Friday 23 August 2013

Day 43; Miles

Today was an unusual day... we woke at 7.30 by the sunlight and then decided to wait for Kate's dad (Chris) to arrive so that we could let the tent dry before packing it away. This meant a lie in, so at 9.15 we finally got out of our sleeping bags and starting organising ourselves. It felt like a day off, that was until Chris arrived and then left again and we then had to motivate ourselves to start. 



Kila and Emily drove to us enroute and brought us our first Cornish pasties and homemade carrot cake- delicious! Thanks girlies! The sun was delightfully warm today and the walk was pleasant through small country lanes. Our latest lucky escape; on a public footpath we crossed a gate for a dairy cows farm with around 100 cows almost 150m away. Listening to my ipod in my own little world, Kate was ahead and suddenly she's turned and running. The cows obviously thought it was feeding time and were hurtling towards us- I pegged it! By the time I was over the gate the cows were within 10m away- that's a lot of running when there's no food at the other end. Made me and Kate giggle though.


My feet were painful today, but my knees were worse. They have been keeping me up at night recently, and now not even strong pain killers were touching the pain. Hobbling along feeling like the little man out of 'Aladdin' with the walking stick I was starting to feel sorry for myself. A good friend of mine had hoped to join us on our walk today, Miles. He is 67 and has been blind since he was 21; now a motivational speaker across the world due to the many life challenges he has undertaken. Unfortunately due to circumstance he was unable to make the trip down, however today I used him as my distraction and inspiration. If he could achieve running the death valley Sahara desert marathon then of course I could walk this final little leg. But doing it smiling, not so easy. So in spirit, thank you for your motivation today Miles! 

We reached Mwagan Porth by 6pm where we met Chris at our B&B- now shattered and really struggling to walk 'normally' I crawled up the stairs (quite literally) to shower before dinner. Dinner was in a local pub that served simply gorgeous food, and it was lovely to have Chris's company- it got me even more excited to see my parents at the weekend! 

Once we returned to our rooms I had one final shake up before bed; sitting there minding my own business, a spider drops on to the floor next to my bed. Absolutely enormous- and me being completly petrified of spiders I screamed and ran in to the bathroom where Kate was happily brushing her teeth. Thinking I had almost killed myself, Kate tried to work out what was wrong amongst all of my screaming, shaking, tears (again) and speechlessness. Chris knocked at the door wondering what had happened and I pegged it outside. Chris sorted the devilish monster and assured me it was safe to return to the comfort of my bed. Great- I was now 'one of those girls'... thats a life challenge for another day I think. Happy to say though just 5 days to go now.

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