Day 15 Frogmore to Burnt Oak

This morning Emmanuel, Tafi, Geoff and I were woken by Mr. Robin at 4am. He had already prepared breakfast for us when we came down after getting washed and dressed. Over breakfast, Mr. Robin gave each of us a present - a small seashell which was very beautiful. We have really enjoyed our stay with Mr Robin and Margaret and have loved their company and conversations. Whilst having breakfast, we found it really hard knowing that we were leaving them today. It felt like our time together wasn’t long enough and I believe that they felt the same.

We left Mr. Robin’s home at 5am and started walking from Frogmore at 5:20. At the end of each day, we leave a marker where we stop and return to that point the next. Today, when we returned to our marker, it was not there. We think someone may have seen us hide the marker last time and then pinched it once we left!!! Geoff Noble, our day co-ordinator stopped after every ½ mile and walked with us.

The foot clinic!

Emmanuel was struggling as the pavement was really rough and his swollen foot hadn’t recovered properly. We did have a joke about this however: Geoff came up to us and said “I’ve got some good news for you guys but the place is still closed” and when we walked along, we arrived at… a Foot Clinic! We took a photo!

Geoff was very helpful today in sorting out the directions across some of the major roundabouts. We stopped walking at Burnt Oak at 9:50am.

After the walk we went to meet up with Sue Bentley at a big park with a huge lake. She had brought a picnic with her so we found a bench and had lunch. Geoff then left us at the park to return to Derby and Sue drove us back to her home in Harpenden as she had to pick up her children from school while Tafi and I caught up on Wimbledon.

At 5:30pm Sue dropped us at Elstree at the home of Vicar Karen where we were staying that night. We had a shower and then left to go to meet the Mother’s Union in St. Albans for 7:30pm. Emmanuel spoke to the group. He couldn’t hold back his tears at the end. Everyone really felt the emotion and some people also welled up. He then gave them a chance to ask questions. The Bishop of Bedford who was also there asked if everyone would join him in a prayer for us. We received a donation from one of the members.

After the meeting, we returned to Elstree to Vicar Karen’s house. Sue said that Karen was the first to offer us accommodation when she was organising her leg of our journey. On our return, Vicar Karen had prepared a lovely meal for us which we enjoyed very much. We were very tired at this point so after the meal we went straight to bed. I slept like log that night!