First there was Tony Orlando, later it was Bobby Vinton, but for most people of a certain age, there is only one true version of the classic hit 'Halfway to Paradise' and that's the one by British rock and roll legend, Billy Fury. Peaking at number 3 in 1961, the single spent 23 weeks in the charts and was Billy's signature song. And there I was, yomping along, on the 4th consecutive day of training walks, when this song suddenly popped into my mind.

I think I was actually listening to Dave Gilmour's searing guitar solo on Pink Floyd's live show, monster tune, 'Comfortably Numb' on my IPod, when a somewhat crazy thought came to me. The walking was going well, averaging 7 miles a day, so why not go for it. Why not see how the feet stand up to a few more days. In fact, why not try and walk for the same number of days that we'll be walking on the C2C. AND, if I continue to average 7 miles a day, then I will have done the same number of days as the C2C and..........approximately half the distance; I'd be walking halfway to paradise, sort of! And there you have it; there you have the strange workings of my quirky mind.....the somewhat spurious reason why I was thinking of Billy Fury and Halfway to Paradise!!!

And boy, did I go for it. The trouble with walking around 7 miles a day, every day for 16 days, is the chunk of time that it can take out of your day, particularly when us retired folk have plenty of other things to do with our valuable time. So, for over two weeks, I was out by soon after 7 each morning and even 6.30 one morning and was back home, tucking into brekkie by 9.30 most days.

I had four different routes I used around Leighton Buzzard to ensure a bit of variety, but evenso, I have to say, that after 16 days, the same routes were getting just a tad monotonous! But, monotonous or not, after the monsoon weather we have suffered for months, the weather for these 16 days was really pretty fantastic. A lot of sunshine and no rain!  

And what a lovely time of year to walk, the swans-a-swimming, the lambs-a-gambolling and the flowers-a-blooming. Although Mandy joined me on a few of the walks, I was mostly on my on; walking alone on lovely Spring days..............if you were vaguely poetic you could say, 'I wandered lonely by a canal' (with apologies to William Wordsworth)!  

But enough of this poetic nonsense, I actually completed the 16 days on Sunday, a total of around 110 miles and the good news is, the feet felt pretty good at the end of it. So, what next? Well with just over a month to go, I've decided to tone down the training walks a touch....I simply don't want to peak to soon (ha,ha!!). Future walks will be maybe once or twice a week, but of the longer variety.............plus the golf, of course!!  


Before I end this particular entry, I should record the pre-walk get together of our illustrious group. Now this is where Steve Forbes came into his own, organising a boozy session at a decent pub in London. March the 4th was the date and we all turned up at a City institution, the Old Dr. Butler's Head near Moorgate, with origins dating back before the Great Fire of London in 1666. The original pub was destroyed in the Fire, but was rebuilt and been renovated many times since.   

As for Dr. Butler he was a practicing physician, but was actually a fraud having failed to qualify in medicine at Cambridge! His somewhat bizarre cures included an amazing treatment for epilepsy, whereby he fired two pistols close to the head of the unsuspecting patient, intending to 'scare' the epilepsy out of the body....even if the epilepsy was cured, the patient was probably permanently deaf thereafter! Anyway, this didn't stop the crackpot Dr. Butler actually becoming chief physician to King James I, and hence a pub was named after him. Thinking about it, this was probably the perfect place for this crazy band of walkers to meet. 


Unfortunately, Tim Horan couldn't make it in the end.......something to do with 'work' commitments; never mind Tim, only just over a year to go until retirement!! The other 5 of us ate and drank to Tim's health and made a number of important decisions, most of which seemed to be to Tim's detriment, I'm afraid; but, such is life. One other piece of news though is that we have a new member of our intrepid band. Marie will unfortunately have to leave us at the half way stage of the walk, but Tina believes she has found a replacement lady to join us for the second half. More information to follow in a later entry.