The initial excitement about the farm shop food yesterday waned somewhat when neither of us could stomach the dry arancini balls seemingly made of granite chips last night. We moved rapidly onto the vanilla slices, which should have been an unctuous combination of a thin sheen of sweet icing, covering a crisp mille feuille pastry that creates a thousand flakes as soon as you go near it, sandwiching a gooey custard filling that falls out the sides as you bite into it and the flakes of pastry cascade around you. Instead it was a gelatinous mass that held its own formidably well against a fork. Everything was bizarrely the same consistency, just made of different ingredients.

The breakfast this morning was better, although it’s clear that the emphasis on sweet/inedible things in the farm shop may be reflective of the lack of knowledge on what the farm to fork revolution is all about. 

We left the building, keen to get the 37km under our belts as soon as possible, but it was already gone 9am. The sun was already high in the sky and I threw caution to the wind by looking directly at it.

The rain followed swiftly and stayed, for.the.whole.day.

Strava hallucinated again.

On the one occasion there was actually a proper path through a corn field, we didn’t need it.

But finally we met the canal path that was to be our home for about 30 of the day’s 37km. As you can see it really brightened up in the afternoon.

This image also shows just how often the path is used given that it aligned perfectly with our description of “ankle twistingly annoying”. If that wasn’t clue enough, the two pedestrians and two boats we saw in 7 hours was a subtle hint to the popularity of walking along this tow path and picking some of autumn’s rich bounty on a sunny day out. 

As our already long 37km looked like it was stretching further, with what a friend would describe as “the Strava tax”, we decided to stop at a pub on the way to recharge. The only thing being charged to an extortionate extent was our bank balance paying £6.45 for the saddest nachos ever seen.

So, with all the food groups covered: nachos, cider, peanuts and pork scratchings, we eventually arrived at Market Drayton, with evidence in the architecture that it was indeed an authentic market town. Nice. Perhaps they have food with vitamins and minerals and soba noodles?

My mistake. This was the first building we saw. My bad.

However, before we could get out for supper and admiration of the local environment, we had to spend quite a bit of the evening sorting out the route for the next three days to avoid dodging cars and I really needed to warm up with a shower.

At this point I have to digress slightly (I’m sure you’re used to it). Mark has a pathological hatred of showers over baths. We have one at home as the bathroom upstairs came like that when we bought the lodge as an Airbnb in 2023, and in my eyes it is just a shower over a bath, nothing more offensive than that. I’ve used it, it’s lovely. Mark has only ever used the stand alone shower downstairs in 3 years.

At our BnB tonight, we have a shower over a bath, a mixer tap one, not a Mira brand in sight, how bad could this be?

1. Impossible temperature control, at least as bad as Mira, especially when there was no hot water coming through the taps.

2. “Shower over a bath” implies that the shower head extends beyond the bath taps. Not on this occasion. 

3. Curtain. Don’t get me started. Magnetic discs at the bottom are not enough to persuade two metres of material further up to behave around the back of a bath tap.

4. A “non-slip” mat actually has to remain suckered to the bottom of the bath to fulfill its job description. Not on this occasion.

5. Water pressure that results in being able to feel your head getting wet and then being able to count a significant number of “Mississippis” before your feet are wet is not acceptable. In fact it’s freezing.

Coupled with a towel that wouldn’t cover a small child, let’s just say my circulation wasn’t exactly invigorated after the shower.  

We transformed our routes for the next three days from A road car dodging to beautiful country lanes though so all good. We’re studiously ignoring the fact that our average daily distance has also gone from 30 to 35km by retreating to the nearest pub. As the only food options nearby (bearing in mind we only have 100% soaking wet trainers to walk in) is an Asda supermarket, Chinese takeaway or kebab house, we’ve gone for pub food, Market Drayton style.

Distance, 40km, 25 miles, proximity to a cardiac episode – infinitely closer.