My day began with me possibly damaging the new and complex coffee machine available for the use of guests at the inn where I was staying. Maybe I added coffee beans where I should have added water. Anyway it refused to work so I settled for a mug of tea with the muesli, banana and "Moo juice" provided. Then I struggled to open the blind in my room, possibly damaging that as well. No one was around to pay my bill, although it was after 8:00 am, so I rang up the manager and got him out of bed. Not sure they will be inviting me back...
Last night my left knee had been hurting and my right hip was not too good. However after starting to exercise and walk the discomfort disappeared or else I forgot about it. Walking seems to be the cure for my knee pain....but I worry it may also be the cause, especially if I push longer distances....like today at 28 kilometres.
Thin sheets of ice covered puddles, begging to be broken, and the sky was blue when I left the village, passing what appeared to be a water tower converted into a house. Must have had good views. Today's walk was similar to yesterday's, on a straight track, footpath or road on the line of an old Roman road through farmland with stands of trees. Most fields were devoted to growing crops, but many were used to raise pigs. Fields with a slight aroma, were filled with lines of their "houses". Around these simple, steel shelters, the hogs rootled about in the muddy ground, climbed over their troughs and each other, or relaxed, lying down on straw or mud. A litter of piglets scurried around before hiding inside their "house". I was glad the pigs could move around rather than being confined to stalls, unable to turn around. Eating meat would be difficult to justify if its production caused pain and distress to the animals. The one field of sheep I saw were artistically backlit by the low morning sun as they grazed in a field of stubble.
Today's hills were maybe a little more pronounced than yesterday's, although the inclines were still gentle. There were not many sights to break the hike's monotony: another stone slab with a farming related verse or "songline"; a trig point with a sign stating it was part of a GPS Network (not sure why it was needed); a bronze age round barrow; a distant wind mill and wind turbines; a group of trees that might have marked a "marl" pit (where marl, a mixture of clay and chalk, was dug as a fertiliser). An old oak stood beside the track, its contorted, gnarly branches raised like arms beseeching the heavens for a return its youth, as a strangling cloak of ivy climbed ever higher up its trunk. Other trees spread their branches as if to say welcome, while yet more seemed undecided, creating irregular shapes as if not sure which way to grow. Then again, as I looked at the trees I thought these thoughts were just the imagination of an empty brain!
Often I walk staring at the ground in front of me and so maybe miss something ahead. In this way I just caught an orange brown animal flash in the periphery of my vision, disappearing behind a hedge. I resolved to walk straighter and look into the distance, sadly this hurt my knee as I unexpectedly stepped into dips and potholes I had not seen, jarring the joint. Nevertheless I spotted one hare chase another around a field. Maybe a male wanting to mate with a reluctant female.
Apart from touching the edge of Sedgeford, there were no villages on my route today, so sadly no chance of a coffee or cake. Consequently, a mile or so before my destination of Ringstead I sat on a bench. One of three I had passed with little messages on like "take a rest boy", so I did, the elderly lady already sitting there said she did not mind. We discussed daffodils and the drifts of snowdrops I had passed. The snowdrops in her garden were still in flower having started at Christmas.
For dinner at my Inn at Ringstead it seemed appropriate to eat pork having seen so many pigs today. Maybe having pork for starters as well as the main course was overdoing it a bit, as I could not manage a dessert. All being well, tomorrow will be a momentous occasion as I will reach the sea and so complete my crossing of England on the Greater Ridgeway.....
....then I will start on the Norfolk Coast Path.
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