Sat 21 Mar: Helston to Lizard Point

At Lizard Point, 12.05pm.

The rocks that jut out from Lizard Point. After so much walking, it’s quite a good feeling to know that it’s just not possible to walk any further, and that the only thing to do is to turn around. (PS. Spot the walker with a rucksack on the rocks.)

So it is done: this lone exploration
– Of seventy-eight days, three pairs of shoes
And fourteen hundred miles – between and through
The extreme four points of mainland Britain.
Maybe, by a certain definition,
I might rightly claim that I, faithfully,
Have walked the length and breadth of the country.
What, you ask, has been the greatest lesson?
In life, in living, is so much to see
That the fundamental resolution
To Hamlet’s famed existential question
Is unquestionably, ‘To be’. To be.
You have been beside me in my walking:
Thank you, sincerely, for your kind reading.

Note: How co-incidental that I complete this walk/project on World Poetry Day.

A final postcard image. Here, Poldhu Cove, overlooked by the Poldhu Care Home (a scene which, to me, is reminiscent of Newport’s mansions).

The entire collection of poems from this project was published by Eyewear in 2016. Only a sample of the 78 poems remain accessible on this website.