How cute are those ducklings! Mick and Gayle were very lovely and said that we could all stay another night! So we could be dropped off where we left off yesterday and would be picked up and taken back to the house when we had finished walking :) So the plan was to be sent out in daysacks giving us a rest from our packs, my body liked the idea of that! We were dropped off at the canal in Rugeley and had flat easy navigational day ahead of us (we had to make one turn all day swapping canals). My leg was worse today and it took ages to get it warmed up and it kept feeling like it was going to cramp up any second so I had to keep stopping the team to stretch, but as I had to stop to stretch, my leg seized up, so it was a never ending circle of pain a and cramp. Lovely.
We were told we were going to walk past the Armitage Shanks factory which we were all a bit excited about, Gayle said that she has never walked past it and not heard porcelain smash! Mandy said it would be Beck's dad dream as he is a plumber - a toilet factory! So we all posed outside with the toilets and looked like idiots :) We fancied and deserved a cuppa, so luckily half way through the day at Frugley Junction we stopped off at the cafe and Mandy brought usthe most amazing slice of Victoria sponge EVER. I don't know how they made it taste so good! Error on sitting down, when I got up to got to the toilet, I made a bit of a scene walking though the cafe as I needed to hold on to everything, I think we got the sympathy vote and the lady behind the counter gave us £16 towards the charity which was really lovely, as we haven't collected much en-route for a while!
This was the cross over point from the Trent &Mersey canal on to the coventry canal, we walked another 7 miles or so making the day a 15 miler which was a respectable distance, so we got picked up in a small village on the outskirts of Lichfield. On the way back to the house Mick asked if we wanted to go sightseeing, so we stropped off at the National Memorial Arboretum which is a huge memorial garden with the names of every person in the armed forces who has died in service since the second world war, I think we were all shocked looking at how many names there were, even sadder was the amount of blank space which is expected to be filled.
Gayle was home from work by the time we got back to the house, and we all just chilled out and had the all important internet access where we updated a bit of blog.......but we were about 30 days behind so didn't even make a dent! Mick made an amazing dinner and we spent the evening watching Harry Potter whilst Gayle printed us off a whole new bundle of very readable maps! (I don't think ours were approved, they were a bit rubbish!) My kit was also substituted for smaller and lighter items, now I hardly had any kit it could all fit in to a 50l rucksack! I was having none of it but it fitted perfectly! Me and Beck didn't get to bed until 1 as we were putting all the pictures up on the internet and managed to update yet more blog.....I hope you all appreciate this chore!
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