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  1. Day 2 – Gone with the Wind — 7 comments
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  3. Day 6 – Rollright Stones — 5 comments
  4. Day 23 – Walking with the End in Sight — 5 comments
  5. The Day After — 4 comments

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Day 20- (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction I refuse to believe we are merely walking plumbing machines. For much of my life, I have been searching for something, a way of making a difference and a means of finding some purpose within the chaos. I have no idea why I am driven to seek while others seem …

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Day 19 – All’s Fair in Love and Dinner

A Salty Tale Some time ago, our daughter Clare asked us to supper on the spur of the moment. There was no special occasion – John was away and it was just a last-minute thing. Her three sons were there, and we ate chicken and drank some wine. Just for the record, we eat informally …

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Day 18 – Witch Hunts, Fit as a Flea and Modern Termites

Salem In Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” his plot recreated incidents that occurred in the 1700’s in Salem, Massachusetts. In short, there was a witch hunt that only ended after all those who looked odd and had rumours circulating about them had been executed. Now to today’s Westminster. There is to be an “investigation” into allegations …

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Day 17 – Sent from Coventry

We have now flogged through Coventry in a heat wave. I suppose I wasn’t really surprised to hear warnings in the media by the authorities that it was unwise to go out in the sun! How nannyish is this and what a silly waste of money? What have we come to when the authorities lecture …

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Day 16 – Beyond Our Ken

So Ken Clarke’s ministerial career has ended. I knew Ken 35 years ago when I was a simple back bencher. Ken told me once that he loved Westminster so much he would have to be carried out in a coffin. I hope that does not happen soon. Ken was very kind to me on one …

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Day 15 – Derby, Death and Lust

We are not too keen on south Derbyshire. Sorry, but it ain’t a patch on the beautiful north. Today we faced vast expanses of scrubby grass randomly blotted with humungous clumps of elephant eye nettles. Fine fun if you are a flea but a stinging misery for us. The farmers who grow their miserable crops …

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Day 14 – Talking to the Cleaners, Taken to the Cleaners?

Please tell me why it is that, when you ask people how they are, they usually reply: “I’m good!” I haven’t questioned their moral status, so it’s a wierd reply when you come to think of it. The second mystery to me is: why do we have Brazilian cleaners who can’t speak English, working very …

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Day 13 – Capability and Browns

We walk from Longford to Hilton through flatter and less picturesque country. The paths are overgrown and prove nigh on impossible to pass. At the end of the day we both look like damp wrecks. We stayed last night with a capable and dynamic couple from Zimbabwe who are building up their lives in the …

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Day 12 – Talking the Walk, with a Passion

We walked through the Derbyshire Peak DIstrict, which Jane and I hunted over in days gone by. We were regaled about Zimbabwe by one ancient farmer, who told us that charity starts at home and that Mugabe was “spot on” in his views on the homosexual community. Jane and I decided to cut our losses …

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Day 11 – Last of the Summer Wine

Tyred and Emotional We walk at Olympian speed and soon we are staggering through a derelict bog set on the side of a cliff. I now know why we have’t seen another walker since the Lakes. They have more sense. When we arrive at our lunchtime rendezvous there is no sign of Richard. We wait …

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