Nodge's Travels

The final day of our UK Camino. Frankly, we're just delighted to be able to get the chance to finish it, as if we'd believed the weather forecasts earlier in the week we'd have been swimming it. Nevertheless we awoke at 6.30 to skies the colour of Ribena. The revised forecast promised an entirely dry day. Wrong! We started in what could be best be described as mizzle. The first place we arrived at was Shawford, and its slightly famous Bridge Inn. Only slightly famous as it is where kindred spirit Victor Meldrew died in One Foot In The Grave. Indeed, I still "don't believe it!". Where poor old Victor snuffed it Next stop from Shawford was Allbrook, a mere 3 miles and just 1 hour away. Wrong again! The rain from the previous evening and night had severely impacted the path. Yet again much of path seemed to have a river/stream on either side of it, and consequently it was prone to either flooding, or standing water. It was pretty bloody awful. The 4.5 miles to a ...

Should we stay, or should we go? Well the forecast improved marginally, with rain now almost certain to hit Winchester between 2 and 3pm. An early start would make it viable to at least get to the centre of England’s former capital without getting soaked. And so, at 7.40 that we left our AirBnB with enough gear to get through 2 days and to Southampton. Now I realise that the more delicate readers of these epistles have not always liked the detail regarding blisters. It is very heartening to report no such issues so far. Slightly sore feet, yes; but no blisters. Those delicate readers may however, wish to jump to the next paragraph at this point……..Sadly there has been quite some discomfort ion my legs and technical areas due to chafing. Supersonic Sudocrem has been a godsend. However, today I’ve been experimenting with with different underwear.  Matron suggested that even the softest, fluffiest of M & S’s boxer short range might be bettered by a return to more old-fashioned tra...