Day 46 – two weeks to go.

Compton Martin – Street. 19 miles, 1,578ft of elevation, 38,303 steps

After finally leaving the ‘ring of bells’ after my marvellous breakfast and chat with two fisherman and Stuart the pub manager, I set off late at 10:00am. Via a trip to the delightful post office which took me back to my youth (am I really that old – but he did have one of those sponges for counting money), I hit the hills and made my way up the the start of the Mendips.

First view of the day was Blagdon Lake which my new fishing buddy’s were on – it certainly looked calmer than it would have been yesterday.

The walking was fairly easy, mostly a mixture of muddy fields and tiny country roads. I was on the Monarch Way (as we were yesterday). Not quite so well sign posted as Offa’s Dyke but certainly better than some of the paths I did with Catherine.

With my head down and in mine own thoughts it came as a surprise when I suddenly looked up to see such a wonderful view of Glastonbury and it’s Tor, the sea out to the West and the Quantock hills in the far distance.

Here I bumped in to a lovely couple Paul and Lynn from Cardiff and they kindly stopped for a chat. We talked about Grace, STARS, and also Maddy and her time in Cardiff Uni. Point of note is the museum of Wales just outside Cardiff (St Fagan’s). Thank you both also for your donation.

It appears that I decided the camera cannot do justice to the views, and so no photos were take on my phone until I got down in to Wookey Hole.

What a strange place. It clearly was once a beautiful old village but has been taken over by some ‘Disney’ want to be and there are ‘resort’ placards and bunting everywhere and the most bizarre pirate crazy golf and shop and experience show and basically just horrible. Enough!

The Tor at Glastonbury then just taunted me for the next few miles. As it seemed appropriate, I listened to Emily Eavis, (daughter of the Glastonbury legend Michale) in an inspiring episode of desert island discs. I then tried to find a way to listen to the Jay Z set on Spotify but sadly failed. I just love the fact that she took a successful formula and shook it up to its core with such a fundamental change. She recognised that people can embrace change and recognise evolution, can love all sorts of genre of music amongst other things. I am not really a fan of Jay Z but love her and respect him for shifting the dial.

However, there clearly still seem to be those living in the clouds of the first concerts from the 1970’s. Free love or just a hippy mess of old converted horse boxes and flowing skirts…… love it, I could go on for hours.

Finally after skirting Glastonbury through its industrial estate, I made it to the ’Royal Alfred’ in Street.

As is often the case I arrived thirsty and tired and the first pint always goes down very quickly. I met some lovely locals, including Paul, and after some generous pints, I sit here writing my blog and waiting until it’s time to have my kindly purchased rum before bed.

Lucy Rouse is joining tomorrow so I need to make sure the route is fixed and not too much of an unknown. Still can’t believe I let the boys off with such a short walk yesterday.