Day Eleven

Sunday 6 December –
Leighton Buzzard to Milton Keynes

Sometimes I'm a bit simple. I sat on the 8.23am from Euston, decked out in my waterproofs, wondering why the train was full of under-dressed yoof looking sleepy. Then I twigged – they weren't planning to join me for a day's walking, they were on the way home from all-night clubbing. Silly me.

From Leighton Buzzard Station it took just five minutes to reach the Grand Union Canal, whose towpath was to be my route for most of the day. I was heading generally North; I say generally because, being a canal it did what canals do, and wandered along the contours between locks. Having started damp, the day was rapidly improving, with several patches of blue sky.

A heron stood proprietorially at the bottom of a canalside garden, keeping an eye on the wheelie bin. A sign warned against fishing beneath some electric cables; two men sat underneath the cables fishing.

The towpath became part of the National Cycle Network (promising a decent walking surface). I left Beds and entered Bucks. As the housing of Leighton Buzzard and Linslade were left behind, the canal became more rural. But a fairly constant traffic of dog-walkers, joggers and canoeists, together with the fisherman lining the bank, undermined any feeling of isolation. After a relatively short time in Buckinghamshire I entered the Magic Kingdom of Milton Keynes, firstly in the form of Bletchley. Almost immediately, housing estates sprang up to the left of the canal, while the on the right the fields continued. The condition of the towpath, which had been so good up to now, went rapidly downhill. The puddles were easily avoidable, but that brought its own hazards – I was walking dog-shit alley, and every step needed to be planned.

The A5 swept overhead, the noise intense despite the fact that it was Sunday. For long stretches the muddy towpath was shadowed, a few yards away, by much better walkways, so I frequently switched between the two. There was the traditional new town mix of linear green spaces with housing and other buildings lurking behind bushes. Excitable signs announced that the Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway would soon link the canal I walking beside with those of the fenlands. While “soon” needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, a quick check on the Internet convinced me that there is genuine progress being made to build “Britain's first new canal for over a hundred years”. Power to their elbows.

I left the towpath to head West through Campbell Park, a rather fine open space with its own alp – in reality, a tapered grassy mound giving views across the flat farmland to the East. It wasn't strictly necessary for me to walk the length of the Milton Keynes shopping centre – I could easily have found another route to the station. But perversely I wandered in, first visiting John Lewis for a welcome toilet stop, and then pushing my way through the thousands of shoppers with one thing on their minds: Christmas. Everything is indoors – the shops, the funfair, the Christmas Market and the tropical plants. At the other end, fresh air came as something of a shock. The last mile to the station was through the deserted business district, along Midsummer Boulevard.

I sat on the train back to London, watching to see who was heading into town for the party action. It was a bit early.