Walking for Welland Part 2

Over the last week I have done a lot more walking for Welland; in fact nearly another 20 miles more, some just with Annie and some with Phil and Annie. Following our adventure on the Saturday we set out the next day to complete the route. However, I did rather overestimate our fitness level and four hours in Phil was limping and I was hobbling. The final hour was not the most pleasurable of my life, more a test of extreme endurance, with my hip grinding at every step and Phil groaning behind me. We finished the route though, all 18.75 miles of it (and that's not including the extra 3+ miles we did before finding muddybike man).

On the following Wednesday I decided I was well rested enough, and the weather glorious enough, to start route 2. Annie and I set off from Launde Abbey along what have to be some of the most fabulous bridleways in the country - mile upon mile of wide, grassy tracks just begging to be galloped. The scenary was beautiful, bucolic rolling hills patchworked with white speckled fields of sheep, rusty earthed plough and dark woods. Unfortunately about three miles in my hip started to nag, by four it was screaming. Not one to give up I decided to finish the leg of the walk and found a hazel branch to use as a walking stick. By five miles I was in my own little world of pain, shuffling forward one agonizing step at a time. Like Macbeth, I was now in too deep to go back, so on I battled. The scenary was still stunning, the tracks wide and welcoming, but I was in hell.

After what seemed like an eternity I reached the road and called Phil to come and get me. I managed to find a grit box to sit on while I waited. And waited. And waited. After about half an hour of being oggled and waved at by a farmer who kept coming backwards and forwards with a trailer full of dogs for no reason I could ascertain other than to see if I was still there, I got the "I'm lost" phone call. We spent a few minutes of "you need to turn left" "there isn't a left" "yes there is a left" "well I can't see a left" which disintegrated into that kind of infuriating non-argument that giving directions to someone who doesn't understand them invariably leads to, then we rang off and I waited hopefully. A couple more passes by farmer and dogs. No Phil. Eventually he managed to get what I meant by "turn left" and collected me, Annie and my stick from the grit box.

By this time I was in deep grump and demanded that he walk the last section as I couldn't, dropped him and Annie off at the end of the bridleway and drove off. I found the other end and proceeded to wait for him to turn up. Ten minutes later he called "I'm not doing it", so I had to go back and pick him up again, section unwalked, because his gout was playing up and his ankle hurt.

The final installment of Walking for Welland Part 2 was on Sunday when we actually walked the section Phil was supposed to walk on Wednesday. It was beautiful, the sun shone, there were daffodils everywhere and lambs boinging about in the fields. We didn't push it too hard, just about 4 miles and by the end my hip was beginning to nag and Phil's ankle to niggle so probably a good distance. We finished off with a very large meal at the Rose & Crown Pub in Tilton on the Hill, and returned home to find it was an hour later than we thought it was.