In May 2013 I walked from Brighton to Newhaven, crossed the channel to Dieppe, carried on to Rouen and from there down the Seine to Burgundy. From Dijon I took the tow path of the Rhine Rhone link canal then up along the crest of the Jura mountain range to Zurich. 607 miles in five weeks. The sun came out in early Normandy.
The trip was a way of inducing the delayed spring, partly my way of getting a bit of exercise and partly to see what lay between home and Zurich. It was also a practical piece of research for Jordan Baseman’s exhibition A Cold Hand on a Cold Day which I was in the process of organising events around. I needed a break.