Hello Martin and Richard,
Our cat is now 14 and this year he's begun to show he can't take the nights out! Today, he came in about 0700 and, after a bit of socialising and breakfast, was asleep by 0800, getting up at 1500. He then had a couple of hours out and has been in now for about 90 minutes asleep. His record for sleeping is something like 15 hours, not non-stop if I remember rightly as he got up to eat at one point and then went back to bed straightaway, so maybe only 14 and threequarter hours asleep!
I'm doing the Hadrian's Wall Walk using Contours who specialise in walking holidays. You say what walk you want to do (or get them to create a custom walk for you), and they arrange accommodation so all you have to do is walk (even your luggage is taken on for you). Diane and I tried them out on our first (and so far with house moving plans only) walking holiday when we walked from Berwick to Warkworth (the Northumberland Coastal Castles Walk) in 2006 and found them very good, as has a friend of ours on a number of holidays.
With my planned walk I'm including a couple of non-walking days at major sites and walking about 14 miles a day. That doesn't seem a lot in time if you think that the average walking speed is about 4 mph, but on a walk like this you actually average about two to two and a half miles an hour when you take account of stopping to admire the view, take photos, check the map and so on. I didn't believe this when a friend who has walked in the Himalayas, South America and, this year, South Africa told me this, but she was spot-on!
I had thought of taking the a Roman figure or two as well as Maisie and Fred, and I'm pretty certain I will. I'm still thinking about whether to make it a sponsored walk (I am an Assessor for Kirkleatham Hall School for severely handicapped children and young adults in Cleveland and also support Gedes School in Kenya which is a similar Kenyan school, so these would be the target for the sponsor money) and also whether to do a blog as I go. We'll see on both counts nearer the time.
