Like a spurned ex-lover ….

my constant companion on this LEJOG adventure (especially now in the absence of the beauty and the brains of the team) has been my Cicerone guidebook. Andy Robinson has spoke to me and taken me by the hand every day. Yesterday he somehow knew that as I couldn’t hit a barn door at 5 paces at Bisley at the weekend then precise navigational directions across the moor were needed so I could hit the ‘Isolated gate in an isolated wall’ – within 5 yards over a distance of 3 or so miles made my chest swell with pride in a way it hadn’t done since, well, before Bisley.

my Main Man Robbo ( I feel I’ve earned that degree of intimacy) has always come up with gens like ‘getting across this section can be tricky … but take a sharp right past the second cow and a half-left after the sheep that looks at you funny’ and sure enough the next stile appears as anticipated and Robert’s your Dad’s brother.

So imagine my distress dear reader when I followed the big A’s directions through Hardcastle Crags and turned the page to read ‘well it’s basically the Pennine Way now, it’s pretty well marked, I’ll get back to you in 10 days time in Jedburgh’. How’s a boy to cope? And then just for a laugh it started to rain and blow hard, harder and harderer. Miserable Me got so fed up with wet socks in wet boots on wet ground that I resorted to some road walking. Trenchfoot on 2nd day…

when my bedraggled sodden shell of a walking semi-body finally arrived at the night’s Inn Of Choice of course the clouds parted … who says He doesn’t have a sense of humour.

of course to compound matters it’s often hard to get non-camping accommodation on or very near the P Way (ooh, get me) so you have to go off piste and try to navigate along Bronte Way or Pendle Way  (nope, me neither)… and then (grumble-a-thon alert) I’ve been wholly used to getting The Team to destination town/village and then Becca guides us in to the precise location, I’d forgotten that and have decided that spending time wandering around places asking “er, excuse me, do you know of any place, might be a pub .. or a B&B… probably … that’s expecting me… I think it’s called the Crown … or Fountain … or Misty View…” is what I used to term ‘sub-optimal’. Anyone know a half decent project manager,

Don’t know what the views across the moors could have been like but probably something like this from yesterday.

Time for rehydration…. miles today were 23 .. slightly more than expected…. milestone of the day possibly now being in Lancashire (so another county) and about 35000 steps.

Stroll on