Holiday

I'm just back today from a mixed week away.  That's not to say I didn't love it - it was just not as I had planned it - as usual!  My plan was to walk eighty ish miles over six days along the Thames.  Lots of things put paid to that though - including weather, shockingly bad admin skills and, ultimately, food poisoning. 

Finn and I started off very well - we walked fifteen miles from Wallingford in Oxfordshire to Tilehurst in Berkshire - on our first Sunday.  (We only drove down on the Saturday, so we were on top form already!)  The weather was perfect for walking - cool but sunny and dry.  We saw some lovely houses and pubs and I have already lined up my next house, although Andy thinks it's a bit grand for us!

There were plenty of walkers about which was nice to see - on some of the long distance paths that Finn and I walk, we don't see people from one day to the next.  I guess the Thames Path is very achieveable though - it's all flat for a start, which is a bonus.  And also, most of it is covered by public transport - except for the very early bit by the source of the Thames - which is actually a pile of stones in a cow field in the middle of Gloucestershire.  When we walked our first day, I think we had to get three buses to the start of the walk before we could actually get going.  (We always park at the end of the day's walk, get public transport back to the start point and then walk towards our car.  For two reasons mainly.  The security of getting back to my car and not having to worry about buses at the end of the day and being stuck half a county away from my transport home.  And the fact that Finn likes to roll in as much fox sh*t as he can amass on our walks and there will eventually come a day when a bus driver won't let us on his bus and so we'll be stuffed.  Far easier to drive home with a vile smelling dog and give him a bath when we get home.)

The shockingly bad organisation skills came to the fore on Monday - I know that we had to park at Shiplake, get two buses back to Tilehurst, and then walk ten miles in four hours to get me back to the Baskerville Arms in Shiplake to meet my friends Ed and Ruth and their daughters Katherine (my god-daughter) and Jessica.  Not to mention Jakey, their enormous Gordon Setter.  However, what I had not previously worked out was that the pub was at Lower Shiplake and the bus was going from Shiplake.  Once I'd worked this all out, I was in the wrong village for the bus!   If we hadn't been meeting Ed and Ruth for lunch, then it would have been fine.  But having that timescale threw me into a panic and I decided we'd have a day off.  It was only half an hour back to Heathrow - where we were staying - from Shiplake, so it meant I could do some housewifely chores instead - food shopping, tidying the caravan, etc - before heading back to Shiplake to meet the gang.

Rain stopped play on Tuesday, so I spent the day knitting and reading my book, drinking coffee, eating chocolate hobnobs and listening to the radio, with the sound of rain thundering off the caravan roof.  There is no nicer sound for me.

On Wednesday, we were back in action.  Finn and I walked ten miles from Tilehurst to Shiplake.  It was a beautiful day - really sunny and warm and Finn spent rather a lot of time in the water to cool down.  A lovely day, I really enjoyed it.  We saw our first violets today - I always know that spring is well and truly on the way when we see wild primroses, violets and wild garlic. 

On Thursday, we had a scheduled day off to go and visit Auntie Ann in Surrey - it's so handy to go back visiting old friends and relatives while I'm staying at Andy's.  I love living in Norfolk - it's definitely home and I'm more settled here than I have been anywhere else - but I do tend to become a bit of a hermit and not leave the county very often.  So it's lovely to not have the excuse of distance, etc. 

On Friday, we were rained off again.  Saturday was never going to be a walking day as we were spending the day with Andy. Sunday was our last scheduled walking day, but, in the meantime, I had gone down with food poisoning which meant I didn't leave my bed for thirty-six hours.  (On the plus side, I'm hoping this augurs well for Weight Watchers on Wednesday!)

So, all in all, a fab week.  Just need to work out when I'm going back to do the next stage!