An early start all round in our house, we set off for Winchester at 7.15am with a mixture of anxious and excited emotions buzzing around. Bacon butties and warm coffees were awaiting us on this dry, sunny but chilly morning.
We were met by Carey and Polly from The Anaphylaxis Campaign who gave us lovely subtle orange t-shirts to wear and balloons to wave around. The children had a fantastic time running around collecting donations and explaining to passers-by what this strange bunch of people were doing outside Winchester Cathedral so early on a Friday morning!
After "rattling our buckets" for a couple of hours, we set off from Winchester Cathedral at 10am with a cheery wave from our supporters. We were joined by Imogen, a young member of the Anaphylaxis Campaign, who had kindly offered to join us for the day.
Fairly quickly we were out in open fields and had to de-layer. The weather was fine and sunny and the views stunning.
We set a fairly easy pace and chatted to Imogen about her allergies and her experiences of living as a teenager with a live threatening allergy to nuts. It was so helpful to speak to her and realise that all the anxieties that Emily shows are perfectly normal, that she will learn to cope with them. It was interesting to learn that they both share a dislike of any sort of spicy food - possibly linked to the tingle they produce in the mouth being akin to the "allergy tingle" - that they both have a near phobia of being sick, again possibly due to the link with their allergies, and that the "allergy itch" is a very different sort of itch to a normal itch. Fascinating.
After an hour or so we stopped for a drink and re-fuel (good old wine gums!) sitting on what felt like enormous bean bags, which were in fact bags of animal feed!
The rolling hills stretched out to our left and right and the cameras were barely put away. You could never tire of seeing those views and after another hour or so, we found a lovely spot in the shade of a barn to have our lunch. Sitting there with the sun beating down, the only sounds you could hear were bird song - no roads, no aeroplanes, nothing. Bliss.
After a lovely half hour break we were ready to get going again. We were by now becoming more accustomed to chatting to people we met on the way and asking for "Any spare change?". We made quite a sight in our not-so-subtle orange t-shirts and everyone we met was very generous in their donations, not just coins but notes going in too! We were all astonished at the generosity of people.
A very welcome pint was drunk at The Milbury and again, some generous donations received.
We were 7 miles in and feeling good so we set off again. The way was a mixture of (very dry) dirt track, fields and occasionally country roads. We passed the messiest farmyard we had ever seen, littered with the most bizarre abandoned junk you could possibly imagine - including a huge metal hull of a boat! Random!!
Very soon we were on top of Beacon Hill, looking down the Meon Valley with the end in sight - for today anyway!
We passed a very large marquee in the middle of a field in the middle of no-where, which we presumed to be for a posh wedding the next day. A little further on we saw a helicopter in a farm yard - clearly going to be quite some "do"!
The slopes down to Exton were incredibly steep and by now, my knee was giving me some jip. The walking poles were a great help, not only for my knee but also for giving me confidence when being chased out of field by some moo-dy cows! Scary!!
At around 3.45 we reached Exton and The Shoe, our intended beer stop, only to find it closed until 6pm! So we decided to walk on to our B&B about 15mins away in Meonstoke - only to find that it too was closed until 6pm!!
We sat in the sunshine and waited whilst Imogen was collected by a friend. We waved her off with huge thanks for keeping us company and being such an inspiration to us.
A short while later the owners arrived and gave us a very warm welcome to The Bucks Head where we spent our evening eating great food, collecting even more donations and drinking a very welcome bottle of wine.
What a fantastic day and only one blister so far to slow us down!
