An extract for you 😁
Since the very beginning of my walk it had been my left leg that had had the twin niggles of a blister, and the painful anterior tibialis that had been exacerbated by the hard surface walking of the Tarka Trail.
Both ailments had thankfully soon resolved.
Now it was my right leg's turn to suddenly develop an inflamed anterior tibialis.
Tibialis sounds like a Roman emperor, but if he is then I can assure you that he is not one of the good ones.
My walking had become slower, at times threatening to shift into reverse.
I was grateful for the left leg's soldiering on, and taking the strain for his injured compatriot.
Walkers passed me often, and most of them were keen to stop for a chat.
A group of four older people, my age, showed concern over my shuffling progress.
Before speeding off, they asked if anyone knew where I was.
Sis has found an app, called Polarsteps, that plots my position.
I can't argue that I am packing carbs like Scott, before it all started to go wrong, but I also can't help but laugh at the name Polarsteps.
I imagine myself wearing sealskin and pulling a sledge heroically across the poles, not mincing on a gammy leg, begging small packets of Cathedral City and baguette and Dairy Milk from a complete stranger.
Mike, my age, from Cardiff, a serious trail walker, bore down on me from behind, carrying a huge pack full of dehydrated food and Dairy Milk.
He had spent the last evening in a hotel in Westward Ho! and was raring to go, with strong legs, and a mission to get to Rick Stein's in Padstow by next Saturday.
We greeted each other as I got caught up in his slipstream, and he slowed and suggested we walk together.
Mike was a chatty man, with a great sense of humour, whose wife abhorred walking and had gone on a beach holiday with her friends.
I told him that my husband liked walking, and by coincidence had also just been on a beach holiday with his friends.
Mike laughed conspiratorially, and suggested we should swap.
I immediately got out my phone, opened my notes app, and spoke the words dramatically as I typed them.
'Mike', 'Cardiff', 'Wife swap'.
Mike looked alarmed, and I told him, with an innocent smile, that I was writing a book.
He made no further mention of swaps.
At Bucks Hills, after meeting up again with the previous group of four walkers, Mike shared his lunch with me.
The conversation between us all was interesting, centering on epigenetics and on whether exercise really makes any difference to weight.
I managed to add something to the conversation along the lines of it now taking thirteen breaths instead of seventeen to inflate my mattress.
But really all I could think about, Labrador-like, was whether Mike would offer me any more of his Dairy Milk.
After lunch the group of now five pulled ahead, and I continued alone, happily lost in my thoughts, at my snail's pace.
With each day that passed, some, like now, with barely any distinction between day and night, I felt myself slipping further and further into the delicious deep waters and the merry madness of the lone long distance walker.
I walked past an electrified fence, trying to fight the irresistible urge to touch it, 'just to see'.
Whilst simultaneously wondering if there was any way I could harness its power to charge my waning telephone battery.
A lady complimented me on my "colours", which are predominantly turquoise.
I thanked her and answered, in all seriousness, that I had had my colours done in Cotswold Outdoors.
Well I am no Boris, but it is really not hard to make the public believe any old nonsense.