Rachel and Sarah

Rachel, June 2011

Ronnie here, standing in while Sarah’s away

Early this morning I took Sarah to Manchester Airport for her plane to New Jersey, to join everybody else there and say goodbye to Rachel. Going there, at the same time and the same terminal, reminded me of a happier day last June, when Sarah set off to go and stay with Rachel and Anthony for a week. Later in the year the two friends both mentioned this magical week, when they published these two parallel posts about each other and their friendship, on the same day, last October.

My Friend Sarah, by Rachel Cheetham Moro

“This year I have spent a lot of time in Liverpool. Yes! The Liverpool of Beatles fame in Northern England. I was surprised to learn that Liverpool’s climate actually rarely sees snow because it’s temperate maritime and the city is a recipient of warm bands of Gulfstream air. So this is why I’ve seen daffodils growing in Liverpool’s parks in February. Spring comes early in Liverpool.

On the deck of the allotment

I’ve meandered down Penny Lane in March and have been a regular visitor to a wonderful public space known as an “allotment”. It’s a kind of cooperative where the good citizens of Liverpool may rent garden plots to raise fruit and vegetables or whatever their inner gardener desires.I’ve clomped around in garden beds and dug for spring onions of all colors, fresh bulbs of garlic, and delicious little new potatoes. I’ve picked tomatoes and cucumbers and wondered aloud what to do with them all. I’ve even picked a pomegranate. A tropical fruit grown in Liverpool? Must be that Gulfstream air.I’ve strolled down flower and tree lined rows of allotments. I’ve shaded myself under an apple tree and I’ve marveled at the bounty of the most beautiful pear tree I’ve ever seen. I’ve sat on the deck of the allotment shed, sharing a picnic and catching the last few rays of summer sunshine and I feel like I never want to leave.

Walking into being

Me and Ronnie in Princes Park today.

Today, me and my partner, Ronnie Hughes have been walking in Liverpool. He has written this piece about why we walk.

Today, we have walked, all day. Like we do at least one day in every week. This one was an urban walk, though most of them are not. Through miles of South Liverpool parkland and the streets of Granby and the Dingle, down the docker’s steps to the wide, wide River Mersey. Along the coastline and back through crocus filled springtime woodland, stopping for lunch at our favourite vegetarian café, Greendays in Lark Lane. Then across Sefton Park and back home.

We used to view this sort of thing as a ‘day off’, but now we realise it’s one of the most important things that we do. We walk because we must. Because we are walking ourselves, and our futures, into being.

In her glorious book ‘Wild’, Jay Griffiths talks about the importance of this walking:

‘Active in an environment, people may be serene. Passive and inert, people feel a cage-rage so pervasive that they do not recognise its cause: our exile. We, though we know it or not, long for the open road, the path yearning on, swinging past, lean and agile, full tilt to the horizon. Not knowing if the wind will whip you or soft sun stroke your face, but walking on in trust, a kind of faith, not that some overweening god will show you the way, but that the way itself will show you the way. And all you need to do is put your boots on and walk. But walk you must.’