Mary said "We haven't done a challenge this year". "Oh dear" I thought. So she signed us up for a 23 mile walk along part of Hadrian's Wall in aid of the Alzheimer Society. That explains why we have been doing lots of walks this year - all part of the training regimen.
We took the day off and went up by train, picked up a hire car and drove to Brampton where we had booked a B&B for two nights. A walk round the town and a pint of local ale in the Howard Arms followed by a meal in a Brambles Bistro and an early night.
It was an early start: drive to Lanercost Priory for assembly at 6am to be bussed to the start point from where we would walk back to the priory.
It was a lovely day, perfect for walking, admiring the countryside and marvelling at the feat of Roman engineering as it snaked across the countryside following a natural ridge.
"Boys will be boys" and we passed several groups of men dressing up as centurions. And good luck to them, they are having fun, it adds to the general jollity and provides lots of photo opportunities. As I said to one lot they must appear in so many people's photo albums.
At times the escarpment that forms the basis of the wall's route is positively spectacular.
There are turrets every third of a mile and forts every mile.
It was a long hard slog. Some serious ups and downs at the start. It levelled off in the latter stages but by then we were running on empty. Mary had it worse as she was recovering from a horrible cold. But we made it - 23.6 miles in 8.5 hours.
A grand day out and we raised a reasonable amount of money for the Alzheimers Society.
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