Day 86

Sunday 14 June

I went on another wonderful walk with the Gents Film & Leisure Club today. We drove to North Norfolk to complete the final leg of the Peddars Way. I’m writing this part of the blog sat drinking a beer, eating a chicken roll in the sunshine, and sat opposite my good friends of said ‘club’. The sun is shining and we are chatting jibberish. Bliss.

Fast forward and I’m laying in bed having hauled myself upstairs with aching legs and a blister that is big enough to have it’s own name. I talked a fortnight ago about the ‘silence of satisfaction’ that occurs when you’re on the final stretch of a long walk. This usually starts when the end is in sight but today’s began around the tenth mile of the walk. We still had another four miles to go.

I managed to drive home safely and went straight for a shower. It was the kind of shower that someone has in a movie when something tragic or traumatic has happened. Face in hands, directly underneath the shower head. I stayed in that pose, under the water, so long that my hands and fingers became wrinkled.

However, we did what we went there for. To walk the final leg of the Peddars Way from Hapley to Holme-next-the-Sea. Two of the team, Richard and Paul, had already walked the whole thing except this final part. The rest of us joined them on the final push. So, it was celebration for R & P for completing the 46 mile walkway and joy for us as we had not perished en route.

On the way, I saw and heard a host of birds. Chiffchaff started and ended our walk, Skylarks twittered from high above the fields and warblers galore did what their name suggests. Plus, a cuckoo, Greenfinches, a Bullfinch and a pair of Lesser-spotted Woodpeckers. Three particular highlights included a number of Red Kites that gracefully soared, swooped and even hovered above us. Another was a pair of Lapwings catching flying insects next to some bronze age burial mounds. They climb and dive like a double-page of monochrome broadsheet newspaper, tossed by the wind, all wings and feathers. Finally, whilst we sat eating lunch, I heard an unfamiliar call behind me; I looked around saw my first ever Yellowhammer. He was an adult male and I felt very privileged.