Been Down That Road Before...

OK.  Well, I think I might be.  At least well enough to attempt tackling this damned thing again.

Since we last talked about feet and inches I've recovered from the Christmas Lurgey enough to start preparing properly for a change.  By the way, I have to send my thoughts to everyone reading who had a similar case of the Lurgey, or Swine Flu as it seems to be popularly known - I know loads of people who were walloped by it this winter and hope the rest of you/us don't have another bout any time soon.  T'was horrible.  Back to the present and my preparations...  Yes, I've actually started some informal training - Seems I should get more than a few miles in each week before I head off, so as of two weeks ago I've been doing 10 miles every second day and two consecutive days of the same at the weekend - making a rough weekly total of 40ish miles.  I'll be walking from Glasgow to Edinburgh next week, hoping it doesn't rain, much, and may well repeat the same a couple more times before the grand departure on the 15th April (a return walk might even be on the cards)...  In addition to that I've been hitting the gym.  Shouting at it a lot because it's too expensive to join and then going home to lift dumbells and perform lots and lots of leg stretching because I'm about as flexible as Gordon Brown in a crisis.  Not soon enough..?  Pah!

Which leads me to a quick info session (Eh..?)...  I don't know if you remember but during the whole initial process that made me want to do this stupid thing I read about Janet Street Porter's thinly veiled attacks on Mental Illness last year..?  And the walk that she completed in 1999 (?) from Calton Hill Observatory in Edinburgh to the Greenwich Observatory in Greenwich, London..?  Well, I'm informing you now that they are my start and finish destinations this time, for purely antagonistic and equally legend forming reasons.  OK, if I end up in Greenwich I do know a couple of decent pubs within a stone's throw and there are some luvverly friend type people I could ask to accompany me on that leg of the journey... to the pub.  If I stop for a pint at every pub on the way ti'd be the longest pub crawl in history... Now THAT would be an achievement!

So, to sum up, I've been burning shoe rubber in preparation to walk 400 odd miles in order to stick two metaphorical fingers up at an ageing bovine hack and then enjoy a pint at one of my old watering holes.  That's pretty much it, yeah...

Bye for now and look forward to wearing out my prints keeping you advised of my imminent progress :0)