It has been both pretty and slow for a full 44km/10.5 hours of walking. As we ended up at Mark’s childhood home, it has been a day of memories with his school friends too. Laughter and love in plenty.

We started so early this morning, the light was beautiful.

One of the bonuses of walking along riverbanks and cycle paths, nowhere near a road, apart from the lack of road noise, is also the lack of rubbish. We haven’t missed all the plastic, cans and McDonald’s happy meals by the side of the road. And yet, by the river, you can still find…..

Given the length of the walk today, we stopped briefly at a pub in the gloriously named Chaddesley Corbett for a refresher at 28km. It’s also a beautiful village.

Before we even got into the pub a woman in a car stopped outside and waved at us, saying that she had recognised us, walking past us in Kidderminster earlier. We smiled politely and went inside. There, we were greeted by a couple of locals, one of whom said he had driven past us in Kidderminster and knew we were headed to the Swan Inn and we got chatting.

Welcome to Worcestershire.

After Chaddelsey Corbett, the route was on average, very downhill, with some distinctly not average, uphill sections,

just to keep us on our toes, right to the end of today.

To get us to our final destination, Mark decided on a better route than we had mapped already, as he was on home turf and knew the roads and traffic like the back of his hand. So like Neo, peering into the Matrix and seeing the real, true path, he navigated us to his childhood home by neon blue Strava heatmaps alone. We passed his old secondary school and reached his mum’s house in time for the supermarket delivery.

There we met up with old school friends of his and had the best night together, listening to the three of them swapping stories of life shaping moments they shared. How all three of them reached adulthood without severe injuries is a miracle. Different times, maybe better times……

So tonight, we’re not in bed, asleep by 9:30 as usual, neither will we be kept awake by any karaoke or pub sounds tonight, we are where everybody knows everybody, but a million miles away from anyone, lit only by moonlight.

Distance – 44km, looking forward to a huge fat zero distance tomorrow.