Lost Faith

 

I got lost.

The trouble is I shouldn't put such faith in lorries. I tend to choose one which is travelling at about the same speed as me and then I stay behind it at a safe distance for mile after mile.

Whenever this lorry indicates it is about to overtake then I indicate also, safe in the knowledge that my lorry driver knows exactly where he is going. Before too long my faith is absolute, wherever he goes I will go, his roads are my roads, his people, are my people.

The A14 is a peculiar road. For reasons far beyond my comprehension you have to turn off it at one roundabout on the way to Cambridge and then rejoin it again. Of course my lorry was doing just that. At the roundabout he indicated right, and consequently so did I. My belief in him absolute. Except, he wasn't going onto the A14, was he? No! He had turned onto the A1 and taking me with him in his slip-stream.

The wonderful thing about getting lost is that it gives you an opportunity to discover completely new things. Getting lost can be a kick-start for the imagination.

I didn't give my lorry another glance as I turned off the A1. Faith is like that: so terribly fickle whenever given a serious jolt of reality.

So then we passed through a small village. There was a place called 'The Hurdles' and for the next few miles we entertained ourselves by imagining new street names based on the Olympic Game.

"Cycle Lane," suggested the youngun, as we rejoined the A14.

Cheered by these thoughts that we would not have had had our faith not been shattered we continued our journey.

The exhaust pipe did not fall off; and despite the heavy load in the car and a slight tendency for the car's bonnet to point skywards we made it there safely.

"I'll give you a £1000 if you see a sheep," I had said at the commencement of the journey.

I did not have to pay up. For during the entire 130 mile journey we saw not one.

We passed villages once famous for the possession of looms for weaving wool; but like such looms, fields of sheep have long disappeared; leaving a landscape haunted by lost faith.

The return journey, alone in the dark, was the next hurdle.

When I suddenly realise that ‘The Hurdles’ in that village that we passed through earlier, was probably not named after Olympian villagers keen to vault any obstacles in their path, but instead named after the hurdles which had once corralled sheep, keeping them faithfully in their place before they were sold for slaughter in the market.

Chilled by this realisation, I quickly find a new lorry to follow. It is barely distinguishable from the shadows, except for beautiful, bright-red lights at each of its corners.

Hooked, in its slip-stream I travelled merrily along, forgetting all too easily how faith can quickly take you nowhere.