Distance Walked: 22km, Time Taken: 5h 20m, Avg Walking Speed: 4.2km/h
Official distance only 16km but that is to Kings Stanley. Middleyard is an outlying suburb about 2km further south. Plus I lost the track twice and had to backtrack. Still, I'm surprised at the total. Mind you, the GPS did admit to losing the signal a few times going through Standish Wood so it isn't particularly accurate. The bluebells somewhat made up for the loss of signal.
Didn't sleep well. Much too hot under the doona and too cold otherwise. Room also very light. The landlady had helpfully left the light in the passage on as the guest in the room next door uses the bathroom across the hall from his room. As this is a very old building nothing is level so there were huge gaps around my bedroom door. I stuffed my towel up against the one at the bottom but could do nothing about the one at the top. Oh well, got 6 hours sleep plus a couple more hours of dozing. Today is a short walk - about 4 hours - and I've arranged to have dinner at my B&B so I can give my poor feet a rest tonight. Blisters still enormous this morning, of course.
There were two other people staying at my B&B in Painswick - an Irishman and a man from Guernsey. The compared stories about the English invasion of their respective countries, which in the case of the man from the Channel Islands was in the 13th century! They haven't forgotten, or forgiven either apparently. Phillip would have approved of the way the Guernsey man was dressed. He was wearing sandals, shorts and a rather ratty singlet. Before he went outside he put on a skivvy.
Had the standard breakfast with quite good coffee. The B&B's hound, a very elegant liver coloured dog called Islay, watched me eat with a soulful look in her eyes. She even put her head in my lap a few times and sighed. Since she was a dog and not a cat it didn't work, poor love.
It was so cold out you could see your breath! On the plus side, the surgical spirits had toughened up the surface of them nicely. They aren't sore to the touch and gave me no trouble when walking. I bought a knee brace in the chemist but it seemed to make my knee worse, not better. Wearing it made my knee hurt all the time and give me shooting pains down my shin when I went down hill. Took it off and only got twinges of pain when going downhill and OK otherwise. Waste of money.
Decided not to go off the path to get lunch as I wanted to minimise extra walking. Planned to buy a sandwich in Painswick but the only ones in the 7-11 equivalent looked so sad they didn't tempt me. Snacked on the trail mix I've been lugging about as I walked. Wasn't very nice. Too sweet. Will fish out the nuts and the dried cranberries and ditch the rest.
Meet several other people walking the Cotswold Way today. The trail went through a wood that had many paths through it but wasn't very clearly signposted in spots. I lost the trail at one point and backtracked to a crossroads where I'd gone astray. While trying to work out which way to go I meet two Englishmen walking together and not long after an Australian couple from Brisbane. Between us we had tried 3 of the 4 options so we were able to work out which was the correct path. We then walked on together but with 10m between each group so we wouldn't intrude. How very British of us.
I've arranged to have dinner at the B&B tonight rather than walk back into Kings Stanley to go to the pub. Good thing I did. I'm sitting in the conservatory at the B&B typing this and it is pissing down with rain. I got here about 3pm as I didn't bother stopping for lunch, and it was quite dark and gloomy. Hope it doesn't actually rain tomorrow too, but I can't be too hopeful given the forecast. Had good weather up until now. Never very cold and generally sunny. Even when the skies weren't clear it was never unpleasant. Until now.
This B&B may be in a boring modern building but that means I have a purpose built bathroom with a real bath. Bliss. Had a bath and then puttered around. Got starving hungry by 6pm but dinner wasn't until 7:30pm so had to content myself with some more of the trail mix.
Had dinner with the two men I had meet in the woods - both Geordies, as well as a couple and their adult daughter. I'd seen this group in the pub at Stanton but hadn't realised they were walkers too. They were also Geordies so initially the conversation was all about places they knew around Newcastle. It then moved onto stories about walks that had been done and walks that were planned, which was much more interesting. Dinner was lasagne (not nearly as good as mine - much too oily), salad and garlic bread followed by strawberries and cream. Mum wouldn't have approved of the strawberries. She hadn't sprinkled any sugar on them, never mind a drizzle of Cointreau. We just had water to drink. This cost 12 GBP which I thought was a bit steep but it was convenient.
Slept like a log. The room, if anything, was too cold.
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