It's been a tough few days since unfortunately. I finished work at 4am on Monday morning, slept until 10am then got up to begin the travel to mid-Wales. A lift to Cardiff, a train to Swansea, another train to Llandrindod Wells, a visit to a supermarket, I found a peaceful allotment and sat eating food until it got dark and then nestled into my sleeping bag. I couldn't sleep. It was too early, the time I was used to start work, not start sleeping. I turned and turned and turned all night.
Nevertheless, I was up the next morning, 8am, on the road, hitched a lift to the small road leading down backwards towards Abbeycwnhir. I stopped at the small shop to buy two litres of water then sat reading my book as I drank, slowly. I was very dehydrated I think. Not much water has passed my lips over the last week.
A steady 8 miles to Abbeycwmhir. I sat in the church for a few hours, reading then knocked on the kitchen window of the pub and asked if they'd open up for me. They did and I had another couple of hours trying to blog before making my bed in a field on the site of the Cistercian Abbey that used to be there.
Up again, with the light but that day wasn't so good. Sickness, diarrhea, fuzzy head. Rebecca and Phil came to meet me - Rebecca is the woman who walked 1000 miles around Wales two months ago, she and her husband have been wonderful hosts. Rebecca and I walked a slow 8 miles over the hills down to Llanfihangel Rhydeithon before they whisked me home for rest and recuperation. I was slow and unsteady, sickness gradually getting better. I drank lots but didn't eat anything.
Now I'm having a morning off; frantically trying to do as many computer things as I can.......email newspapers, update my website, blog, make online payments, upload photos. It's days like this that I miss a support team, people working away in the background to make everything run smoothly so that I don't have to worry about things like a broken shampoo bag or a dress that needs mending or buying suncream or glue for my shoes.
My shoes are breaking; hopefully they'll last until Hay-on-Wye where I can buy glue in an outdoor shop and mend them until I can arrange to receive a new pair.
Rebecca will return in an hour and then we're going to walk together for the afternoon. She'll drop me back at the church and drive around to the other side of a beautiful set of hills and walk up to meet me. So tonight I get one more night of rest and pampering before I set out again - off down towards Hay-on-Wye and then.......across the bottom of South Wales for the first time! Can't wait.....