So, today is the second day of our pilgrimage. Yesterday was hot and demanding, then we went home and spent the evening (and he morning) scrabbling around trying to finish off all the other stuff we needed to do before leaving our home until the end of October…..

We started a bit later today and had full packs on for the first time.

Yes, they felt heavy. Yes it was hot. Yes it was hard, despite a shorter distance today (only 11.5 miles). The shade was less today, despite having looked at the map and guide and expecting it to be better.

We walked to London Bridge station and travelled to Erith where we headed to the Thames river front. The wide estuary and the industrial sense of the place gave it a particular character and the huge bridge spanning it was glimpsed there and appeared at times as we walked on.

We walked past many recycling centres, scrap metal dealers and engineering plants. Nature and smelly human industries segued along our path as we made our way along the path.

I am almost never dismayed by industry as it rears up on either side of our path. Like Alison, I am glad that people are being employed, that things are being made and distributed and that waste materials are being reused, etc. Walking on roads where all of the vehicles are heavy goods vehicles and are in a hurry can wear you down, though, and if they are excreting a steady flow of high temperature air and smelliness in your face, it does wear you down.

But then we moved onto the route of a river with a less industrial hinterland and there was more shade, too. It became a chalk stream that both fed large reservoirs of fresh water and served as a place to fish and enjoy the cool waters as you picnicked by its banks. And we walked by it to our night stop.

So, the last couple of days have been the first of our pilgrimage but have they felt like the beginning of a pilgrimage?

I suspect that some people would have found them challenging but for us it has been good.

We understand how beginnings work. It is not the job of the beginning to be the thing it will become.

But each new beginning gives you some of the tools you might need to complete the journey. It gives you the space to start to be the people who will make it to the end.

And it begins to reshape the dynamics of who you can be together.

So, I say, let’s see how far we can go from her…. We are happy to continue to go and find out where we end up.

The pictures start from Erith Station and end up in Horton Kirby. Tomorrow we walk to Wrotham and then go on a few miles to the only accommodation we could find.

Glad that tomorrow will be cooler as we have 15 miles and a few hills to climb on the way…

and here is a post script – the rusty metal figure with one of his arms up in the air represents Mick Jagger a famous son of the town of dartford….