Day 6 Husbands Bosworth to Spratton (Grange Lodge)

Today we left as early as 4:30am. As we get nearer to London, we have to leave Derby earlier and earlier in order to start the walk on time. We started the walk a couple of miles before Husbands Bosworth in Leicestershire at 5:38am. Before we started the walk Emmanuel and I agreed that we should really push forward today and try to get as much walking done as possible so as to ensure that we reach Northampton by tomorrow.

It was really difficult for us but we pushed ourselves to the limit today. Today is a very wet day but we did not have umbrellas or raincoats. Peter, our day co-ordinator had a rain cover from a pushchair in the boot of his car, so he gave it to Emmanuel to use to protect him from the rain (we both have high visibility yellow tops on but whereas mine is heavy and long sleaves, Emmanuel's was only light and offered no protection at all from the rain). The rain was really heavy at times and we got absolutely soaked including my shoes. One benefit of the rain however was that it made it easier on Emmanuel's feet as it kept them cool and wet. In fact, he had a blister a couple of days ago which we were very worried about but today Emmanuel said it was like a miracle because the skin had come off and it wasn't sore underneath.

We walked for five hours today, without a break. Peter kept asking us to stop but we were so determined to keep going in case we would stiffen up and wouldn't get started again. We met lots of people today including a farmer that Peter met while parked in front of his farm. He was interested to hear about our campaign and took a photo for us.

Emmanuel and I were very tired as today was the longest distance we had done so far. Doing this walk is harder than we thought it would be but it is a challenge that we are looking forward to completing.

We finally stopped a little past Spratton, outside Spratton Grange Lodge. We didn't know at this point how many miles to Northampton there were left to do tomorrow. Peter suggested we drive to see how far it is to Northampton so we got in the car and found that we were only 4.3 miles away from the town. Calculating the distance shows that we did 14 miles non-stop walking today!!! A great achivement, especially in the rain! Tomorrow, should be a very easy day.

At the end of the walk, we were very wet and cold. Peter had a big flask of hot water and some tea bags, coffee, milk and sugar, so while we were in the car driving to Northampton, we drank a very welcome cup of tea. His wife had also baked some cakes which we ate as well.

Thanks to Peter for co-ordinating this day and driving us to Northamptonshire and back. Thanks to his wife also, for her lovely cakes!