pitch-and-putt golf course, and then four te

As I stride past the te

Having left Graves Park, and with a little over a mile covered, I feel my journey has started in earnest as I begin walking through the neighbouring residential area.  In my pla

I maintain a steady pace, knowing that I’ve a long day of walking ahead.  In my original contingency pla

Apart from my neck injury I’m generally in good physical shape, and I’m confident that if it’s down to fitness alone I won’t have a problem.  But I know that luck and perhaps a chance encounter will play a big part in whether I’m spotted.  With the rush hour approaching, the traffic is getting heavier – but perhaps surprisingly, despite my underlying apprehension and the pain in my neck, I’m actually begi

An hour after leaving the bolt-hole I’ve covered a little over three miles.  I’m satisfied with my progress and, so far at least, I’ve received nothing more than cursory glances from the occasional passing motorist.  There are few other pedestrians, and thankfully they appear concentrated on their day ahead rather than on me.  Rounding a bend in the busy main road, I see a small shopping precinct with a Chinese takeaway, off licence, fruit shop and newsagent’s.  As I approach the newsagent’s, a man in his twenties, dangling a cigarette from the corner of his mouth, is hauling a stack of magazines from the pavement and into the shop.  A few seconds later he returns to the street carrying an advertising board for the local morning paper.  He rips off the front page of yesterday’s paper, and standing on it to avoid the wind carrying it away, he replaces it with today’s edition. I glance down and read the ba

With despondency setting in I continue on, heading towards the outskirts of town.  In the near distance the sky is becoming increasingly overcast and the daylight that’s only just arrived appears to be regressing prematurely, almost reflecting my mood.  The weather forecast had suggested the strong probability of rain, and it’s no surprise that within minutes a fine drizzle begins to fall and is quickly replaced by a torrential downpour as the skies dramatically open up.  I’m grateful for my waterproof jacket and stop briefly to put on the accompanying rainproof over-trousers.  The rain continues unabated for the next thirty minutes as the skies become even darker and the cars switch on their full headlights.  After a further few minutes the sound of the rain pounding the pavement is superseded by the occasional thunderclap, at first in the distance but progressively closer.  Then, without warning and instantly blinding, a brilliant flash of light hits the ground no more than five metres away, and then almost immediately the pavement underfoot begins to vibrate.  Stu