Solo Training Walk (27km Stockley Park to High Wycombe ... The Long Walk Home II)

Slightly delayed getting out of work means a bit of flustration along the stretch to West Drayton. A bloke on a mountain bike is shouting at someone on his phone and there's an I go right, he goes right, I go left he goes left moment when it looks like one or both of us is going to end up in the canal. He says something in Polish which probably translates into English as "I say old chap, recalibrate your radar or we may end up in the drink" or possibly "Get out of the way you moron". I respond with a witty "Dowiedz sie, jak cykl w linii prostej jest cholernym idiota", which makes him chuckle in the way that a serial killer might chuckle. I'm saved by the fact that he can't cycle, phone and fracture my skull all at the same time.

At this point I have a phone call from home to tell me I don't have suncream on.
"How does she know?"
This requires a detour along Yiewsley High Street. I can buy lots of things at the pharmacy but no suncream, so I'm forced to run the gauntlet of TOWIM (The Only Way Is Middlesex) wannabees at premier department store Wilkinsons. As I enter the store a voice over the tannoy says "Security Code 100". I take this to mean that any minute now, a burly security guard is going to jump out from behind Home Furnishings and wrestle me to the ground until my rucksack has been immobilised. Presumably the security guard is on his break because I make it to the suncream display without been accosted. Other than a dodgy brand that I've never heard of, I have the choice of Nivea at £5 or Wilko own brand at £3, which is no choice at all really. You can take the boy out of the North, but you can't take the North out of the boy. Outside the shop the reason for the price differential becomes obvious. Wilko suncream has the consistency of a 1:1 mix of PVA glue and beef dripping. After 5 minutes of vigorous rubbing, no cream has actually been assimilated and it looks like I have particularly nasty skin complaint. At least if I fall in the canal my face won't get wet.

Just then the sun goes in.

The Residents get punchy over a misplaced apostrophe

To get back onto the canal towpath, I engage in a one man protest against Tesco by wilfully walking through their car park with no intention of making a purchase.
"Ha!  That'll show them".
As usual Tesco have the last laugh by displaying a sign that says "Resident's Parking Only". They've obviously done their homework about my grammar/spelling OCD.
I put on my casual "Ho, ho, I'm sure that's because only one resident can park there" face, but it doesn't work and I can almost hear the evil chortling of the man watching the CCTV.

"Curse you Mr Tesco"

A stone in my right shoe provides a timely distraction. I go through the usual rigmarole of taking my shoe off and shaking the nonexistent stone out while hopping around in circles. I put the shoe back on. The "stone" is still there. More hopping, shoe shaking, sock changing and foot rubbing fails to dislodge the "stone", but provides amusement for the local narrow boat crew who are sat on the roof of their barge, getting very stoned.

I'm now well behind the clock and the 9pm arrival time target is starting to look optimistic, so a pace injection is required. At the Denham roundabout I'm nearly mown down by an empty open-top bus with tatty union jack bunting. The red, white and blue theme is extended to the paintwork, but the patriotic effect is spoiled by the fact that it looks like it was painted with children's (Tesco take note) finger paints, by children, with their fingers.

I decide to give "the land that time forgot lane"/Zambezi confluence a miss this time. Walking along the A40 isn't as much fun, but it's a lot drier and by the time I cross the M25 and reach The Apple Tree (nope, sorry, still not that desperate) I've made some time back. Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes are all letting me know that they aren't happy. It'll be important for the real walk that we don't try to push on too quickly at the start.

I finish up the last of my water and have visions of crawling towards an untimely death by the BP Garage. I'm not sold on the idea of having my eyes picked out by crows by the side of the A40, so I phone ahead to arrange a rendezvous at the drinking oasis that is The General Havelock.

They're still filming Disney-nasty Maleficent at Bulstrode Park. After the previous "Angelina Jolie mistaken identity lingerie theft incident", Brad's clearly had a word and I'm now monitored by two security guards. One of them looks reasonably handy, but I reckon I could outpace the second one from the comfort of an armchair.

The walk is now becoming a slog and the bravado novelty of walking home is wearing thin, but I am cheered by the grubby looking animal that is stuck on top of the White Hart in Beaconsfield. It looks like a cat that has made its (Tesco take note) way onto the roof and can't get down, only bigger and not so white. Perhaps the fire brigade were called, but decided that they didn't have the gear to lift it down.

The last few miles from Beaconsfield to Wycombe seem to take forever, but I finally arrive at the pub and order salty snacks to replace the salt and beer to replace the .... errrr .... beer. Pints of Summer Ale and Wild River go down very nicely and I'm now ready to take on the tricky quarter of a mile walk home.

Chips are purchased, eggs are fried, the world is suddenly a beautiful place.

Training Walk V (72km South Downs/Tring double-header) .... Like A Hurricane

Two days walking in different locations; this is the walking equivalent of the two centre holiday, assuming your two centres are Srebrenica and South Central LA.

Day 1 - South Downs Way
Today's walk is designed to cover some of the real South Downs Trailwalker route to get familiar with the section that we'll be walking in the dark in July. The theory is that we're less likely to get lost if we've seen the ground before. There's absolutely nothing worse than having to backtrack a couple of miles or running the risk of being carried off by big sweaty bears, just because we got lost. OK, listening to Boyzone's Greatest Hits is worse, but I'm hoping that won't be a problem on a long distance footpath in Sussex at three in the morning. If we do see Ronan Keating warming up for a rendition of No Matter What we can always smother him with my Cag-in-a-Bag. Breathable fabric?  I don't think so Ronan.

We kick off midmorning with a rendezvous at Matt's house and a nervous peek at the weather forecast. There are amber warnings of rain and gales in the south, so heading off to the south seems somewhat foolish. It's probably too much to hope that the "occasional" sunny intervals have an occasion that lasts nine hours, so we've packed waterproof everything. Even Pete's chicken drumsticks have a Gore-Tex-Mex coating.

The plan is for Derek to drive us down towards Brighton and park up at Trailwalker Checkpoint 8. We then head to Checkpoint 9, back to 8, then to 7 and finish up at 8. [Ed. No I don't understand it either]. The idea is that we can leave kit in the car and pick it up as we pass Checkpoint 8 later in the walk. The confusing itinerary should also help to give Irish boy bands the slip in the event that Stephen Gately is miraculously resurrected for a comeback tour. Unfortunately this to and fro direction changing means that half of the directions from the Trailwalker have to be read backwards.
"Road slip along left turn and road concrete follow"
What?

When we arrive at Checkpoint 8, it's almost impossible to get the car doors open because of the wind. At least the view is very nice when your eyes stop watering and the windmills (Jack & Jill) are both impressive. I assume they're not going round due to broken crowns, tumbling after or the wrong kind of wind.
Ask the expert #8 : Why are the windmills called Jack & Jill
- The windmills were probably first given the names of Jack and Jill by day trippers, taking the train from London to Brighton in the late 1920s.
Of course the first job is to get some calories on board, but it's difficult to find somewhere where you don't have to lean at 45 degrees to avoid being blown off the hill. By lying on a damp grassy bank we get out of the worst of the wind, but the environment is not exactly conducive to the fine dining experience that we've come to expect from a cheese butty and some sweaty chicken satay.

As we get going we see the first of many crazy individuals who are doing some long distance running activity over the downs. There are also a few teams of walkers clutching the same photocopied instructions as us. We try to get a sense of their strategy and technique, but they're walking so much faster than us that it's difficult to see how we could actually be taking part in the same event.

We're overtaken by a boy/girl running duo who Derek swears passed us on a previous walk in the Chilterns. Given that we've already been lapped by a bearded lady on a Shopmobility scooter and two under fives in a pantomime Shetland pony costume we shouldn't be too surprised.

Boyzone road crew move the Blackcap trig point

Although the path is pretty straight we nearly come unstuck a couple of times and fall into the trap of trying to read the Trailwalker instructions, look at the blurry Trailwalker handout map and follow the OS 1:50000 map all at the same time. We take the wrong path at Blackcap, which is fine in the daylight, but could be catastrophic at night. I blame Louis Walsh and his "Trailwalker Detour --->" signs.

At least the terrain is pretty reasonable at this point although some of the tracks have pretty serious puddles. How it'll look in the dark with a few more weeks of English summer thrown at it remains to be seen. It also takes a bit of a hammering from mountain bikes.

The sun is trying its best to outdo the clouds and the wind is mostly behind us, so we're able to make decent time.

The route descends and the path gets much narrower and quite boggy. We make a mental note to particularly not enjoy this bit when we come to it on the 15th. This is of course assuming we actually make it this far. When we get to Lewes prison there's a great opportunity to go wrong because the path almost doubles back and this could be disastrous.

The sun has come out properly now and it's actually pretty warm in the shelter of the valley. There is no real evidence of what checkpoint will look like, so we keep going past yet another windmill which has been desailed. We wander down a private road and almost end up in somebody's garden. Matt lies with his feet in the air which he reckons helps his feet and legs. Howard changes his socks (again), while Pete and Derek investigate the contents of various pastry products.

Matt spots a sheep being blown past

On the way back a number of things happen. It gets cold, the sun goes in, the wind from the channel notches its way to the previously unknown 13 on the Beaufort scale

Beaufort 10 [Storm, whole gale] = Trees are broken off or uprooted, saplings bent and deformed. Poorly attached asphalt shingles and shingles in poor condition peel off roofs.

Beaufort 13 [Apocalyptic wind] = Utter devastation. Forests are disintegrated into their component molecules. Whole towns are ripped from the soil and carried to the moon. Walkers experience unpleasant flapping of their waterproofs.

At Ditchling Beacon, a cyclist who has slogged his way up the hill, is struggling to avoid being blown back down again and is contemplating suicide by falling on his pump.

Pete and Derek raid the ice cream van for anything that isn't frozen and after a break we head off again.

Back at the car, Derek decides that his knee isn't going to hold up for another ten miles and contemplates the alternatives ....
- Sitting in a warm car reading a book
- Sitting in a warm pub watching the football
- Sitting in his warm sister-in-law's house (the house is warm, not necessarily the sister-in-law) drinking tea
Needless to say, walking into a gale with a dodgy knee doesn't get much of a look in. After fighting their way out of the car, Howard, Matt and Pete head off towards the aptly named Devil's Dyke. It's now getting starting to get dark.

At least it can't get any worse ....

It starts to rain.

As the rain turns to stinging hail, Matt remembers a time during his chuildhood when he accidentally stood in front of a pebble-dashing machine. We briefly warm ourselves in the cosy warmth of nostalgia and put all our spare clothes and waterproof trousers on.

It stops raining.

We think we can see the lights of Brighton in the distance, although it's difficult to tell with Pete's hair in your eyes. In a quaint NT farm we are worried by some rare breed sheep with a baaaaad attitude and those curly horns that look like they are just aching to give you a nasty bruise. We make it safely to Devil's Dyke or at least we wander into an empty field that claims to be Checkpoint 7 in a future life.

It's time to turn around and go back and now that we're heading east with the wind behind us, the wind seems to have dropped. Pete jogs down the hill in his pretend fancy dress gecko-on-a-horse outfit. Delirium is starting to kick in, but the warm fuzzy glow of the Plough at Pyecombe is encouraging us home. We meet Derek who has spent the late afternoon with his sister-in-law (who turns out to be quite a normal temperature). A very nice pint of Dark Star Hophead slips down nicely, as we discuss the ups and downs of the day before Derek drives us all back. Pete picks up his car and is last to bed just before one in the morning.

Day 2 - Chilterns

The Hollywood film version :
Drrr-Drrr-Drrr-Drrr
The alarm goes off bright and early. Howard springs from his bed and is just glad to be alive. What a great day to go for a 20 mile walk.

The grim reality version :
Drrr-Drrr-Drrr-Drrr
The alarm goes off at the ungodly hour of 5 o'clock. Howard reaches over and knocks over his glass of water, fails to connect with the alarm clock (Drrr-Drrr-Drrr-Drrr), throws something in its general direction, and finally silences it by sweeping everything off the bedside table into the puddle of water on the bedroom floor. He suddenly becomes aware that someone has replaced his leg muscles with piano wire. "Good job we haven't planned to do another stupid walk today ...... arrrggghhhhh".

The only small crumb of comfort is that we've seen most of it before, so getting lost shouldn't be a problem. In fact we aren't going to be walking fast enough to get lost.

We start off at Startop's reservoir near Marsworth, and the car park is deserted. No dogs, anglers or super strength cider drinkers (apart from us obviously).



Things to see in Marsworth (Part I)
(from left to right) Heron, Grass, Mallards, Swans, Sun, Digger

We pass some anglers on the bank, who follow normal angling protocol; wave rod around to inconvenience civvies, adjust keep net and at all times avoid eye contact.
Some fleecy clouds float gently across the sky and we wade through a field of mud that the farmer wanted to be crops, but is playing agriculturally hard to get.

Muscles seem to have eased a little now until it's time to climb up to Wendover Woods again. The cafe is nearly open, but after a quick Penelope we keep on moving. Pete starts to have pork withdrawal symptoms, but we promise him that he'll get some cold turkey later.

Much of the route this morning is stuff we've done before. The Bridgewater monument is exactly where we left it, although there's a large lake where we previously encountered Mr Rotivator.

We go past the Hastoe road sign for the third time on our travels. It's an opportunity to take stock of the situation, change socks and moan about the state of our feet.

Pete's sylph-like figure is completely hidden behind the road sign
Only his enormous arse gives him away

At Tring station, the conversation naturally turns to the subject of visits to relatives and the stuff you ate while you were there. Apart from Mateus rose and excellent runner beans, there was the Mock Turtle soup incident. Something that is still not talked about to this day in the Bishop household. It's just a good job I never knew what was in it.

Ask the expert #3,653 - What is Mock Turtle soup
- It isn't made out of mock turtles, but it is supposed to taste like green turtles

Howard makes a note to bring some along for the walk.

Mrs. Fowle's Mock Turtle Soup : "Take a large calf's head. Scald off the hair. Boil it until the horn is tender, then cut it into slices about the size of your finger, with as little lean as possible. Have ready three pints of good mutton or veal broth, put in it half a pint of Madeira wine, half a teaspoonful of thyme, pepper, a large onion, and the peel of a lemon chop't very small. A ¼ of a pint of oysters chop't very small, and their liquor; a little salt, the juice of two large onions, some sweet herbs, and the brains chop't. Stand all these together for about an hour, and send it up to the table with the forcemeat balls made small and the yolks of hard eggs."

Howard's Mock Turtle Soup : "Take some tomato soup, heat and serve"

There's a good reason why Heinz don't make Mock Turtle Soup isn't there Mrs Fowle?

We get within falling over distance of Ivinghoe Beacon then veer off towards Ivinghoe itself. Feet and legs are now really starting to hurt, especially once we get on the hard pavement. We see what might be a Spitfire going through its paces in the distance, which briefly takes our minds off unpleasantness down below. We up the pace just to get the thing finished, but are almost overtaken by a narrow boat. The prospect of a cool one at the Angler's Retreat finally pulls us over the finishing line.

We've done 46 miles in a smidge over 24 hours, but that's over 16 miles shy of the target AND we had a sleep in the middle. Every silver lining has a cloud.

Training Walk IV (Night Walk To Thame & Back 57km) .... And Then There Were Three

And then there were three?    Oh please God tell me I don't have to be Phil Collins

Derek has reluctantly decided to throw in the towel from a walking perspective. His swollen knee is not getting any better but he has stepped up to provide us with a first class support option. This is the first walk for the new six-legged rather than eight-legged groove machine. More Motorhead than The Wonder Stuff.

Howard is fretting over the route and the possibilities of getting lost in the dark, lost in music, caught in a trap, no turning back, etc.  He's read enough stories to his kids to know that if they take the wrong turning in the woods they could fall into a heffalump trap or be captured by a Hansel and Gretel-napping witch. Even a ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Bread, trail of bread wouldn't save them. The team packs chicken bones and an "ACME gingerbread house demolition kit" just in case. At least the route gives them a second shot at The Red Lion at Whiteleaf, assuming they get there before it closes that is.

Howard prepares a greasy repast for himself and Pete which later on turns out to be "not such a good idea" and we rendezous at Matt's house in Totteridge in pleasant evening sunshine. Matt has been delayed by a work flavoured real life crisis and is trying to collect kit and eat at the same time. We set off from Matt's house at Dark Helmet Ludicrous Speed which turns out to be "not such a good idea" either and before you know it we've gone past Disraeli's country gaff Hughenden Manor and we're striding along the main road in Naphill getting admiring glances/hoots of derision from the locals. The Naphill Mob are particularly taken by the car cleaning sponge cubes that Pete has taped to the underside of his rucksack straps to take the pressure off his sore shoulders. Heath Robinson and indeed Robert Robinson would have been impressed. Each of the walks has thrown up another interesting problem to deal with, but the team is nothing if not resourceful and wherever there's a branch of Halfords or Hawkins Bazaar there's a solution.

The Wheel in Naphill has an Aylesbury Vale CAMRA Pub Of The Year 2011 banner outside which soon locks its tractor beam onto the team. Only Derek's pre-match advice that it's a bit overrated saves us from getting sidetracked "early doors". We take a nice path down to North Dean past chez Derek who is either hiding in the cupboard under the stairs or helping out with the Scouts. As we approach Speen, Pete's temptation to add an "L" to the WELCOME TO SPEEN sign almost gets the better of him. Outside Speen Scout HQ, some cubs are tying knots or lashing poles together, which seems a bit harsh considering they've not been in the EU that long.

After a bit of umming and ahhing we think we've got the right track out of Speen although it's a bit boggy underfoot. We see a shape on the path ahead and we unstealthily approach. When we get closer, we see that it's a badger cub drinking from a puddle. This has to be a wildlife watching result in anybody's book and it takes our minds off the fact that it's actually getting quite dark. Grubbins Lane turns into Lily Bottom Lane, but the Pink & Lily pub at the end is yet another country inn that has closed its doors, despite having Rupert Brooke as a previous regular.

We're now on a fairly busy road in the woods in the dark and there's much scuttling onto the verge to be done. The other problem is trying to read the map using Howard's deflicted eyes and an ineffective torch. By some miracle we make it out the other side alive, in time for Pete to nearly leave his hat behind after a roadside leak. Matt's astronomy app confirms that "the aircraft that isn't moving" is in fact Venus and we have a Professor Brian Cox moment. Howard tries to remember him from their time at school together, but the prof would only have been a spotty oik in the years when Howard was fine tuning his underachievement and trying to avoid being bogwashed by the upper 6th.

Pete's shoulder is now giving him serious grief, but Matt's Snake Oil & Mobile Apothecary contains enough drugs to stop a charging elephant and some pain relief is administered. We head away from (now) twice shunned Red Lion along the Icknield Way with a trio of head torches lending a Blair Witch Project feel to proceedings. Before long we're in Princes Risborough and it's time for snacks (Matt has a banana, Howard munches something out of date from the fridge and Pete has the first of 236 packs of chicken satay).

Howard's plan is to use the Phoenix Trail to Thame, because "it's long and straight and we can't get lost". We can get seriously bored though and the relentless pace is starting to make things uncomfortable. There's chafing and Waddington's Formula 1 tyre wear.


Swedish Formula 1 - It's at least 3 in the Slitage-markering column and Antal varv hasn't reached 1.

Three Dog Night tribute band Three Badger Evening complete their set when Bodger and Badger scuttle across the path. Sheesh, badgers are just so passe darling.

We miss the dodgy syringe and special brew section of the Phoenix Trail by taking the Chinnor Road into the centre of Thame. Pete's prayers are answered and there is an all-night garage selling cold Lucozade. We also manage a proper coffee. The glucose and caffeine hit lifts the tempo again and we mark this down as a required item for the real walk. The local constabulary are investigating an altercation at Thame's premier nite spot and we head back to the ringroad before things start to get ugly.

Although it's well past 1am, all the houses in Towersey seem to have their bedroom lights on and the pampas grass out front tells of a community rich in marital flexibility and Argentinian gardening. A sign in the bus stop suggests that duck rustling is also rife.



Yes and they tasted wonderful

Leaving Towersey's steamy hotbed of intrigue and crime behind we climb wearily back onto the Phoenix Trail. By the time we reach the outskirts of Princes Risborough, there is a watery light in the sky. We walk across the railway to ensure that we're back on the wrong side of the tracks (where all the nasty hills are). Everything is starting to creak now and the pace has dropped off to a shuffle.

Pete checks out a new set of wheels

In a cruel twist of timing we hit a mobility low point, just as we pass the Mobility Equipment & Advice Centre. Strangely there's nobody there to provide either equipment or advice. The fact that it's only 5 in the morning may have something to do with it.

The next big hill is Wardrobes, although it looks like someone has stacked a sideboard, a bedside cabinet and a Welsh dresser on top of it. Howard's starting to get dropped from the peloton now. The broom wagon would have swept him up, but Mr Broom is still in the land of Nod (Dudley).

Just in the nick of time we get a text from Derek who has mobilised his army field kitchen and we arrange to meet him in Lacey Green for breakfast. The military precision of the operation doesn't quite extend to the bacon, which is performing a territorial reserve role in the fridge when Derek rolls up. However, egg rolls, porridge, coffee and folding chairs turn a Diem Horribilis into a Diem Mirabilis. Pete and Matt have a tyre change, going from walking shoes to running shoes. It's difficult to describe the impact on our spirits of a hot drink and some proper food and we get into a good stride on our way back to Speen as the sun scrapes over the horizon.

Reasons to be (briefly) cheerful Part #1

Between Lacey Green and Speen we kill time by going through our Top 5 Cooked Breakfast items which reopens the wounds of the Hash Brown Heresy but there's enough consensus around bacon and black pudding to avoid bloodshed.

Back in North Dean, Pete's monster blister has exploded and Howard's calves have turned to mahogany. We've also underestimated how far we've still got left to walk and even a gentle incline takes its toll. North Dean seems to go on forever, but eventually we're climbing north again towards the Mushroom Farm. Some surly Jerseys give us the evil eye and force us to up the pace through the field.

We're in the home stretch now, but there's still time for some more injuries and more mud wading. Pete has one final Coke "pop" stop to get him through the last half mile back to Matt's.

Pete drives home with matchsticks holding his eyelids up.
Matt buys a paper and sits in a warm cricket pavilion.
Howard walks home from Totteridge and thinks about amputating his feet

Howard's feet prior to amputation

Some more important lessons have been learned :
1. Sponges don't stop your shoulders from hurting. Enormous quantities of drugs are a good alternative.
2. Changing your socks and shoes regularly is the best way of reducing blisters.
3. The psychological and physical benefit of support crew is impossible to overstate.
4. It gets boring walking for 12 hours in the dark, even with people who make you laugh.
5. It hurts a lot after 36 miles. The pain after 62.5 must be unimaginable.
6. Coffee and drugs are essential to get you through the night.

War is hell ...... and so is Trailwalker

Solo Training Walk (28km Stockley Park to High Wycombe .... The Long Walk Home)

To celebrate walk to work week and in a burst of contrary madness Howard decides to walk the 17.5 miles home. The weather looks decent and all meetings from 4pm have been cancelled ..... what could possibly go wrong?

The first stretch is probably the best, along the canal towpath to Uxbridge. I leave The Water's Edge, The Malt Shovel and The General Elliott behind, and I pass under the Oxford Road with just over an hour gone. I had planned to take in a swifty at The Swan & Bottle, but I push on towards Denham.

A bit further on there's a dodgy transaction going on between two schoolkids involving a bag of maggots and what looks like a Panini sticker album but might be the 21st century equivalent of "What The Butler Saw" ("What The Butler Recorded On His WebCam And Uploaded To The Internet").

By the time I get to Denham the air is filled with mayflies, but there's a surly darkness to the sky. Despite turning the map round several times I end up taking the wrong path, but after zigzagging dangerously across the firing line of the golf course I get back on track and end up outside The Fat Cow. After peering in through the window I figure it isn't "my kind of place", although I'm sufficiently thirsty that I'm willing to let my standards slip a bit. Just at that moment I'm nearly flattened by a 4 x 4 Merc driven by a woman whose fake tan would probably set off the smoke alarm. My inverted snobbery gene kicks in and I decide to take my chances further down the road.

The new pedestrian crossing over the A40 hasn't been finished yet, so Howard plays his own game of Frogger and just about manages to avoid being hooshed into the gutter by the bus he would have caught if he hadn't been walking home. Ah the irony.

Instead of heading alongside the A40 there's a footpath marked between the BP garage and the bottom of "the land that time forgot" lane. In fact there are two sections to this footpath, the first one requiring a machete-wielding battalion of Chindits and the second one being navigable only by coracle. The houses up "the land that time forgot" lane are a curious mixture of city traders' bolt-holes and farmhouses with quad bikes, rusty burned-out cars and getorrfmahhhlaaaannnnnnd attitude out front. Nothing even vaguely resembling livestock or crops, although there is a horse and some asbestos sheeting. The pace picks up from here and by the time I get to to the pile of rubble that was The French Horn a 9pm finish is back on the cards. Opposite The French Horn is The Apple Tree (Country Pub & Eating). Wild horses, etc. ....

Country Pub & Eating ... gosh is that the time?

It's now just a case of a straight walk along the A40. At one point I'm accosted by a bloke in a high viz jacket. Turns out they're filming a Sleeping Beauty remake in Bulstrode Park and anyone using the public footpath here is clearly trying to break in to steal a pair of Angelina Jolie's pants.

Beaconsfield offers more overpriced gastrononsense pubs, but at least you can buy hats, oil paints and proper musical instruments here. I'm tempted by the banjo, but time is pressing and the sun is fighting a losing battle with the horizon. At the bottom of the big hill coming into Loudwater I'm buoyed by news of a black pudding Scotch egg acquisition in time for the cricket on Thursday. So excited, I miss the turnoff for The Dereham's Inn, but end up at home to crack open a bottle of Clouded Yellow.

A touch under 4¾ hours for 17½ miles is OK, but I'm more than 25% tired.

Training Walk III (51km Cholesbury loop) .... I'm Just Going Outside I May Be Some Time

Today we're out to break through the 50% distance barrier. The idea is to harden up the feet and get a warm and fuzzy feeling from another milestone reached. There's nothing warm and fuzzy about the air temperature though as we park up opposite the windmill in Cholesbury just before 7. Like the dog with the black and white stripy jacket at Walthamstow, Pete and Matt push the pace along straight out of the traps and the stumpier half of the team trot along behind like the dog with the black and white coat from the Dulux advert. The torrential rain over the previous days has taken its toll and the "shoe team" are cursing while the "boot team" splash smugly though the mud. This is the walk where it becomes clear that a variety of footwear and socks is essential. Shares in Bridgedale rise on the news.

We skirt past the entrance to Dundridge Manor, one of many places on the walks that has a longer commute from the front door to the gate than most people need to get to work. Despite the faux medieval entrance we aren't run off the land by Guy of Gisbourne, but someone in a Range Rover gives us a funny look.

Just after Durham Farm, the road is flooded with cartoon ducks swimming on it, but we have an alternative path that takes us to the A413 Wendover Road. Lots of cyclists are out, but not many cars, so we can scuttle safely across. Cockshoots Wood is basically a muddy swimming pool with trees and after some circumspect paddling we come out at the wrong place and it takes a bit of compass work and Matt's GPS to get us back on track. There's a discussion about which side of a hedge we should be on and common sense wins out over the map and we avoid having to retrace our steps. The team is starting to lose faith in the mapreader and a bloody rebellion is fomented. The chance sighting of a hare distracts the revolutionaries and the coup is avoided.

We fight our way through yet another field of rape, getting lungfuls of Eau de Sprout and a generous coating of yellow dust and arrive by the shabby tradesman's entrance to Hampden House. He's been a great big silly old Hampden and lost all his money in the South Sea Bubble. His great great granddaughter lost her heart to a Starship Trooper, but that's another story.


The footpath out of the estate flirts with Grim's Ditch, bits of which we seem to come across on virtually every walk.
Ask the Expert #6 : What was Grim's Ditch for and who was Grim
- There are lots of Grim's Ditches in southern England, probably constructed in the Iron Age. They aren't deep enough to have much of a military purpose. Grim is another name for the Saxon god Woden.
A lot of the time we chat about films and stuff to pass the time. Pete and Derek both recommend Dog Soldiers with Sean Pertwee.
Ask the Expert #7 : Is Sean Pertwee related to Jon (3rd Doctor) or Bill (I'll get you Mainwaring)?
- Sean Pertwee is the son of Ingeborg and Jon Pertwee. Jon and Bill are distant cousins, but he's only 6 steps from Kevin Bacon.

Nice monument. Shame about the casualties.

More fields of rapeseed, more mud and some unfriendly horsey types take the gloss off what is otherwise a pleasant walk through some lovely countryside. The Chiltern Way turns into the Icknield Way which becomes the Ridgeway. It would have ended up being Howard's Way, but due to poor planning on his part, the Red Lion at Whiteleaf isn't open, so we plod shabbily across a golf course in a desperate search for refreshment. The Plough at Lower Cadsden looks a reasonable replacement and the Olde Trip hits the spot, but it's clear that grubby walkers are not their favoured clientele. It's no surprise that the Camerons get a warmer welcome to The Plough a few weeks later. So warm that they decide to leave daughter Nancy behind. Rumour has it that she followed the Trail Of Bread to Chequers. She didn't make it to Coombe Hill though. The monument here commemorates the fallen from the Second Boer War. From here we can see exactly where HS2 will spoil the view of the Buckinghamshire gentry. I can feel my heart bleeding.

The cadence is starting to get a bit ragged now and even "the one about the buffalo and Prince Phillip's  underpants" isn't funny. By the time we get to the inaccurately named Painsend Farm, the pain is really starting to kick in and Derek is clearly not in a good way. We create our own little Antarctic vignette; Derek is the heroic long-suffering Oates, Howard is the evil inflexible Scott and The Full Moon at Cholesbury is the outside of the tent. Derek trudges the 3 miles to The Full Moon on his own. Stretching the analogy too far, Matt is Shackleton but on a different expedition, Pete is a tenacious husky (even though he's taken something for his throat) and the No. 4 bus from Chesham is the team of ponies that failed to get Scott home from the pole, but gets Derek back to Wycombe. It's clear now that we should all have bailed out, but instead of listening to his inner Shackleton ("Better a live donkey than a dead lion"), Howard listened to his inner Scott ("Weighin' in at nineteen stone. You're a whole lotta woman. A whole lotta woman. Whole lotta Rosie"). We realise too late that we should have agreed how to handle situations like this in advance. It's difficult to pick up the morale after that, although the sheer unadulterated unpleasantness of the Lucozade gel sachets lighten the mood for a bit.

We reach the Pole. Pete does some dancing. Matt humours him. Amundsen has already been and gone.

By the time we reach the Cow Roast Inn we're gasping for a drink and the bar staff here are much more welcoming to sweaty walkers. We sensibly if reluctantly go for long soft drinks rather than the Woodforde's Wherry and we're back on the road all too soon. We cross the canal and loop around the bottom end of Northchurch Common and hit the outskirts of Berkhamsted. Pete's blisters are now giving him major problems, and we're all shuffling along like Chelsea pensioners, or someone tackled by Chelsea pensioner "Chopper" Harris. We have a "pop" stop at the Tesco Metro before tackling the Col de Berkhamsted.

In sight of the finish, Howard puts the last half mile extra loop to the vote and almost becomes Caesar to Matt's Cassius and Pete's (great smell of) Brutus, so head straight to the pub instead. Rarely has an average pint tasted so good and we reflect on a day of mixed fortunes. It's taken twelve hours to complete thirty-two miles, but we were virtually stationary by the end and we lost Derek and some team spirit in the process.

Teacher's report : A good effort, but must do better, C+

Training Walk II (38km Tring loop) .... Trouble Over Bridgewater

Mark plays his "I'd love to join you gentlemen, but I'm in Papua New Guinea" card. Various members of the team look nervously at the next card in the deck which says something about "Papworth General".

When we meet up at Marsworth, the Bluebells tearoom hasn't even opened up for the day, and there's a nip in the air. Dick the Shepherd was a lot warmer when he blew his nail, but at least it's bright. The forecast for later is less positive and Howard has brought a cheese and onion pasty that could double as a life raft if things turn bad.

The first part of the route takes us along the Grand Union and we make good progress. There won't be many flat canal towpaths on the South Downs Way, but Howard's navigational skills aren't that great, so it's good to get a few miles under the belt before he leads us astray.

Although we have a training plan (of sorts), we're still short of support crew, so we're currently expecting to have to carry everything we need. Pete's suggestion is to bring livestock on the hoof and turn them into snacks as necessary. Wellington's army on the Peninsula campaign needed 300 cattle a day to supply the soldiers with their pound of beef, so there is a precedent.
Ask the Expert #3 : Where did Wellington’s 300 cattle per day come from?
- By November 1813, the Commissariat was supplying over 100,000 pounds of biscuit, 200,000 lbs of forage and slaughtering 300 head of cattle a day. Quantities such as these could not be satisfied locally, so most of the foodstuffs were brought to the Peninsula by sea, not only from Britain, but further abroad as well.
Howard makes a mental note to look up the number for the Commissariat in the Yellow Pages.

The route now heads south and the team starts the long climb up to Wendover Woods. Flagging spirits are kept in check by the promise of breakast at the snappily titled "Cafe In The Woods". The Commissariat has been busy; bacon rolls and flapjack have been brought from the four corners of the Empire, maybe from as far away as Aylesbury. Refuelling complete, and the team heads off ..... in the wrong direction. Matt's GPS back-up nudges us back on course and we're onto the Ridgeway at last. It's easy to visualise how Neolithic hunters would have used this track to try out their new neolithic Gore-tex breathable jackets and neolithic carbon fibre walking poles.



Trail Of Bread and their new portable navigational aid

All roads lead to Hastoe, but the Bread team give the Hastoe border security guards the slip and escape to the tranquil wooded parkland of the Ashridge estate. Even by posh Chilterns country estate standards, Ashridge is posh. Not only does it have a posh house, it has its own park and its own monument.
Ask the Expert #4 : Nice monument, but what is it for?
- The Bridgewater Monument was erected in 1832 to the Duke of Bridgewater. Originally known as Francis Egerton he was the 3rd Duke. The family owned the Ashridge estate and the monument was built 20 years after his death to mark his achievements as the father of inland navigation, including the famous canals around Manchester.
It would have been nice to explore the estate further, if only to understand why their 45 bazillion hectare estate doesn't have weeds and our postage stamp gardens require hourly maintenance to keep stuff at bay. Howard snags another trig point in his sad geeky 1000 of everything quest before the team negotiates a high footbridge over the A41 that would cause Indiana Jones to get a bit wobbly. We find a slightly damp spot of grass to eat our warm sweaty sandwiches, while being hassled by a warm sweaty horse.

Howard tries to avoid the attentions of a large hairy creature .... and a horse

 Despite Howard's efforts to get the team lost again, they manage to navigate by Bread reckoning to the Valiant Trooper at Aldbury and partake of the local recuperative waters.


Apart from the ungrateful impatient Buckinghamshire Sunday lunch brigade ("I want my Confit of Roast Chaffinch and I want it now"), it's a very pleasant experience with local beers including Long Crendon's XT Brewery #4 (Mellow Amber).

They said :
An amber beer with a special Belgian malt and a fruity mix of American and European hops. Very addictive, and our flagship beer.

We said :
That's nice, is it available intravenously too?

The fleecy white pillowy clouds have been replaced by monstrous grey Victorian eiderdown clouds and there's a bit of drizzle in the air as we start to climb up towards Ivinghoe Beacon. By the time we get to the top it's blowing a gale, but the blue sky has temporarily returned. There's just time for a quick game of "What's That Powerstation?", before we leave the Ridgeway behind.



On a clear day you can see some overweight ramblers

The descent from the beacon is tricky and Pete is forced to use his capacious waterproof as a drag chute like something landing on the Ark Royal. We are encouraged by Derek's treacle scones and it isn't long before we get to Ivinghoe village. Legs are definitely getting heavy now and the decision to walk past the Rose & Crown and the Red Lion is not universally popular. By a cruel twist of fate and bad route planning, we add an unpleasant loop along the main road in the opposite direction to our start point. It's all character building stuff, and we do go past lots of signs for Dacorum district council, which is as close to decorum as we can get.
Ask the Expert #5 : Where does Dacorum come from?  Is it Roman for Tring?
- The hundred of Dacorum was first recorded in 1196 although its existence dates from the 9th and 10th century when it lay on the margins of the southern boundary of Danelaw and the River Lea. Its name in Latin means "of the Danes". In the 11th century, the Domesday Book records that the hundreds of Tring and Danais overlapped areas of the hundred of Dacorum. Modern day Dacorum is the name for the local government district which covers Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Tring and the western part of Kings Langley

As the grey skies turn black and the drizzle turns to rain, we are at least now heading in the right direction. The team shelters under a bridge while Matt deploys his waterproof trousers. The last couple of miles is a real slog, but the swallows careening over the almost empty reservoir almost take our mind off the fact that we stopped enjoying this about two hours ago.

We do eventually get back to the cars and head over the road for a refreshing pint at The White Lion .... which has closed down. Aaaargggghhhh. The Angler's Retreat comes to our rescue.We manage to get through every nut that Nobby has ever made. The fact that we feel terrible after only a third of the full route is banished by Everard's Elixir and emergency calls to home for baths to be run.

Training Walk I (25km Turville loop) .... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Pastry

Q. What could be nicer than a nice stroll on a warm March day in the beautiful Chiltern countryside.
A. Almost anything.
Especially when your tour guide decides to examine minute details of every "double chevron" road on the map.

An inauspicious start sees Pete sat dejectedly by the wrong "triangle of grass" at the wrong rendezvous, but eventually the team assembles at the right place and creaks into action. Mark regales us with heroic running and wine tasting tales from the previous day, but sets a good pace and the party shambles along in his wake. Ominously the red kites circle overhead.
"It's OK, they aren't predators, they only take dead meat"
"!!!!!!"

A couple of miles in and we're plodding through the picturesque village of Turville. It's still early, but the open top Beamer brigade are already arriving to do what people who drive open top Beamers do in picturesque villages on Sunday mornings. It may be something to do with foie gras and Chardonnay or perhaps they've heard that this is where (hilarious) Dawn French filmed the (side-splittingly funny) Vicar of Dibley, but it's difficult to tell from behind their Victoria Beckham shades. We leave the hoi polloi behind and hack our way up the hill just north of the village to the windmill. For film afficionados this is of course the one used in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but there's no flying car, just when we need it. Not even Rufus Ruffcut in the Buzzwagon, so we have to make with that horse peddling charlatan Mr Shanks and his team of 5 flea-ridden ponies.

We do have time to take various snaps of the team, the rights for which are sold to Milletts for nearly a pound.

Picture from Milletts "Spring Collection" catalogue.

Not entirely a surprise then that Milletts go into administration.

"A man with a mullet went mad with a mallet in Milletts"

Half Man Half Biscuit
Anyone buying Peter Storm gear on the strength of this lot as models is exactly the kind of person to run amok with carpentry tools between the not-at-all-waterproof overtrousers and the not-at-all-breathable jackets.

After heading back out towards the M40, we descend to the village of Fingest lured on by the subtle smells of Brakspear's and the funny roof of the church there.
Ask the expert #1 : How unusual is the roof of St Bartholomew's church in Fingest
- The double gable saddleback roof is one of only two such designs in England
There is just time for a "it would be rude not to" pint in the Chequers before we're whipped from our hop-based reverie out towards Fingest Wood.
We decide to have lunch overlooking the idyllic gas pipeline at Dolesdon. We ponder the significance of this strange juxtaposition of nature and technology for about 3 milliseconds before getting stuck into the butties.
Ask the expert #2 : What is the city at the end of the pipeline that runs to the Caspian Sea?
- That would be Baku in Azerbaijan. The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland lake. The Bond film with the pipeline was The World Is Not Enough with Pierce Brosnan. Azerbaijan may be the most unlikely Eurovision winner, but Portugal has entered 45 times without a single win.
Pete tires of the pipeline discussion and empties the cooked remains of about 27 pigs from his rucksack. Pastry and bread are involved, but only to ensure that the pork isn't damaged during the walk. A nuthatch is identified using the bird call app on Mark's iPhone which forces a rethink on the nature and technology debate or it would do if we weren't already on the march again.



View from lunch spot avoiding pipeline. Turville windmill on the hill opposite.

After a couple of miles we get to Southend, but the tide is out, so we don't hang around for any TOWIE extras to sell us eels. This bit of England isn't short of posh houses, so Stonor House isn't really out of place here although it's a bit weird to see a burglar alarm on the side. Despite being shadowed by a rangale (collective noun for posh deer) for a while, nobody from TTMB tries to sell us venison.

Rudolph (second left) dressed as a doe on his stag party. Dasher left behind at the Coach & Humans.

There are plenty of interesting trees at the Warburg Nature Reserve, but it's difficult to see anything with the sweat trickling into your eyes. It's still only March but it ain't half hot mum and by the time we get to Pishill, we're just a bit tired of "scaling yonder peake for groats none". Mark tries to appease the grumbles by leading us off the route to The Crown. It looks like it might be closed so he prepares to make a run for it, but it's only empty because 99% of the UK population has decided that it's much more fun to drink cheap supermarket lager at home. The Rebellion IPA just about heads off the, errr, rebellion.

The end of the Peasants' Revolt. Wat Tyler gets hacked to bits by the Lord Mayor of London again.

From The Crown it's not far back to the cars where we reflect on the positives of the day, like the good company, weather and beer. Of course "Half Full" Howard has to turn his urine fire extinguisher on the bonfire by reminding everyone that 15.75 miles is only one quarter of the real route, but it's been a decent start to the training and longer routes are planned, which obviously means more pubs to be visited.

What could possibly go wrong?

For us, we could get a bit warm, a bit wet or a bit thirsty.

For others, the picture isn't quite so rosy .....

Oxfam's information officer Fred Perraut recently visited Burkina Faso and heard a tragic story of mothers struggling to feed their children. Many women explained that when their children complain of hunger, they boil a stone in water to make the children believe food is cooking, until they fall asleep. Please watch our video on this impending crisis and then share it with as many friends as you can. We need you to help spread the word of the plight of these people to save lives. Noaga Yambeogo has been part of Oxfam’s market garden programme in Burkina Faso. She can now grow vegetables, providing her family with a much-needed source of food over the past few desperate months. She said: “You gave us work and tools and thanks to this help the children did not cry because of hunger”. However, the water levels will soon be too low for Noaga to water her plot and, like thousands of others, she’ll then be forced to sift through the dirt searching for a few tiny specks of gold. If she is lucky she may earn 50p per day. If the plight of these people moves you, please help make the world aware of their situation. Watch our video and share it with your friends Whilst this crisis remains outside of the media focus, we need you to help us to raise awareness of the situation. Can you spend 60 seconds watching the video and share it with your friends? Thank you once again for your continued support and compassion.

Balguissa Simeam, 7 years old, helps her mother to search for specks of gold. Photo: Andy Hall

.... And You Will Know Us By Our Secret Codenames

"Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever."
Lance Armstrong

Lance clearly hasn't thought through all the positive benefits of giving up. For now though, while pain might not be our middle name, we've certainly toyed with the idea of using it as a way of getting out of painting the fence.

The Band
After task #1 "Taking leave of my senses", the next job was to find the other 75% of the walking team. Hollywood provided the necessary inspiration ...

The Magnificent Seven : Bald bloke uses charisma to assemble crack team, most of whom die before the end
The Dirty Dozen : Bald bloke uses charisma to assemble crack team, most of whom die before the end
The Trail Of Bread Four : Greying bloke uses pathetic whiny pleading to assemble cack team, most of whom die before the end (but don't tell them).

The requirement was for three highly tuned walkers, in peak physical condition and with unbelievable commitment and sang froid. It wasn't easy. In fact it was impossible. Still, they're happy to get the beers in, and at least one of them knows the way to A&E, so they get my vote.

Like the aforementioned Magnificent 7 and Dirty 12, each member has their own special skills and abilities. We like to think of ourselves as being a bit like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, sort of Middle-Age Mutant Ninja Tortoises.

Howard "The Pencil" Bishop : Training schedule, bad jokes, poor navigation [trail snack : brown banana]
Pete "The Trolley" Munro : Fundraising, communications [trail snack : pies]
Derek "Washington" Chalmers : Safe-cracking, logistics, advanced survival [trail snack : fruit and nut]
Matt "Shiny" Lamming : Electronics, first-aid [trail snack : jelly beans]

The Road Crew
It's probably fair to say this is the blister on our Achilles heel. Various other halves can help to get us there (probably) and back (possibly), but what we don't have is a dedicated support crew. Unfortunately without a back-up team this noble and ludicrous venture is doomed. 
The walkers are actually the least important cogs in this rusty machine. Anyone can keep plonking one foot in front of the other for 30 hours. It's just walking right?
What takes real commitment.... is to sit in the dark with a pile of spare socks waiting for the Flab Four to wheeze into view.
What takes real skill .... is to raise team spirit and morale when it's been left behind in a monsoon on the South Downs.
What takes real imagination .... is to honestly believe that you can help to get this bunch of muppets across the finish line.

THIS COULD BE YOU!  TEMPTING ISN'T IT?

The VIPs
Even more important than the TRÄILÖFBREAD road crew, without whom we couldn't do this, are the folks without whom we wouldn't have signed up; the wonderful Oxfam staff and the people whose lives they are trying to improve. The slightly (actually, the very) depressing thing is that if we were a little bit more careful and nations were a bit more considerate, Oxfam wouldn't need to exist and we wouldn't need to take part in Trailwalker just to look like extras from The Road. However, until people stop throwing food away, flying everywhere and buying flat screen TVs for rooms they never use, the good people at Oxfam will need to help those caught by famine, climate change and natural disasters, and to make tough lives just a bit more bearable.

When you have to walk 2 hours every time you want water and that water comes from a dirty polluted river, a new water pump in your village must seem like a miracle. That's just one of the things that Oxfam can do and it's how 13 year old Erkeni can now go to school.

While it's probably fair to say that we are doing this a bit to see whether we can, there's also the possibility that we might give some people water pumps, or books, or medicine that could change their lives.

Now we just have to find out how far we can go!

.... And You Will Know Us By The Panic Buying Of Compeed

How it all began ........

Now I like a good walk as much as the next man (unless the next man is Alfred Wainwright or the nutty spotty dog-walking DeVille woman from down our road).
It's also true that Oxfam can work wonders with £1500+ (that's a lot of goats, or tools, or fresh water), but I think we may just have miscalculated what slightly chubby, slightly unfit blokes can do, even for charity.

It’s amazing how these things seem like a good idea at the time. When you’re sat in a warm pub and someone is absolutely insisting that you try the Old Badger because “you can really taste the hops”, 100 kilometres across the South Downs in 30 hours sounds like the kind of thing that ale-drinking superheroes can do in their sleep.

It’s only when you wake up with the taste of a four week dead Badger in your mouth that you realise that you’ve agreed to do the equivalent of walking from your house to Southend in just over a day.
Have you ever been to Southend? 

Does the welcome to Sopot sign say "Twinned with grotty English seaside dump Southend"?

One hundred kilometres. That's sixty two and a half miles in old money.
But that’s miles!   In the dark!
You also have an inkling that the South Downs might be a bit bumpy. They haven’t staged any important flat green bowling championships there for a good reason.

OK, don’t panic. How bad can this be?  I mean, you walk a bit and it’s a fair old shift to the bus stop every morning. You may be knocking on the door of 50, but you’re in better shape than other 48-year olds like Whitney Houston and Johnny Depp. OK, possibly not Johnny Depp, but definitely Johnny Vegas and he’s only 41. Yeah and you so very nearly did that 25 mile hike when you were in the scouts, but you had to cry off with a nasty verucca.

All you need now are 3 other idiots, some Kendal mint cake and a Peter Storm cagoule and you’ll be fine.

This is the story of how not fine it is .......