Woke in the morning and we were both pretty amazed that the stiff legs of the night before had miraculously sorted themselves out through the night.Encouraged by this revelation we managed to get down to Breakfast in a much quicker time that the same journey to dinner last night. Whether that was to do with the nights rest or the fact a full English breakfast was waiting we will never know.
Breakfast eaten and fat reserves very much replenished we were then joined by Sean and Suzanne’s brother Gaz. The injection of fresh legs, bad jokes and conversation should hopefully have a positive effect.
The main worry here is the fact that Gaz in an officer in the RAF and having just completed training is extremely fit, especially compared the us! The assumption is that we will watch him “yomp” off into the distance and arrive at the hotel a good couple of hours ahead of us, but the advantage being is he can get the first round in!
Thankfully, the sun was shining with just a bit of cloud about, as we set off on the first leg of the day, a 10 mile stretch of straight road which is the old A1 that runs parallel to the A1(M). The problem with straight roads is that you can see along way ahead! We had set off at a good pace unfortunately after a couple of miles the rain started. Dave, ever prepared, got out his emergency rain poncho, the combination of thin polythene, rain and wind meant an almighty struggle to get it on, much too all our amusement. The girls arrived after a few more miles to feed us and re-stock on drink, and Dextrose sweets (more about those later!) They then went on ahead to prepare for a collection in Huntingdon town centre where we would arrive about 1330.
We had been keeping up a very good pace as we entered The Stukeleys. The sign for the local church had Stukeley spelt using a crucifix as the “t” which made it appear as St Ukelely and as pointed out by Sean made it read “St Ukelele” needless to say the next few minutes were consumed by a myriad of very bad puns and impressions of George Formby!
We arrived into Huntingdon pretty much on schedule where we met Suzanne and Jo blowing up balloons as fast as they could and collecting money. They had been joined but Christoph Borst as colleague of Martin’s from TfL who had kindly offered to come out and help us for the day. Christoph had been persuaded into the bear costume and standing well over 6’ tall made quite an imposing sight, even though out first glimpse of him was sans head which although amusing to us would probably put many kids nearby into years of therapy!
The balloons were going quickly so while we all chipped in to blow more up and attach to sticks Sean with bear in tow went back out on the street to collect. Sean, not be the shyest person in the world then went work on the good people of Huntingdon extracting cash. His technique (closely guarded secret) could best be described as
“mugging with a smile”.The combination of the Bear, Balloons and Sean’s all out assault meant the collection in amongst the fairly regular down pours was very good. After a couple of hours the rain meant we hat to call it a day collecting. A huge thanks to Christoph for taking the time out to help he seemed to enjoy being the bear a bit too much, especially the cuddles with the big girls!
As we walked through the town we came across “Barney’s Plaice”
which was probably an omen. However, there lure of a pint of Guinness or Magners in the pub across the road proved to be a bigger pull. We found a nice sofa and got a bit too comfy, but were entertained by Sean and his selection of magic. We had to haul ourselves out of the pub and get moving as we were sill only halfway through the day!The walk out of Huntingdon (in the pouring rain) took us through for a few miles into the countryside, a guy in a van pulled up and said “I don’t where you are going but you look like you could do with a lift” we explained what we were doing and he drove off, nice though I guess but cash would have been nicer. Soon we entered the wonderfully named villages of Offord Cluny and Offord D’arcy. These very nice “chocolate box” villages with wonderful old buildings unfortunately rattled fairly regularly but the GNER trains on the east coast mainline thundering past at 140mph.
As we wandered on we were met buy a couple walking towards us, and to our amazement they turned out to be Dave and Margaret Hiller (Dave being Martin’s boss at TfL) they had worked out from out online itinerary where we’d be and had parked up a few miles further up and had walked back to meet us, prompting cries of “thank god we didn’t get a taxi!) they had also seemed to bring the sun with them too giving us a chance to dry out. The next couple of miles seemed to fly by and the positive effect of moral support and new conversation really does give you a renewed energy and takes your mind off the pain. Thank you Dave, your timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Even though you could have given us a lift!
We left Dave at Great Paxton and watch enviously has he got in his car and drove off! We were heartened to see a sign stating the St. Neots was only “4 miles” and seemed to be pretty much downhill or flat! The pain in my feet was starting to get unbearable, so I had to resort to the mp3 player and The Stranglers greatest hits loud in the ears, which saw me stomp off into a commanding lead over the other three, even though I was oblivious to the fact until on reaching St Neots I was a considerable distance ahead, the problem then came as I stopped for them to catch up, the feet seemed to spontaneously combust. The problem with the “St Neots 4” sign was psychologically it was 4 miles to the end, what hadn’t sunk in at the time was that the hotel is the other side of the town and consequently a further 3 miles! This mental blow along with a lot of pain all around meant the last hours walk seemed a lifetime just to keep us company the rain threw it down for the last mile. We arrived 
at the hotel and promptly all headed for the bath of cold water, prepared earlier by Suzanne, you could almost see the steam rise from the water and the feet went in, all noise drowned out by the mixed cries of relief and pain from the four of us! All that was left was to muster for dinner, the obligatory meal, pint and total seize up!We had a good day and had kept up a blistering pace (as Sean’s feet can confirm) so we were all very happy with the day’s events and pace and somehow I managed to be the first to the bar, not Gaz. A great effort by Suzanne, Jo and Christoph saw them collect over £100 in those few wet hours in Huntingdon.
The major revelation of the day however was that after borrowing Dave’s sandals to go to the bar, Sean discovered that after 20 years of wearing a size 11 he was probably actually a size 13!
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