On my last mountain walk, I experienced a very strange happening near the summit. I was thinking about other peculiar things that have happened to me when I’ve been out walking. Too many oddities have occurred to mention when I’ve been running or cycling.
I suppose the weirdest thing happened last last May. I was away camping and went on a fairly tough long walk. On the return leg, the footpath briefly joined a lane, which was banked on either side by high hedges. Being late spring, the leaves were really starting to cover the hedge, yet all of a sudden my eye was drawn straight to something that didn’t quite look right. There was a patch of hedge where the green growth was slower and the woody workings of the hedge inside could be seen. In the middle of the patch was a the tip of a thick piece of wood and I felt compelled to grab it. Sure enough, I pulled on it and it lifted right out of the hedge like a dagger out of its sheath.
In my hand was a staff, essentially. Probably three feet tall, and very smooth around the thicker end, presumably from years of use. Its texture and colour reminded me of a wooden chair that my nan used to have, which also had smoothed out tips of its arm rests. I walked with it for the last couple of miles of the day. I ended up taking it home and I still have it, although I haven’t used it since then.
Having an overactive imagination, I began to think up all kinds of ideas. Where had it come from? Who put it there? How old was it? How long had it been there? It wasn’t casually leant against anything; it had in my opinion, been deliberately placed there.
I have an idea that it was a walking staff of a well travelled man, who nearing the end of his days, left it there on a final ramble to be picked up again to give it a new lease of life.
Or it put itself there and has a mind of its own. I do know that I regarded it with suspicion for a long time and left it at the top of the stairs waiting to walk past it one morning only to find it gone. I did think about putting it back where I had found it, but realised that fate had brought it to me and fate must take it back again. I feel the story is only just beginning…
My Outdoor Living Room 