The Coast to Coast trail is so much a topic of conversation at our house, that I tend to assume everyone knows all about it. But, of course, most people don’t. And I’m somewhat reluctant to tell people about it because it seems an absurd, self-indulgent thing to do. But alas, it captured our imagination.
You could say our brains were infected by the notion. It happens. For example, we have a neighbor who, I’m told, built an airplane in his garage. Gee, that’s amazing, you think, but…why the heck would anyone do that? (As it happens, I myself have spent enormous time and effort trying to learn to read Japanese....which would be a useful and even necessary thing if I lived in Japan. I don’t. ) It’s unfortunate if your imagination is vulnerable to this kind of obsession. When it happens, you do the thing, if you can. Or else, you spend your life wishing you could, or wishing you had.
Of course, walking is generally considered a positive, healthy pursuit. But on the other hand, people don't usually pick up and walk 200 miles unless they have to. Read the newspapers. People who do stuff like that are usually refugees, driven from their homes, trying desperately to put some distance between their families and falling bombs. Otherwise, if not threatened with exploding shrapnel, why not just stay home and watch TV? Or as a friend of my mother said when I outlined for her the Plan to Walk Across England, "Why don't you just rent a car?"
