Into April...

Out on April Fools Day with Norbert Slowgrove for the longest training walk so far. We invited The FISH, Ruddski and The Silent Assassin, but to no avail.

The FISH said he'd lost his phone, so never got the message and Ruddski said Lady Dawnie had already got his whole weekend planned. I've only recently realised that he does exactly what he's told at home and the Effin' and Blinding Man of the People character only exists when he's at work.

By the way, The Silent Assassin DOES exist, He's not a figment of my imagination. It's just that he's training for the London Marathon at the moment. I always ask him if he wants to join us for a walk and although he's to polite to say it, you can see that he's thinking "You silly old twat, you think I need to train with you and Norbert when I'm running 26 smegging miles in a couple of weeks ?"

The weather started off grey and cloudy with that poxy, biting north easterly wind that I loathe.

We started at Great Bromley church, set off through the back lanes to the edge of Lawford, across the fields to Flatford Mill, on to East Bergholt, then over no man's land for several miles. By this time I was starving, so tucked in to the smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches, with a few mini chocolate Easter eggs for good measure, stolen from Jamie's rucksack. We reached Bentley (Suffolk) via Holly Wood and Dodnash Wood, where the sun managed to struggle (and stay) out. From here we headed back via East End, over the river at Brantham and on to Manningtree, where we were going to have a break.

By this time we'd done about 13/14 miles and my only interest was that the cafe MUST be open as I was desperate for a hot drink. Luckily it was and we had a drink and snack before continuing on to Mistley and Bradfield.

At Bradfield we took a path along the top of Mistley, by the rugby club and through Furze Hill wood, where we stopped to pose for a photo with Old Knobbley, an oak tree that's reckoned to be 800 years old ( bit of local history for you, good solid facts. I'm not making this up you know ) .

That's me with Old Knobbley, that is

Below - The gayest man in Essex

By this time the feet were starting to ache a bit, so we changed from walking boots to trainers for the last few miles, which made it a bit more comfortable, as we followed the lanes back to via Little Bromley to Great Bromley church.

A total of 23 miles in 6 hours 10 minutes actual walking. With stops, about 7 hours.

If we were doing the "real thing", we'd have another 39 miles to do. Hmm....