I'm trying to limit my speed again; as I did the last time I was in the Conwy area, remember?  Around the start of May it was, as I came up the final stretches of the Offa's Dyke Path, when I managed to re-crack a tooth, on crisps this time, on the Saturday of a Bank Holiday weekend and followed that up by straining my foot on the miles of concrete between Prestatyn and Colwyn Bay.  I wound up having ten days rest back in Machynlleth, unable to chew on one side of my mouth and unable to put my right foot to the ground.  I came back to the Conwy valley rested but still in pain.  Some days I'd walk just four miles, some days pushing it to six or seven.  It wasn't until I reached Llangollen on the river Dee and met Sarah Mann who showed me how to strap my foot up and my mileage could increase again.  Well, months later and I'm back to injury and limitations.  As my mileage has crept up, so has my foot pain, it's fine while I'm walking but keeps me shuffling and hobbling as soon as I've been sitting for a while and with a new spicy ingredient in the long-term injury mix - bouts of shooting pain through my heels, sharp, sporadic and coming whether I'm walking or resting.  It's time to ease off again, it's either that or stop, or rest.  I'm not in the mood for resting; I had two full weeks off over June and July to attend a couple of festivals and it feels too soon to have another week.  I'm sensitive to the end of the summer too, it feels as if I need to walk now to save the Winter miles that will surely come later.  It need not be said that I am definitely not quitting, not even thinking about it, yet.  So I'm experimenting with slow walking again, as I did up the Conwy valley in May.  It's harder, in a way, to keep my pace slow.  I have to consciously take smaller steps, ease back when the rest of my body wants to stride out on a lovely flat forestry track.  I become very aware of the hours in a day that I am spending simply walking.  I don't use any distractions like music or radio, a lot of long distance walkers write of the poetry they recited as they strode.  Patrick Leigh Fermor would renact great swathes of Shakespeare as his nimble, greatcoated, 19 year old self made his cheerful, optimistic way across pre-war Europe.  I sing snatches of songs as they come to mind, usually just one or two lines that I can repeat over and over.  "I don't care how you get there, just get there if you can".  I'm not sure what I do all day, just think, it seems.  I'm not even sure what about.  I'm not bored, never bored and I'm not lonely, although I do appreciate company.  I suppose walking slowly makes me more aware of the great distance I have still to cover - a whole day has passed today and I have only covered eight miles.  Eight miles!  And I am trying to walk 3000!!!  I am a small snail who has set out to cross a mountain, one pebble at a time.
However, never mind how slow I feel.  It is good for my feet.  The reduced mileage and some magical stuff called Muscle Oil which I picked up in my local healthfood shop.  There is no list of ingredients but the name of the maker - Richard Evans, Bonesetter, Pwllheli - the date, est 1800 and the picture of said Mr. Evans, a respectable gentleman in a suit, white hair and round glasses is enough to satisfy me.  I rub it on my feet at night and the shooting pains have diminished.  Whatever will enable me to crawl towards and COMPLETE this 3000+ mile challenge is what I will do, even if I must chafe at a ten mile daily pace for the whole of the remaining 2000 miles.
I've come over from Dolgellau since I last wrote.  I walked from Machynlleth, up through the quarry behind Aberllefenni and down to the main road again where I hitched back to Mach and spent a very nice weekend with my brother, in town to ride in a mountain bike race.
Come last Sunday I hitched back to my starting point, walked to Dolgellau, finding yet another stuck sheep on the way, this time in a cattle grid (!) and was lucky enough to be offered a last minute bed.  I was feeling tired and groggy after three days of rest - turns out that three days is just enough to relax and start to feel all the aches and pains of a body coming out of fast pace but not long enough to cure them all and I couldn't face camping in the rain that I knew was coming that night.  I walked into a pub to ask if they had rooms and walked out with Sue and Pete, a very kind couple who offered me a bed. 
I walked from Dolgellau to Trawsfynydd to Blaenau Ffestiniog and to here, Capel Curig.  It's taken four days, something that would take most walkers two at most....but I'm not comparing, I never do that (yeah right).  I wild camped all three nights, first against a stone wall about half a mile out of Coed Y Brenin, I made a rudimentary shelter that failed to keep out the rain and woke up soggy around the edges.  It was a beautiful days walk into Trawsfynydd and out again; I was in search of a cafe and a sit down but the two cafes in the village had closed down.  The kind people in the shop offered me a cup of tea and brought a stool outside for me to sit down for a while.  It started to rain again as I sat working out my onward journey on the map but I didn't mind.  Getting slightly wet is going to be the norm from now on, I can already feel my reaction to mild rain getting to be almost the same as no rain at all.
That night I slept in a beautiful field - I wanted to say meadow but I don't think the grass was long enough to qualify - I came down through the forestry and into the valley of the river Cynfal.  I lay on the remnants of a Roman road and read the Mabinogion, finally coming to the story of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the climax of which took place by the same river I was lying by.  It rained overnight but I didn't mind, I'd made a great, if slightly sagging shelter and I was happy, cosy and slept tolerably well, rising before 8 which is always a sign of a good night's sleep for me.
It was a half day, even a quarter day yesterday, just a short 5 mile stroll into Blaenau Ffestiniog, where I could shower, shop and recharge my phone.  I took a short day yesterday so I could walk a full day today and come down into Capel Curig where I'll meet Shan, my excellent host for the night, provider of shower, a bed, a drying room and safety.
Finally for my third wild camp in a row, I came up the sharp climb of Blaenau Ffestiniog quarry last night, stopping to admire my final view of the Trawsfynydd power station towers before continuing to....the end of the footpath!  I could see on the map that there was a gap between the path which climbed through the quarry and another which snaked its way around the lakes and down to Dolwyddelan but thought there'd be a way through somehow.  I didn't expect a dead end, a hundred metres above the quarry working below, surrounded by rusty machinery and slate piles.  I dropped my rucksack and had a scout around, there were a couple of ways up the final slopes of slate and shale, none seeming too attractive but I spotted a way to climb onto a bank of grass leaving just a 10 metre scramble up the shale and rock with only a small drop and a flat bit below it reducing further the very small chance of my rolling down the hill in a flurry of rock.  Holding my breath I moved slowly from foot step to foot step, the heavy rucksack on my back changes my balance in a way that makes it very difficult to go up steep slopes, I resorted to hands to pull me up the final few steps and I was out on grassland again, above the quarry and free to walk over the moorland towards the forestry and down into the next village.  But that was for the next day, first I must sleep.  I walked through the boggy grass and headed for a slate tower, old mine workings meant that there's be a layer of stone between me and the squelchy ground.  Perfect, a raised platform, long grassed over and with an incredible view back down over the quarry, the surrounding mountains and even the sea.  The weather forecast gave a clear night so I decided to chance it and settled down for a night in the bivvy bag.  There was a low stone wall along one side of the creation and it was the windbreak I needed, I snuggled down into my sleeping bag, hood up and dozed off.  Rain.  It rained.
Let me tell you that there are not many worse feelings than to be lying in a sleeping bag in the rain with very little that you can do to avoid the inevitable drenching.  It happened when I'd been asleep for a while, maybe 11pm, I was too close to sleep to jump up and take action, there wasn't any action to take anyway, all I could do in that situation would be to lose body heat and make myself and the inside of my sleeping bag wet as I fumbled in the dark and rain, trying to string up some half arsed shelter.  Nope, better to stay put and ride it out, take the punishment for my laziness.  It rained, off and on, in a light drizzle kind of way for a few hours overnight.  I stayed warm and dry - the inside of my bag did anyway.  The outside and the bivvy bag got wet.  Sigh.  It's times like this that I am so thankful for the people who offer to host me so I never have to suffer the ultimate penalty for my shoddy adventuring skills which would be to bed down for the night in a wet sleeping bag.
Today has been pretty spectacular, in only eight miles from Blaenau to Capel Curig I've managed to say goodbye to southern Snowdonia, view two seas at once, the upper piece of Cardigan Bay and the Irish Sea beyond Conwy and walk around Moel Siabod and get a view of the Glyders.  I'm into serious mountain territory and it's a little intimidating to think that in a few weeks time I won't be skirting round the feet of these mountains but going over the tops of them, one summit after another.  It will be a test, a serious test, as if the first 1300 miles was training!  I'm not sure how well I'll manage this but, as usual, all I can do is try.  I have a map and compass, I'm certain of my survival skills and my stamina and I just have to take it slow and steady.  It seems that this is my mantra for this sizeable journey, too big to be devoured in one push I must take it.....slow and steady, slow and steady.

It's only about two weeks ago that I wrote about my pain and worry.  It was true, at the time, but somehow things have improved over the last week or so, even though I'm still battling away at the same task.  I remember thinking last week, when things were hard, when my feet hurt, when I felt bored of seeing the same scenery of hills and farmland and country roads - is it going to be like this for the whole of the rest of the walk? Where I feel slightly fed up and underwhelmed by the relentless parade of greenery before me.  There was a sense of simply trudging the miles away, battling the pain and just plod plod plodding to the end.
Well guess what?  It's changed!
I think that the last few weeks across South Wales and Carmarthenshire have covered a lot of road walking, sometimes the entire day on tarmac, my feet stay in the same position, just slapping down on the unyielding surface over and over again in a way that makes them throb and ache.  As I've moved off the road and my path has taken me into forest and field once again my feet can twist and bend to take account of the ever changing surface they find themselves upon; it really helps with the tendon and ligament pain that I experience daily.
I've also moved north and found myself again in the place I call home.  I felt the same as I came off the Offa's Dyke Path and onto the Glyndwr's Way - as I move into the landscape of high moorland and quiet pine forestry I find the land familiar to me.  Where the farms are more spread out and up on the high lands there are heather, bracken and bilberries; miles of waving yellow grasses and squelchy peat bog.  Where unprofitable small farms have been handed down, amalgamated into large stretches of mountain sheep territory and the houses are empty, abandoned, heaps of stones and wavering, solitary chimneys, maybe a rusting bedstead.

The day I walked from Cymystwyth I came into my real home territory, the wildness of Plynlimon and the Nant-Y-Moch reservoir, leading down to the town of Machynlleth.  I left my home more than five months ago, packed up, gave notice and set off to walk to hospital.  I walked away from Mach, up the single track road towards my newly old house at the head of the Uwchygarreg valley and past it, up to the highlands of Hyddgen and the slopes of Plynlimon where Glyndwr's army defeated Henry's soldiers so many years ago.  I walked to the bridge across the small river trickling down towards the reservoir where it would turn into the river Rheidol and turned left to go up the mountain, it was the start of my journey to hospital; I had to walk up Plynlimon, find the source of the river Severn and follow it all the way to Bristol.
This time, last week, I was walking towards home; not returning, just passing through, visiting.  I gave a gasp of shock as I saw the clump of pine trees by the bridge, remembering that cold March morning that I struggled slowly through the boggy ground and up the mountain, my feet in too tight boots that would give me blisters by the end of the day, my plump body in no condition for physical work, grown soft through months of driving and working, no time left for preparation for this massive challenge.  All that drove me forward was an idea, the belief that I could do this, simply put one foot in front of the other for months at a time until the small steps grew into a journey stretching for thousands of miles.  Now, months later, I am returning to my home landscape, having walked for five months and covered almost 1300 miles.  I may not be in the best condition, my feet particularly are suffering and close to injury but I am doing it, slowly and steadily.  I walked down through the valley as the light dimmed, the waterfall, the forestry plantations lining the steep sides.  I came down through the field that G uses for silage, past my old house, the place I came to in the aftermath of cancer, the small house where I curled, alone, and healed.
The barns were still the same, falling down, the fields hadn't changed, the cars in the driveways belonged to the same people.  New windows on a house, a replaced gatepost.  Here was the road I walked two or three times a week to go down into Machynlleth, the familiar dips, the views of Cader Idris, the same chapel, corners and trees.  It was still the same, just me who was different, turning up at old friends houses, door slamming open with the wind to reveal a hooded, rain dripping, rugged wanderer, seeking shelter and perhaps some sustenance.  I felt as if I'd been gone for years, so much have I lived over the last five months and it was a surprise to find my friends still the same, baby a few months older, walking, playing, bread being baked, vegetables grown and good meals cooked.  Raspberries slowly infusing into a bottle of gin.
Now, even a few days after that, so quickly does time pass, I've walked away from Machynlleth and come back to it for a weekend off.  My feet were fine for a few days and then suddenly came an excess of shooting pains through the heels.  It's hard to say what the problem is, so sensitive are they to small changes - could be the fact that I hadn't stretched for a couple of days, or perhaps that I didn't rest on the final day's walk, simply striding out for twelve miles, or it could be that the last few days have been a 15 mile day, a 20 mile day, a 5 mile day and a 14 mile day, maybe a little too intensive for my feet.  I feel as if I'm teetering on the brink of serious injury, just a little more overforcing of my body will break it. 
I want, very deeply, to complete what I have started; it will not feel good to stop.  So I must manage this very carefully.  I would rather walk very slowly, ten miles a day and complete this walk over the course of a year than to have to stop.  I very much hope that I can do this.

How am I now?
I'm having a day off, thanks to a woman who runs an organic farm near Brechfa - she's provided me with a room, a double bed and a whole day in her house to do with as I please.  I'm mostly watching tv and eating crisps, mixed in with little naps.  It's a day to rub my feet, stretch luxuriously and other than that, move around as little as possible.

I had a rough count up today and I've walked 1200 miles in the last five months - that's the Offa's Dyke Path, the Glyndwr's Way, the rivers Severn, Conwy and Dee and about half of the Cistercian Way.

How am I?  Tired.  It's been a bit of a trudge the last couple of weeks - the novelty of beautiful Wales has worn off a bit and I'm no longer amazed each time I reach the top of a hill.  Rolling farmland and wind turbines?  Seen it, many times over.  It's not that I'm miserable; it's just become a mundanity - walking, it's what I do, for hours, every day.  I don't love it, I don't hate it.

My body, most of it, is bearing up pretty well.  No pain in my neck, shoulders or back.  My legs could go on for miles and miles, it's just my feet are letting me down.  I'm in a lot of pain in my feet every day, the tendons and ligaments are strained.  I hobble every evening and morning before I get into my stride and the rest of my muscles begin working properly.  I'm even starting to get pains in my legs, ankles and feet at night, shooting pains in the bones and joints, my legs twitch and I have to take painkillers to sleep. 
At the moment I think the main foot problem is my recent change of shoes.  Every small thing that I do to my feet, new shoes, different insoles, taping them up, even a different pair of socks affects them in a new way and takes time, and days of new pain to adjust to it.  It's as if I'm experimenting to try and get to where my feet don't hurt but every thing I do might make the pain much much worse. 

I changed my shoes two weeks ago, for exactly the same style I've been wearing for the last 800 miles but half a size smaller - we're talking a men's size 7.5 instead of an 8, normally I wear a women's size 6.  In the previous pair of shoes I was wearing I had a blue foam wedge under the left heel and a disintegrating pair of gel insoles.  They all went with the old pair of shoes, I wore the new ones with first no insoles, then a pair of foam ones and then, after I realised that the pain in my feet wsa becoming severe and the tendon pain I already experience in my right foot was spreading to the left, a pair of gel insoles with an extra gel wedge under my left heel.  Fine, foot pain is diminished (but still very present) but now my shoes feel too small with all the layers of insoles in there.  Should I have gone for the bigger shoes I was used to?  Even though they had a good inch extra at the end of the shoe?  And what do I do now?  Do I change again?  More money on shoes and more stress trying to find an address I can have the shoes posted to at a place I can pick them up while I'm continuing to walk.  It's very hard doing this by myself - I've had to rely on the shops I find enroute as to what quality of insoles I can buy.  The crap foam ones were in a fishing shop in Caerphilly, the better gel ones were an outdoor shop in Tenby.  I wish there was a magic support fairy I could just turn to at the end of the day and have them fix all my problems for me - I'll buy maps for you Ursula, foot rub? 
I recently read the story of Spud and Tess; the woman who walked around the UK about 20 years ago.  She managed 20 miles a day and raised tens of thousands of pounds for charity but the fact she had a campervan following her and a walk committee of 20 people helping her organise just makes me gnash my teeth!

I think I can carry on and finish, but it hurts and I don't know how I can make it hurt less.

I'm also looking ahead to Autumn and Winter walking.  I was originally set to finish this walk in October.  I could have done that if I walked 19 miles a day - every day.  I seriously planned this walk by making a list of all the paths I wanted to walk and then dividing that by the number of days between hospital appointments and then nodding.  Yes I can walk 19 miles a day, simple as that.  Yeah right.  What was I thinking? 
So, what do I do?  What's more important to me, the timescale or the distance?  The distance.  So I keep walking.

But rain is coming, Autumn is coming, Winter is coming.  I need to plan ahead for rain and cold temperatures.  I've had a wonderful summer, the kind where I can just put down my tarpaulin and sleeping bag and sleep under the stars.  I don't even own a tent!  This needs to change.  I survived a night of heavy rain the other night in my basher - an army style tarpaulin shelter but I woke up in the morning and found a slug in my hair.  Things need to change - that can only happen once.

In summary, I'm ok, I'm tired, I'm in pain but of course this was going to happen eventually.  I can't waltz through this, it had to get hard some time and now it is, the trick is how I deal with it and keep going.