I'll get the good stuff out of the way first, before I get negative, I've had a lovely couple
of days staying with my friend Heloise, who has been an amazing help...cooking me delicious
food and giving me dangerous drinks. I walked from the Hafren Forest to Llanidloes,
saw lambs, snowdrops, sunshine on hillsides (no copper kettles or raindrops on roses though).
As I walked through Llani someone shouted and cheered me from outside a pub, it turned out
the lady recognised me from Facebook....so I got invited into the Stag for a coffee by the
vivacious Suzanne - also in there were some people I hitched with two years ago, a great
coincidence.
Today I met someone on the road called Shirley Phillips, who, on hearing what I'm doing,
pulled a fiver out of her pocket and gave it straight to me. The amount of interest and
support I'm receiving is just incredible, it puts a big smile on my face.
But the other side of the picture is this......
It started out pretty small....a perfectly ordinary, fingernail sized blister on the back
of my heel- it appeared at the end of the second day, after I'd walked over Plynlimon,
spending most of the day with soaking wet feet after having to wade through a river at about
11am.
so I put on a blister plaster out of my first aid kit. Then, as I walked from the Hafren
Forest to Llanidloes my foot became more and more painful and I discovered the plaster had
slipped....but also remained stuck to my skin.....so I now have a blister the size of the
blister plaster...about an inch square. Oh shit.
I've done another 13 miles today, am in Newtown and my foot is really throbbing. The first
11 miles were fine, I was striding out, in pain but enjoying myself, meeting lovely people,
following the path through woods, fields and farms, Caersws the only town. But the last
couple of miles were terrible, my feet felt like stones as I hobbled along the back road
to Newtown.
What do I do? Keep going? Rest a couple of days? Give up? Give all the money back?
Leave the country?
My auntie lives in Shrewsbury, if I can make it there, maybe I can rest for a couple of days.
Just another 40 miles. I guess I'll see how tomorrow goes. Keep padded up....and just go
as far as I can.
Tonight I'm staying with a friend of Heloise's, Karen, or maybe Binky? She's fed and showered
me and I have a massive sofa to sleep on. Let's see how I feel tomorrow morning....