A blistering pace!!

This is the first chance that I've had to sit and sign in such has been the pace of the expedition which some might even call the longest pub crawl in the world because each meeting point and handover and end of day rendezvous seems to have been pub! And very welcome they have been if only to drink gallons of ice-cold water such is the weather which has largely been unremitting sunshine!

What hospitality and friendship! Yvonne and I arrived on Saturday to be welcomed by our host's with tea in a truly beautiful cottage garden complete with two labs and a terrier who kept us entertained for hours.

After an informal dinner party - again in the garden - preparation for Sunday and our church service where we'd asked for the walkers among us to receive a blessing. Once again, a genuinely warm welcome from the congregation who were interested in what we were setting out to do.

Lunch in the nearby pub when Chris Tayler - the enthusiast who had devised the Millennium Way - was presented with the Club Service Award by his club for all that he had done in connection with the development of the walk over the last decade. Thoroughly deserved.

Photographs and video were taken at the church gates before we set off [see You Tube!!!] and then we were off at what seemed like a blistering pace which, at the end of the day, proved to have been a truly blistering pace - one which is now slowing me down to a pleasant amble due to the size of the burst blister on my left foot which nurse Yvonne needs to treat each day! Even the National President of RTBI has been consulted [he's a chiropodist!] and he has kindly made himself available 24/7 for professional consultations as and when needed!!

But we did our 6+ miles in the allotted 3 hours and a small country pub has never been so welcome. Pints of ice cold water disappeared with seconds before pints of real ale were consumed only slightly less quickly.

An evening BBQ with members of Banbury 41 Club before home to bed in readiness for the next day with a somewhat slow painful start to the planned walk.

It's now 11.35pm and I need to get to bed. Suffice it to say that we have meandered through some of the most beautiful parts of the English countryside. Today has been extra special with sections of the walk along canal towpaths with narrow boats and and canal side pubs festooned with flowers and window boxes.

Daventry 41 Club guided us expertly through meadows and woods and taught us how to play skittles in a little country pub where we were treated to supper and even did some of our washing before handing us over to Southam 41 Club who were less sure of the way but nevertheless brought us to our destination and a couple of very welcome pints and later, an excellent evening meal at the Buck and Bell Inn at Long Itchington before delivering us back to Wethele Manor - the most beautifully and sympathetically restored 'manor' farm house you have ever seen and where tonight I shall sleep in my first ever four poster bed!

This is a lovely journey - if a somewhat painful one at the moment. But sleepy villages with golden stone houses basking in glorious sunshine, country pubs with low beamed ceilings and real ale with sandwiches waiting hot and slightly weary walkers, laughter and new friendships more than compensate for sore feet and a little sunburn.

It will take me a while to do justice to this walk which is a true gem in the midst of England already bursting with the promise of a rich harvest in just a few weeks time.

A shorter walk tomorrow - just 6.25 miles - only 2 of them after lunch at yet another country pub by the river - the Red Lion at Hunningham! I'll even try to download some of the dozens of pictures via the Dongle!

More later but just at the moment - the four poster calls!!