Ridgeway – Day 2 (Summary)
DISTANCE WALKED: 19.6 miles
BRAVEST PERSON: Julian (for exceptional bravery in the heat) and Steve (for exceptional bravery with hayfever)
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Susanna won’t share with me now that I’ve spoiled her stone myth” – Steve “They don’t call me donkey Dave for nothing” – Dave “Gordon is going nowhere near my thumb” – Dave “My thumb is above average” – Dave “What’s going on between your legs Bev?” – Julian “I like nuts. But not Andrew’s” – Susanna “I can’t even use that in the blog, it’s beyond the pale” – Julian “No, get a shot now before the meal, spice it up” – Dave “Mine was conceived on a bar stool” – Susanna “What goes on in High Barn stays in High Barn” – Steve M “Just don’t tell Andrew” – Bev “Suddenly Steve’s head went down” – Dave “I’ll help you in ” – Steve M “Our bathroom is shared” – Maggie “Do you knock once for a cup of tea, twice for something else?” – Dave “We’ll just wang out the back” – Dave
Well that was an emotional day. We started off with breakfast in our pub, which was excellent. Well, I thought it was excellent with a full English and cereals. Bev complained about the egg, the bacon and the sausage. I thought the sausage was delicious and enjoyed half of Bev’s sausage.
Maggie was kind enough to drive us back from Marlborough back to the path, which meant two separate trips. We started off walking along the route and it was nice that the temperature was lower than yesterday. Steve struggled with hayfever, but he was very brave and only mentioned it a couple of times. He’s a real role model for Bev.
Bev complained quite a lot. Mainly towards the end of the day, but not exclusively. I can’t post this on the blog as it’s 18-rated and not X-rated, but Bev explained what she has done at Wayland’s Smithy. Honestly, I was shocked. And then that led to a revelation about what Maggie liked doing outside.
Fortunately, Dave, Steve and myself had gone to Greggs. Bev and Susanna spent 45 minutes in Waitrose and bought a lot of middle class produce. But that meant at least I had a delicious Greggs spicy chicken roll at lunch-time and that was excellent.
We went to look at the Uffington White Horse and Bev guided us towards where it was. After that guiding I then guided us to where it was, and it was an impressive site. Well, what we could see of it. But, Bev found a penny from 1908 and she kindly donated it to me, so she was flavour of the hour.
The white horse was impressive because of its location in the surrounding landscape. Susanna spoke a load of gibberish about standing stones and Bev remorsefully mocked here for several hours.
But the highlight of the day was the pebble that Bev wanted everyone to see. Now, I liked it, but there was a lot of angry people at Bev. It was an historic stone though that was of local importance, and was worth seeing. It’s known as the Blowing Stone and is a sarsen stone with numerous holes in, which is capable of making loud sounds if blown correctly.
The last hour of the day was walking to the hotel, which was off the main route and to be honest, I could hear Bev 200 yards away complaining. Susanna meanwhile went diving into a bush.
As for the evening meal, well, that was a drunken mess. Seven people, fifty shots and lots of great food, what could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot….. More on that will be detailed in my posts about day two that I’ll make tomorrow….