Boy, oh boy (From The Northern Echo)

Boy, oh boy

1:12pm Thursday 21st July 2011 in Mum At Large By Ruth Campbell

NORMALLY, about 90 per cent of my relationship with my second son, Charlie, involves me urging him to pick up his dirty clothes off the floor, clear up his mess in the bathroom, put his dirty cups and plates away, turn that noise down and get out of bed while he says: “Yeah, yeah, yeah” and “Can I have some money?”

I wouldn’t have been his first choice as walking companion on the 192-mile Coast-to-Coast route across England, from Cumbria all the way to Robin Hood’s Bay, in North Yorkshire.

But he really wanted to do it to mark his 18th birthday and none of his mates was free.

His dad has done it, along with other trekking and mountain biking adventures, with some of the boys before. Over the years, I have always stayed behind with babies and younger children.

This time, it was my turn for a big adventure, and the walk was just part of it. Charlie and I spending 12 days and nights together, just the two of us, without the normal distractions of domestic drudgery and everyday life – that was something new.

We didn’t have any long, heart-toheart conversations. In fact, often we walked for miles in easy silence. And yet, above all, this valuable experience gave me the chance to discover a number of things about Charlie I didn’t know: 1I didn’t realise he was so superfit.

In the Lakes, Charlie ran up the fells like a mountain goat, leaving me far behind. “Have you two fallen out?” asked one walker as we watched him tear off into the distance.

“I’m letting him go at his own pace,” I replied, but he could have been trying to run away from me.

2 The day we passed the halfway line, England’s watershed, where rivers and streams either side flow in opposite directions, on the left towards the Irish Sea and on the right, to the North Sea, was pretty momentous. Not only did Charlie turn 18, but he experienced a new sensation. For the first time in his life, the boy who eats like a carthorse said he was “full up”.

He may have been burning more of it off than usual, but his ideal stomach- filling diet obviously consists of full English breakfasts with porridge and fruit every morning, followed by soup and sandwiches for lunch, snacks of Mars bars, Jaffa Cakes, crisps and flapjacks in between and three or four-course evening meals, when he sometimes ate my pudding too. Unfortunately, this “full-up” feeling came when we were staying at the rather special Burgoyne Hotel in Reeth, a treat for his birthday. The breakfast spread, at £17.50 a head, was one of the nicest I have ever seen. But Charlie could only manage a bowl of porridge. One of the most expensive bowls of porridge anyone has possibly ever eaten. I’ll never let him forget it.

3 I didn’t know he talks in his sleep – every night. Charlie woke me up regularly, with calls of “Where is he? Where is he?” or shouting about thunderstorms or the heat. Once he even leapt out of bed in the middle of the night and took a picture off the wall. “This is really annoying me,” he said. It was a picture of a collie dog, which he swore next morning he hadn’t seen before.

I did worry about what Charlie might get up to when we arrived at Patterdale Youth Hostel, where he was spending the night in a dorm with nine other men. Next morning, none of them spoke over breakfast and everyone looked tired. I thought it best not to ask.

4 He may have nabbed the big bed for himself when we were put in a room with a double and a single, but he will step in to protect his old mum, if necessary. When I phoned him from inside the hedge where I was cowering, hiding from a vicious looking, barking dog in a farmyard, Charlie, who was walking a bit ahead of me, came back and asked the farmer to bring the dog inside.

This was one of the rare occasions I did get a signal during our North Yorkshire leg of the walk. If I hadn’t, I might still be in that hedge now.

5 I discovered he had never had a poached egg before. He liked it.

I also found out, when pushed to the limits, what his favourite last meal might be. When we got to the end, exhausted but elated, I gave him £20 and told him he could have whatever he wanted to eat. He ordered a large portion of chips covered in melted cheese and gravy.

6 He may be an adult now, but I can still catch a glimpse of the little boy inside. Most walkers took ages negotiating one of our steepest and trickiest descents, at Dent Fell in the Lakes. But Charlie discovered, since the grass was wet and his waterproof trousers were slippy, he could slide, at high speed, all the way down on his bottom. Hearing him laughing and yelling as he sped towards the end, I could have sworn he was six years old again.

That’s my boy...