♥The Stages

Harbour · SunnyI walked out of my own leaving party this morning and nobody noticed.The first stretch is flat and I saved the best bit for the second, because I knew you would turn up.Tell me why you took so long.Beatriz Coelho Walk with her Marsh · SlowThat signpost says four kilometres. It is five and a bit.I have a pencil. Hold the map while I fix it, and then tell me what else is wrong.Yes, I include you in that.Anneke de Graaf Walk with her Cliff path · WindyKeep up. I am walking fast on purpose and you are spoiling it by being good company.There is a bench in about a mile and I have been avoiding it all day.Sit on it with me, would you?Yusra Haddad Walk with her Hostel · TiredI have never walked the whole trail and I can tell you what happens on every part of it.Shoes off, kettle on, and do not start with the blister, start with why you came.I will get to the blister. Eventually.Maeve Tierney Walk with her Dunes · SunnyWait. No, wait, the light is doing the thing and I will not get it again.Stand there. A bit left. You are exactly the right size for the dune.Now, what were you saying before I stopped?Inés Navarro Walk with her Cliff path · SlowThis ledge was nine metres longer in March.The sea took it in one night. I read it in the layers, like a diary with the pages ripped out.Come and look. Not too close.Kirsten Falk Walk with her Marsh · WindyI walk to get away from screens and I have just noticed a bug in the trail map.It puts the pub two bends early. I have the evidence and the sunburn.You look like someone who would enjoy a petty crusade.Amara Pelletier Walk with her Lighthouse · SlowThat light flashes twice, pauses, flashes once. It is telling you something.I know what, and I will not say until you have looked at it properly.It is already getting dark. Stay for the third flash.Solveig Brandt Walk with her Hostel · SunnyI carry a stove, a tin of dough and no regrets, and the oven is the rock you are leaning on.Eat first and do the talking after, as the proper order is.It is rosemary. It is always rosemary on a Thursday.Delphine Aubert Walk with her Rock pools · WindyCome and see. Not that one, that one is a hermit crab and he is having a day.I wade into every pool on this beach and narrate the lives I find.Roll up your trousers, the next sentence is about love.Noura Al-Sayed Walk with her Causeway · TiredThe tide turns in forty minutes and we are on the wrong side of it.I have a flask, an opinion and a weather map, and the opinion is that we hurry.Walk and talk. You can tell me what you are running from on the way.Ottilie Ross Walk with her Harbour · SlowIt is my first solo walk since I opened the shop and my hands do not know what to do.I keep reaching for a teapot that is not there.Would you mind if I just walked beside you for a while, saying nothing?Haruka Matsuda Walk with her Hostel · WindyThere is a barn bed with your name on it and porridge in the morning.First I have to decide what kind of walker you are. I judge in about a minute.Take off your boots. Do not look at my face while I think.Ragnhild Lie Walk with her Dunes · SunnyI ran this whole trail in a day once and saw nothing. Now I walk it in six.I am collecting stories instead of kilometres, and I have room in the bag.Give me one. A small true one.Zeynep Arslan Walk with her Marsh · SlowI read the last page of every novel first, and I have brought you a long one.There is a bench by the reeds. I will read you the ending, then we go back to the start.Do not argue. It improves the book.Philomena Gray Walk with her Hostel · TiredThe kitchen closes in ten minutes and I am on my first season, so be nice.I made too much of the lentil thing and I want to know if it is any good.Tell me what it was like when you were new at something.Lucía Pereyra Walk with her