A rather odd thing happened today...our plan was to get dropped off by the owners of last night's b&b at the Robin Hood Inn, then walk along the wall for a little bit then drop down to follow a more interesting alternative route that would take us through Ovingham. A close family friend, Murray Haig, lives in Prudhoe just over the river from Ovingham so we would take a minor detour to stay with him for the night.
The day started with us walking the wrong direction from the Robin Hood Inn in order to get to a farm shop we had passed in the car. It wasn't actually open yet so we went on one of their walks to kill 20 minutes. We then spent a good hour eating ice cream (yes, 10am was a bit early for icecream but it was too good to resist), choosing a gift for Murray and selecting a fabulous cheese scone for our lunch (What is the fastest type of cake? A scone!). After the previous disappointing farm shop, we felt we should make the best of this one at Vallum Farm, which was really rather good...
Eventually we got on our way, walking in the right direction. When the time came for us to leave the wall path and walk down to Ovingham, a strange sense of attachment to the little acorn markers that highlight the trail came over us, so we decided to carry on a little and take another footpath a little later on that would then join to the alternative route. Oddly enough, the same thing happened again when we got there. So we carried on walking, almost all the way along the wall that we were going to avoid with the alternative route. The scenery was actually quite pleasant even though we had been told it would be dull, and we saw lots of little frogs! Then, in order to get to Murrays we walked back along the alternative route, effectively doubling the days distance. Why would anyone do that out of choice?! These paths were much less well maintained but made for a more interesting route. In one place, however, a farmer had nailed barbed wire across a bridge that was part of the right of way (both illegal and infuriating) which gave us no option but to climb over one of his gates at the bottom of the field.
The weather today was hot and quite sunny and I have gorgeous tan lines from my socks haha! Murray spoilt us tonight with a delicious dinner and a glass of wine.
Prayer requests:
Thank God for so much more energy today, and fabulous people like Murray!
That the tarmac tomorrow will not cause too much knee and hip pain
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