Today we walked along Mark's past and, for most of the day, the very pretty Worcester and Birmingham canal. As soon as you leave Mark's birthplace you get stories of him crashing his car as a teenager, into the hedge before we've even gone 5 metres down the road. As we neared the canal, sites … Continue reading Day 38 – out of Mark’s family home, turn left and go south down memory lane…..

And a day late posting as we're realising that one day away from walking is not really enough. We need one day to rest and recover our aching legs. Then we could spend a second day doing all the things we needed to do like book a clinic appointment for rabies jabs; tweak the next … Continue reading Day 37 – rest-ish

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. The path started well - downhill … Continue reading Day 36 – a pretty, slow marathon day

We've left the outskirts of Telford (Wellington to be precise) and I won't miss it. Saturday night was a late one in Market Drayton as the hunt for pub food took us to a place with a lot of monosodium glutamate that you know about, but they were also playing 80s music, so we stayed … Continue reading Day 35 – need.more.sleep and less mediocrity

....leaving me to wonder why we thought 9 was a good idea on this stretch. We've just completed day 7 and it really feels like it. It was another day of starting with wet trainers thanks to the radiator not working in our room. The pictures of Prince Philip everywhere, in frames that didn't fit … Continue reading Day 34 – six days between rest days seems ideal….

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 … Continue reading Day 33 – ditto yesterday, resilience is a thing

Today was our fourth rainy day. No big deal out of 32, given that the average for this route at this time of year should be ~16 by now. It's just that starting the day putting wet trainers on reminds you of how this trip is about getting up every morning, rain or shine, sleep … Continue reading Day 32 – for the love of resilience

Today, we left the surprisingly lovely Hinds Head hotel at 8am and walked 31.4km to an aparthotel next to the surprisingly lovely Mr Lau's Chinese restaurant in Warrington. The bit in between has been consistently wet with one exception. Given the absence of breakfast at the hotel, we decided to stop at Standish just down … Continue reading Day 31 – and only our 3rd rainy day. Just for five hours……..

Which is why today has felt like the most adult, dull day of the whole trip. Preston ring road, if I never see you again before I die that's fine by me. I feel sorry for the things I said about  Lancaster now, a true jewel in comparison. So in the absence of posting a … Continue reading Day 30 and there’s something wonderfully childlike about bouncing along woodland paths…….

There's a Guardian newspaper article entitled "Let's move to Lancaster, Lancashire: it's grander than you might think" that is admittedly 6 years old now; but I can't help thinking that "what you might think" is actually more accurate. Even the Guardian article notes that "recent developments and buildings don’t live up to the city’s heritage". … Continue reading Day 29 – I’ve tried really hard, I promise, to find amazing things to say about Lancaster