I slept on the edge of a field last night.  I was able to walk without my rucksack for the morning and after I received it again at lunchtime it felt incredibly heavy and I trudged up and down the hills very very slowly.
I picked a spot on the map, a small copse.  I'll sleep there, I thought.  The last weather forecast I'd seen had given rain for today and as there hadn't been any so far I thought it must surely come tonight.  I couldn't check the forecast again as there wasn't enough signal so I just had to believe in the chance of rain...which meant finding a place to shelter properly; put the shelter up, protect myself.
I walked into the grounds of Chirk Castle, through the bluebell woods in full blossom and on to the entrance where they had a second hand bookshop and I couldn't resist picking up two books - one a hardback.  Am I some kind of masochist???  I'd finished Nelson Mandela's autobiography earlier that day and I was able to buy the story of Hannah Hauxwell and that of Malcolm X.  Hannah's book was hardback and must have been a kilo and a half, a ridiculous purchase but I vowed I'd read it that night and pass it on the next day.
I left the castle grounds and walked on, trudging by now, the rucksack feeling its full 16 kilo weight.  It was half past five, the time of day where I start looking for sleeping places. 
It's a long process, usually made more drawn out by my tired indecision.  I have the same problem when walking through foreign cities looking for a place to eat.  Each sheltered spot or base of tree is assessed for where I could string up the shelter, the softness of the sleeping surface, visibility to passers by, proximity of houses.
I spent a long time looking at a dip down by a stone wall - very sheltered but stony at the bottom.  Nope, didn't feel right.  It was right by the path too.
I walked on, past a house that had placed spikes along the top of all their gates (including the footpath gate); there were high walls, signs warning of the dogs and telling me to close the gate and not trespass on private property.  I wasn't going to knock on that door and ask to sleep in their garden.
On I went, along a road, passing a small copse where the brambles and nettles rose high beneath the larch plantation.  No comfy bed there.
I came off the road and up a small rise in a field of longish grass.  The field went sloping gently downwards towards a fence and at a point in the fence at the bottom of the depression there was a hawthorn tree.  It was beautiful, unseen by the road, no animals in the field.  I decided I would sleep there the moment I saw it, down underneath the tree, protected by its great thick roots rising from the ground, pressing against the wire fence and making a wall of wood for me to shelter behind.  I could run the poncho off the fence to hide from the rain.  The grass was long and soft, the field slightly sloping.  Wonderful.
I sat there for a few hours, reading as the sun went down.  The story of Hannah Hauxwell, the woman "discovered" in the 70's living a life of dales isolation straight out of the 30's.  A black and white photo come to life.
I wrapped my sleeping bag round my legs and put my jacket on but otherwise it was not so cold that I couldn't sit still.  (A change to when I first started in March, when I'd have to get straight into the sleeping bag with handwarmer as soon as I stopped for the night; it also was still going dark by 7pm, the longer daylight hours are another welcome change)
The field was still and peaceful the whole time, no walkers, no animals, just the occasional shriek of a pheasant far away. 
There were sheep in the field next to me and sometimes a run of lambs would pelter towards the corner of the field where I sat behind the fence, hidden by the tree.  They would run until they saw me, an unknown animal sitting quietly, then they would stand, unsure, until their mothers called them away.
I'd managed to find a patch of signal at the top of the rise so I'd checked the forecast which gave rain between 8 and 10 and dry the rest of the night.  It was 9.30 and still no rain; I kept checking the sky and the clouds weren't moving, they didn't look black or ominous, just a patchy covering of grey.  I decided that I would chance it without the shelter but tied it to the fence at one corner so I could throw it over me if it started to rain in the night. 
As it became too dark to read I tucked in and down into the three layers of sleeping bag.  A bat flickered over me in the grey blue remaining light and I could hear an owl somewhere a few fields away.
I slept, not all night but tolerably well for a night outside.  The ground was well shaped for my body; sometimes, when I sleep on hard ground, my hips can hurt after half an hour on my side and so the whole night is spent shifting  from side to side until the relevant hip becomes too uncomfortable and I must turn again.  There was a small slope downwards from my head to feet, enough to be comfy but not so much that I started to slide downhill as soon as I relaxed.
I woke at various points during the night to rearrange the sleeping bag - not so open that I get cold, not so closed that I can't breathe; a surprisingly difficult balance to find...
I first checked my phone at 5.45am and roused myself properly at about 7.30.  The field was a new world of thick fog and dewdrops at the tip of every grass blade.
I sat up, feeling wonderful, ate a bowl of muesli while I finished my book, packed up, did some stretches and headed off towards Llangollen, where I'm writing this.

I don't just wild camp because of my budget - I do it because I love it.  I love to open my eyes and directly see the sunrise, right in front of me.  To be an animal, sleeping on the ground while other animals go about their nighttime business around me.  Beetles investigate my tarpaulin, rabbits come out to eat, owls hoot in the blackness of an unknowable world.  All while I curl on the ground and sleep amongst them, just another living, breathing being.  Even a tent feels as if I'm separating myself from that world.
I do greatly appreciate every chance I get to sleep in a bed and have a shower, wild camping is hard and tiring and difficult to keep clean in.  But it also gives me a deep sense of peace.

It's another lazy morning in Welshpool, the very nice Couchsurfer Clare who has allowed me to make her house a temporary home while I'm here.  We're sitting here at half ten drinking tea and eating chocolate eclairs.  I have almost no impetus to go and walk at all...only the fact that if I stay too long she might actually raise an eyebrow and remind me that this isn't her house and could I stop using the facilities please.

This is the second version of this post as the first one didn't save - yet more reasons to sit here, drink tea and not walk, dear oh dear.

So.  It's the end of another phase, I've finished the Glyndwr's Way; a 135 mile circuit through north Powys, I started in Welshpool and walked through Meifod, past Lake Vrnwy, Llangadfan, Llanbrynmair, Cemmaes Road, Machynlleth, Dylife, Llanidloes, Abbey-Cwm-Hir, Felindre and around to Knighton.  It's a glorious, gorgeous walk: I recommend that you all get out and try it as soon as you can.  Coming from Aberhosan over Foel Fadian and around Glaslyn - wonderful, even more so when I could almost see my old house from the highest heights.
The days walk from Llangadfan to Llanbrynmair is totally beautiful, taking in all elements of the north Powys landscape, hills, moorland, two miles through pine forest and finishing off with a hill walk overlooking Llanbrynmair from about 150 metres up.

I spent the last two years living in Machynlleth so this was home ground for me - the familiar landscapes of moorlands, farmed hills and pine forests.  I was hosted almost everywhere; so much that I almost felt bad.  I'd sit down to eat food that friends had cooked for me and they wouldn't let me even wash up, I could just get up from the table and pretty much go straight to bed.  Mind you, when you see me in the evenings it's not suprising; just getting up from the table takes about a minute of creaks and groans.  I'm usually incredibly achy and can only shuffle around in the evenings (saying "I'm fine! I'm fine!") but by morning, after a good night's sleep I am transformed again into a steely walking machine.

Today I set off from Welshpool heading north on the Offa's Dyke Path to Prestatyn then over to Conwy on the Coastal Path, up the river Conwy to the source, over a mountain to the source of the river Dee then down the river Dee to the estuary. 
Then, as if that wasn't enough for you to take in, I'll walk to Basingwerk and begin a 602 mile inland circuit of Wales, following a path called the Cistercian Way.

It's going to be harder, by that I mean more camping, fewer friends a phonecall away.  But that's ok, I think I've just been treated really well on the Glyndwr's Way.
I even had an extra couple of days off when I had to go back to Machynlleth to see the dentist; one of my teeth has cracked but the dentist has put in a temporary filling and we're going to wait and see if it moves any more.  Hurray!  That's an ironic hurray; irony being particularly difficult to express in a blog post.

Well, then, I can't drag this out any more - by the way, I am actually really enjoying the walk, despite the slightly suffering nature of these posts.  It's just that sometimes it's enjoyable in an epic and intensely memorable way, rather than a relaxed, pottering kind of a way.
Wish me luck!

Let me tell you a nice story about this guidebook.
When I was in Bristol I knew that when I got up to Welshpool on the Offa's Dyke Path I would turn left there and walk around the Glyndwr's Way, a 135 mile circuit through north Powys. Because I didn't want to carry an unnecessary book with me (300 grams!) I asked on my Facebook page if anyone would let me post a guidebook to their address and pick it up as I passed through. It was a borrowed book, from my neighbours in Talbontdrain, the most recent version being out of print and £20 online.
A woman called Debbie sent me her address,  I later found out she'd done this after an email from Karen, the woman I stayed with early on in Newtown.
At midday on the day I was due to post the book I received an email from Paddy Dillon, writing to offer me a copy of the Glyndwr's Way guidebook he'd just written.....the bloody book I was just about to put in the blinking post!
Turns out he is a writer who met Hannah and Chico the donkey on their route round Wales last summer and, following Hannah's post about me on Facebook, wrote to offer me his help.

So that's how I ended up using this, the only copy in the country of a soon to be published book. Thank you Paddy and Debbie. And Hannah and Karen. And the strange power of the Internet.

Here I am, reliving past days.  I've got a kitchen table, a sunny window, endless cups of tea and radio 4 murmuring reassuringly.  This is my favourite way to spend a breakfast.  I've done some staring, thought about plucking my eyebrows, decided what I'll do later, looked at the internet.  All while the minutes slowly pass and the world burbles in the background, at a peaceful volume.

I've been feeling nervous over the last few days, as if I'm going so slowly this will never be done.  When I think of the miles I've trudged over the last few weeks and how it's a very very small fraction of what is still to come; the size, the enormity of what I'm taking on feels impossible.  I find myself pushing for a few extra daily miles, thinking ahead, panting to get to the next town, the next section.  But my body can't do that - too many miles in one day means more pain the next.
I've realised I have to recognise the time as well as the distance - this isn't going to end quickly, I'm going to be doing this for months and months and months; there is no getting it over with!  I need to sit in this, go slowly, mentally as well as physically.

So here I am, with an enforced rest.  A day to look in shops, to hitchike, to chat.  To relax my body, to enjoy the day.

All until the dentistry later; I'm pretty scared of dentists and I knew this tooth was a problem.  A piece of filling flaked away shortly before the walk and I could feel the tooth somehow, creaking, aching.  Then, when I chewed a bit of brand new toffee there was a definite crack and there it is, half the molar is breaking away from the rest of the tooth.  I hate the fact that I will have to pay to experience pain, I have enough of it for free.

But, think positive, sit in it, embrace this feeling.  There is no moment of any day that should be rushed through to get to the next (and I am definitely not rushing to get to the dentist later!). 
I'm trying to go full speed through a long distance race.  Forget hare, think tortoise?  How many more cliches can I cram into this paragraph.  Don't worry, be happy.  Keep clam and carry on.  (I know it's calm but that's a pretty good typo). This is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Enough of that.  Let's get outside and enjoy the day. x

I'm having a good time, but a hard time.  It hurts, this walking business, hurts my feet, my ankles, my knees.

Things hurt in a different way to how they did at the start, I've toughened up for sure. 
The miles seem a bit easier now, at the beginning of the day at least.  I seem to be able to cover 12 or 13 every day, no problems. 
My feet don't throb with pain at the end of each day, they're not swollen any more or feeling like clumsy stones at the end of my legs, slapping down onto the hard ground with each sorry step.  Perhaps it was the hard hard couple of days between Knighton and Montgomery, with steep hill after steep hill, the backs of my ankles, the tendons burning as my feet bent awkwardly against the gradient.  After going through that the ordinary hills felt easy, the flat sections feel like flying, I march along them, keeping up a good 3 mile an hour pace, when it's flat I can do that.  On the hills, it's more like 1 mile an hour, plodding up and down them.

My feet just ache, nothing more.  I rub them every night, I stretch every morning.  It feels ok, not painless but ok. 
I feel as if I'm developing a steely core, tough enough to walk and sleep and walk and sleep, 10 hours a day, day after day after day.  When I look in the mirror I'm still the same pudgy goofball as ever but inside me there's real power; I feel solid, unstoppable.

I have two problems with the state of the walk at the moment. 
One is my knees; every so often, usually coming downhill, they buckle a bit and a sharp stabbing pain shoots through them, mainly the left.  They've also started to click.  They've always crunched.  I went to the doctor about a year ago, he told me not to worry. 
I'm just trying to work on making sure I stretch out the rest of my body, so my thighs, my hamstrings, my calves can support my knees, so my joints aren't taking the strain of muscles that aren't able to keep up with the workload.  I'm taking glucosamine sulphate and have just bought a couple of knee supports.  I mainly hope that my body will increase in fitness before I overwork my joints. 

The other problem is that I'm slow, well, slow compared to what I thought I'd be doing, what I planned to do, what my brain tells me I Should be doing....that killer Should, a poison in the brain, undermining achievement
I thought I'd be doing 15 miles a day by now, I planned to.  But when I do, I'm exhausted at the end of a day.  I'm carrying too much weight, I'm not fit enough, my body won't take it.  I try not to worry about it, mostly I'm successful.  I'll just keep going, I tell myself, just do as much as you can and either you cut the distance short or extend the time.  Will the internet be offended if I only walk 2500 miles?  Come on, the most critical person in judgement will be me, let's face it.
12 miles a day isn't a big distance - I am sluggish by comparison with most long distance walkers.

I've just had two days off and I'm tired, I wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep today.  I set off to walk from Mach to Aberhosan today and only got as far as Cwmydyrgi, 5 miles and I still had an afternoon nap.  I just have to keep going, not pressure myself and just do what I can  - things like this are sometimes easy to think but difficult to actually believe.

I don't want to be the fastest, or the best, I just want to finish what I started, however long it takes me.

Okay, I'll run though what I'm using, wearing, eating, for anyone researching a long distance walk of their own.

Rucksack is 65 litre, Berghaus, a bargain at 40 quid, although it does take in rain quite quick.

TO SLEEP
Sleeping bag, 3 season, Deuter.  It's still a little bit cold at night but will hopefully be warm enough/too warm over the summer so the underwhelming comfort now will balance out.
Sleeping bag liner - adds a couple of degrees, helps keep the bag clean
Bivvy bag, Alpkit.  Breathable but waterproof, this means I can sleep outside without a tent and still keep the sleeping bag free of damp/dew/light rain.
Sleeping mat, Thermarest.  Keeps the cold of the ground from soaking into my bones.
Tarpaulin to go under the sleepng mat, put my gear out on it, stops everything getting dirty.
Poncho, military issue, use as a waterproof during the day and shelter at night, if I can be bothered, I'd rather find a barn though to be honest.
Tent pegs, aluminium
Cord, about 3m, to make various types of shelter with the poncho, Ray Mears style.

TO WEAR
Two pairs of leggings
One skirt to wear over leggings because my bum is like, totally massive.
Three tops (that vary according to the weather, I can swap them when I pass through Mach, right now I've one long sleeved and two t shirts)
One fleece gilet
Three pairs of socks
Two pairs of liner socks
One pair of fluffy mohair bedsocks (just sentimentally, cos they were a gift, but they stop Deep Heat getting all over my sleeping bag!)
Underwear
One knitted headband, for warmth in the mornings
Waterproof jacket
Shoes - Asics fell running trainers, mens size 8 (I am normally a size 6).  I started off with a pair of Traversera fabric boots, which were bought in the stressed out run up to the walk, were too small and gave me a blister of doom, so I changed after 100 miles to a pair of full leather Meindls, they are great boots but made my plantar tendons underneath my feet start tingling and cramping so, in Bristol, after 225 miles, I changed to these fell runners and they've been brilliant, my feet can stretch out and they're light and flexible.  I just have to be a bit more careful about where I tread; can't slosh through puddles....

TO EAT
Couscous, to be made with cold water in the evenings.
Dried parmesan type cheese
Muesli, to eat with cold water in the mornings.
Whey protein, put on the muesli.
Trail mix - whatever combination of nuts, seeds, dried fruits I've put into a bag that week.  To eat all day
Multi vitamin - to round out my unbalanced diet
Glucosamine sulphate - to try and repair the joints I'm giving such a pounding
Sometimes bananas, tomatoes, boiled beetroot or carrots, depends if I've been near a shop.
Sometimes sweets, to eat with the trail mix for a slow and quick release sugar mix.
One spoon
One fork
One bowl
One Opinel knife
Aluminium water bottle, 1 litre.

OTHER STUFF, GADGETS
Compass
Safety whistle
Guidebook for whatever path I'm following, when I do the Cistercian Way it will be maps....so much more complicated.
A paperback - this is a totally uneccessary added weight, but I love reading and don't like to do it on a screen.
Phone and charger
Purse
Small notebook and pen
Postcards, stamps
A foldable keyboard - Think Outside Stowaway Keyboard - this is totally brilliant and means I can blog from a smartphone without having to use the fussy screen keyboard.  An absolutely brilliant invention and totally worth the extra 150/200 grams.
First aid kit.
Deep heat cream, for every night on my feet.
Peacocks handwarmer - another brilliant invention, runs on lighter fluid, 25ml will keep this warm for about 18 hours and it's been essential when sleeping outside on cold nights.
Tin of lighter fluid, 125ml
Matches
Cleaning kit - flannel, Lush shampoo bar which also does as soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, moon cup.  I'm pretty minimal with washing (go on, call me a stinker!), flannel doubles up as towel.
Donation tin, strapped to an arm strap of the rucksack so it's very visible and always on my front.
Two bamboo walking poles, one carrying a Welsh flag!

This all adds up to a weight of between 13 and 14 kilos, depends how much food I'm carrying.  I really wish I could carry a rucksack of 10 kilos, but I really don't know how to downsize to that extent.  I haven't gone for special lightweight gear, it costs a bomb, I just mostly used what I already had.

Stuff I did pack to begin with but took out:
A battery pack, supposedly holding up to four smartphone charges - too heavy.  I'm trying to see how I get on without it, might make a compromise if I find it really difficult to keep my phone charged.
A little diary, probably only weighed 40 grams but I wasn't using it.
Scarf, hat, gloves - they were useful at the beginning of March but too warm now.  I wish I had the gloves occasionally, if it's cold rain but not enough to get them back.
Waterproof trousers - bulky and I can use the poncho as a massive all in one.
Rucksack cover - didn't fit over the sleeping mat, can use the poncho instead
Basha - military issue shelter/tarp type thing, too heavy and I can use the poncho in emergencies.  Plus I'm getting hosted a lot more than I thought I would.
Round foam roller - to release knotted muscles.  I'm just not using it, it's too painful!!
All the extra food - just in case, just in case, just in case.  It ended up being 2 kilos of just in case.  It's Wales, there are shops everywhere, you will never need to carry more than three days of supplies.

So it was late in the afternoon, I'd slept near Hay-on-Wye the night before, wandered into the town and spent the morning lazily consuming a full English breakfast, perusing a few shelves of a bookshop (ending up with The Mayor of Casterbridge, if you're interested), sneakily washing a full set of socks and knickers in a cafe toilet as a pot of tea cooled on a table outside.  The clock struck 1pm as I left the town, 1pm and I'd walked half a mile, terrible!

I came a few miles, sat down, walked a few more over to Newchurch, sat down some more - the church there provides drinks for wanderers - and decided to try for a last three to Gladestry.  If I made it to Gladestry there was only a hill to walk over to Kington the next morning.  In Kington I could dump my rucksack with my mum and walk unencumbered for the day, bliss.


But my feet were hurting and in a serious way.  There's a deep ache tendon pain that goes away after a while or there's a sharp burning blister pain that is awful at first but you can walk through it.  This was the kind of pressure pain that comes after you've pounded your feet onto the ground, over and over again for far too long.  A time to stop walking, this is too much and the pain will not stop kind of pain.


I pulled a piece of plastic out of the hedge, one of those document wallet type things.  It was full of water and as I poured it out, out came the sad, saturated body of a mole.  So I was walking holding the plastic, irritated by no bin to put it in and how it meant I couldn't hold my walking pole properly.
The sun was setting far away over the hillside and I could see that I would arrive in Gladestry after dark.  Then the internet told me that it would rain before dawn.  I thought maybe I would find a little piece of woods where I could pitch a shelter; or maybe go for the church porch scenario. 

So these were the things that were running through my mind as I came to the sign announcing the start of the village.
There was a house by the road and a caravan in the field opposite; it was a shabby trailer kind of caravan, not a shiny white pristine, Caravan Club type.  This was probably a part of my decision making but as I stood in the road, I suddenly thought "I am going to knock on the door of that house and ask if I can sleep in their caravan."

A decision like that is a great departure from my usual self - I feel like an animal when I'm looking for a sleeping spot.  I must be safe before I pass into unconsciousness and with no walls or familiarity around me the animal part of my brain fusses and frets and won't go to sleep.

Before I could doublethink myself and slink away, with no more than a pause in my step to mark a decision made and reconsidered, I walked over to the house and knocked on the door.
"Who will be inside?" I wondered.  "What will they say?  What will I say?"
There were some faded postcards in the porch window, a burnt out tealight; I read into them and felt hopeful at the signs of potential friendly spirits within.

It happened.  A woman opened the door, about my age and with a very small baby sitting on her front in a carrier, a blanket wrapped around them both.

I took a deep breath to make sure I spoke calmly and started the unstoppable chain of unknown actions and reactions.
"Hi there, I'm doing a long distance walk around Wales and I'm camping as I go.  It looks as if there's going to be rain tonight and so I was wondering if I could sleep in your caravan across the road".
Pause.

That is how I wound up sleeping on a strangers sofa, while her and her child slept in the next room.  The people upstairs, the caravan owners sent down an Indian takeaway and a 20 pound donation.  They were all bright eyed, relaxed and friendly - perfectly capapble of coping with an outlandish stranger appearing in their lives.
Again, as in so many other times, T and I shared our stories, ate together and talked about the world.  We're both confused people in our thirties, wondering how other people have found it so easy to decide what they want to do with their lives.

I left her a postcard the next morning with the story of the crescent moon bear on the front and on the back - about the woman who goes looking for a cure in the form of a hair from the bears throat, but in the end, finds that the cure is the journey itself.  It's the same for all seekers - we will never be successful in finding ourselves, we will only ever find that we were there all along. 

Why did I do this?  Pat, the American lady who offered me a bed in Monmouth.  She said one thing that night that gave me a little internal shiver of Britishness.  "When we're on a long distance bike ride in the US" she said, "I knock on people's doors and ask them if I can have a shower."
"Oh I could never do that", I said, imagining the look on a persons face as this stranger asked to take their clothes off inside their house and wash themselves...wierd. "Oh no Pat, that's not me at all."

I've realised I might be talking about a lot of the odd things around the journey such as the people that I meet or the places that I stay rather than what it's like to spend every day walking.......so here's as post about the main event.

I get up every day except Sunday and I walk.  I pack up my rucksack, everything carefully in its place, strapped up, accessible during the days journey.  I do some stretches, which is a new thing. Since Bristol, I decided that if I'm going to actually do this thing I need to get serious about the preparation!  So, 20 minutes of stretches every day and a few after each rest stop.  I'm basically a ball of aches already so I need to stretch out to make sure my body is as fluid as it can be.

If I'm staying with someone there's usually some kind of delay - interesting conversation or a drive to the path, meaning I don't get started until 10 or so.

If I've camped then the delay is my staring time - sleeping outside in the way that I do means I don't always sleep as deeply as in a bed so even though I wake with the dawn it takes me a few hours of first dozing, then sitting up and staring, then eating breakfast very slowly then a bit more staring before I get up and going, usually to start walking by 9 at the latest.

And then I walk, all day, for hours.  At the moment it's the Offa's Dyke Path which is green and luscious and beautiful but is also hilly and muddy.  The ground is still saturated from the winter so it doesn't take much rain before it's muddy everywhere; when I stop walking and become silent sometimes I can hear the glugs and gurgles as water slowly seeps into the ground or downhill to the waterways.

I walk and walk and walk.  When it's easy I stride along, feeling great  trying to lengthen my stride to work the muscles in my thighs instead of stomping on my calves.   When it's hard my feet hurt in multiple ways and it's time to stop for a rest.  About every couple of hours I'll take 20 minutes or so to put my feet up, eat something from the never shrinking bag of trail mix, drink some water.

Water is always on my mind.  I only carry a litre bottle so I have to find open cafes or pubs to replenish me or even knock on doors, feeling like a pain when I do it, so British of me.  If there's no water source then I have to save water, which I shouldn't, really.  Doing something like this is a constant monitoring against dehydration and lack of energy, if I don't keep topped up, I can't walk.  There's no going hungry for a day, or thinking wow, I didn't drink very much yesterday.  I won't have the energy to go tomorrow if I do that.

The Offa's Dyke Path is more difficult than the Severn Way, last month I was following a river down to the sea so it was either downhill or flat.  The ODP isn't - it switchbacks constantly, up and down; tomorrow I'll cross the Black Mountains, well one of them anyway, I'll climb about 400 metres then walk 10 miles along a hill ridge and descend to Hay-on-Wye.  It hurts my calves.

I'm managing about 12 miles a day at the moment, trying to increase the distance to 15 as soon as I can.  It's not easy as I'm overloaded with stuff.  16 kilos, I can't believe it.  Mostly extra food, which I need to munch through as soon as possible, I'll much my way down to a manageable 14 kilos.

So that's what I do, daily.  I just walk, sometimes at a moderate speed, sometimes slowly.  I walk and I look at what's around me.  Today I saw signposts stranded alone in fields, I saw a faded medieval painting on the wall of a church, I saw the sun rise over a castle, hundreds of spring flowers and three black nosed lambs sitting by a stile.  Every so often there's an abandoned, falling down house that I want to buy and make my own, live in forever and grow vegetables, be a hermit writer, sell it for a profit, learn to weave, set up an arts centre, a workspace, a B&B, become self sufficient, leave it to rot and go travelling, never live in Britain, stay here forever.  My mind races more quickly than my body, I am moving across the land at the slowest human pace.

In shocking news from Monmouth last night, Ursula Martin, the former carer currently undertaking a brave and epic walk around Wales went to stay in the house of a couple she met in a pub and emerged the next morning unscathed. "I was wary at first but I went with my years of experience interacting with other humans and in the end I just felt I could trust them" she reported from the forest further along the way.

In shocking scenes where nothing newsworthy happened, the 34 year old mother of none was invited into the house of people she didn't know and no sex crimes, assaults, kidnappings or murder took place. "We just ate frittata and talked about travelling." she said, seeming to smile happily. "It felt just like the olden days, before the media did so much to create fear and mistrust in our society."


More updates on these happy times coming soon.

In other underreported news
-Eating less and exercising more will make you healthier.
-A lot of what you think is important actually isn't in the grand scheme of all things.
-The sun continues to rise and set on a world full of struggling people who are just trying to be happy.