You hear nothing from me and my website for ages and then I get all active again. Well why not….after all there are a few things happening:

FIRSTLY: Watch out, there is another walker about! Natalia Spencer set off from Durdle Door on 14th February and is trying to follow my clockwise route. She is raising money for Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal (The Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity) and is doing the walk in memory of her 5yr old daughter, Elizabeth, who she sadly lost following a short illness last December. You can follow her progress and buddy beacon via the link below and please give her a little of your support if you can.

SECONDLY: I have now added a new page with a summary of ‘Other Walkers’ who have completed the walk around Britain without stopping. Taking much of the information from David Cotton’s excellent website, I have updated the links and added a bit more info where I could find it. Hopefully you can use it as a resource for coastal walking or for general interest if you like that sort of thing. There are links to all the other books I have found about walking the coast – though some of them are no longer in print.

THIRDLY: My book is due out imminently…whahay! Watch this space for news over the coming days. Don’t expect a literary masterpiece. But I do hope you will find it a nice gentle read adapted directly from my blog – only now you don’t have to read it in reverse order. Corrected for typos, spelling mistakes and grammatical nightmares (though I have frustratingly found a couple more in the final print), with added drivers’ diary comments and 300 photos – I’m actually chuffed that it looks OK. I hope that you will enjoy it too.

While getting the beers in and waiting for the FA Cup final you still have time to choose GB Coast Walk for the Simply Hike Blog Awards (Hiking & Walking Section) – the vote closes Sunday 31st May.

Thanks to all of you who have voted already, please pass the word around as I’m not very good at this campaigning lark. Yes, I might cynically suspect that Simply Hike’s mailing list is probably the main beneficiary – but hey why not, they sell some good kit and I haven’t won anything like this before. I’m not even sure what the prize is.

W/C 7th December, Leicestershire: Home

I might have made it home but I was still feeling numb. The last few days had all been more than a little surreal and though many people had kindly told me what an extraordinary feat I had just completed, I didn’t feel as if I had done anything special. I was still the same pretty ordinary person and as far as I could tell I hadn’t changed in any way, other than losing a fair bit of weight and developing two small tree trunks for legs. As far as I was concerned, if I could do it, pretty much any able-bodied person could. The only things that held me back from doing it sooner were the opportunity and support to do it and for that I was a lucky bunny. Walking had just become a normal daily activity with normal daily routines. Nothing at home would seem normal and I didn’t have any routines.

According to all reports, life at home had been far tougher than walking around the coast. Everything was intact and certainly tidier than when I left my chaotic mess back in February. The house was immaculate and I was loathed to untidy things by emptying my rubbish back inside. Kate had more than done her bit and by lunchtime on day one of my return I had emptied the entire contents of Snickers into one spotless room, thus converting it into a large unsightly heap of plastic bags. Snickers had done me proud and by emptying and winterising her, she quickly lost the homely weather shelter feel she had come to represent. It was now just an anonymous motorhome with a few travel stickers to show off and one I needed to sell fast to make sure that bills could be paid beyond Christmas.

After a cracking home cooked roast lamb Sunday lunch, I took the dogs out for a quick stroll around the village and returned to Kate and nice fire in the log burner. A nice homely first fire of the winter was a perfect welcome back to reality. Kate had left a very large scented candle on top of the stove and was kept from dozing off on the sofa by a repetitive waxy drip. A quick mop up with some kitchen towels would solve that and the smell was actually very nice. Putting the wax soaked kitchen roll on to the fire was the mistake and that was, I cannot deny it, my idea. The roar up the chimney was that of a smelting furnace and I nipped outside to see a large smoke plume indicating that a new pope had been duly elected in a Leicestershire village. However, the smoke was followed by sparks, lots of them. Inside again, a peek up the chimney confirmed that it was indeed burning very nicely. A quick 999 call and the discharge of a small powder extinguisher helped ease the threat to the thatched roof of the cottage next door. But it wasn’t until three firemen had fully watered things down and removed a few bucket loads of smouldering debris that Kate saw the funnier side of life again. The experience had briefly thrilled one teenage daughter enough to Snapchat her friends but the post match summary was always going to blame me and as I’d forgotten to mention that the chimney needed a sweep when I left back in February, the root cause of this incident was undoubtedly sitting in my domain.

With the house looking like a tornado had swept through, I was home. Despite the slow loathing acceptance of a slightly sulky large four-pawed male, two missed dogs were soon happily trudging their muddy paws throughout the house, laundry piles were chest high and a combined smell of scented candle and smouldering chimney filled the air.

Over the next few days I pfaffed around the house trying to put some order back into my life. Gbcoastwalk still dominated and would as likely do so for a few weeks what with the self-imposed secrecy of the drivers’ diary to read, a mountain of photos to sift through and a coastal trail of emails to look at. However, with any restoration of normality would hopefully come some direction. Two priorities headed the list Christmas and work.

With the arrival home of my eldest daughter from university, Christmas had to begin first and a trip to a nearby garden centre with both girls saw my youngest select the biggest and most expensive tree. My guilt of absence made me buy it and it was soon netted and squashed into the back of my freshly taxed and serviced car with a lingering doubt that it wouldn’t actually fit in the room for which it was intended. It didn’t. Soon I was delving into the garage for a saw, a chisel or two and eventually my electric planer. An hour later and with an additional scissor applied top trim it fitted, just.

The only thing left for me to do was the usual untangling of wires ceremony and a bulb fiddling session to find a couple of decent working sets and I left the girls to decorate without my usual interfering hand. Maybe I had changed a smidge.

As for work? I had none. The bills needed paying and urgently. My budget for the year would run out in January and I would have little option other than to find proper work again. It was unlikely that the walk would lead me in a different direction, but I still hoped that some of the photos and maybe even a write up or book of my rather strange year might reap a few mortgage relieving pennies. A book had been suggested by quite a posse of friends and blog readers. It was very kind of them to do so, but I supposed that everyone would just have to wait and see. With little confidence in my punctuation and grammatical skills, I was still to be convinced. In the meantime and with no other projects or plans even vaguely considered, some sort of normal service resumes. I must plan to make a plan. At least I know I can knock up a workable plan.

So therein lies a series of 101 blogs. Whether they are worthy of keeping, only time will tell. A few GBcoastwalk questions remain: 1) Do I continue to blog?  2) Do I now remodel this website into a coastal walk reference? 3) Which Flickr photos are the best? 4) What the hell do I do with over 1,300 photos? 5) Book or no book? 6) Anyone want to buy a motorhome?

With one big item ticked off my bucket list I now know that dreaming up the idea was the madness, believing I could do it was the tough bit and achieving it required hard work and single-minded dedication. The last element could have alienated my family and the outcome of my selfish quest needed their full support to succeed, for which I am eternally thankful. I am also thankful to the entire support crew for their time, their money and for holding their nerve when driving Snickers down narrow lanes (see credits page). The one thing I have learnt more than anything is that I have a large band of truly great family, friends and relatives.

Stage 244, 3rd December: West Wittering to Chidham

It was a decidedly crisp chilly December dawn that gave me a few early minutes on the soft sand at West Wittering. A low cold sun bleached the sand with its glare and flattened the colours of the brightly coloured beach huts to pastel shades. Winter had confirmed its arrival with the addition of a biting wind on my face as I turned North and East up the Chichester Channel.

If the rich mans ghetto at Aldwick Bay was a coarse flashy and tacky show of wealth, then West Itchenor and Westlands were home to a much wider socio-economic spectrum of billionaires all the way down to multi-millionaires.  This was serious and old money country. The houses in Aldwick would be little more than a summer-house in the garden to these residents. Yet other than the sheer size of the mansions lining the river front, none of it felt or looked quite so ostentatious, it just exuded established class with barely a private plated 4×4 in sight.

I topped out the estuary at Fishbourne having crossed the lock gates at the expensively well populated Chichester Marina and briefly scared the living daylights out of a woman. I did warn her with a subtle cough as I came up on her from behind but she was engrossed in something on her mobile phone and literally jumped back as a creep dressed in black in a woolly hat and carrying a stick came alongside her.

I briefly turned back down the Chichester Channel to Bosham Hoe and back up another inlet for Bosham village. I’d been warned to time my walk through Bosham as the roads and paths get flooded with each high tide. I couldn’t have timed it better as the low tide path across the estuary was fully available and a small corner was cut giving me enough time to complete the day before the already dipping sun vanished below the horizon.

Stage 245, 4th December: Chidham to Eastney, Southsea

Following a lovely evening spent in the company of a couple of his old family friends, John’s stint filling in driving Snickers for a vital few days came to a close and he headed off to swap keys with James and get back to Brighton to fulfil his many alternative medical appointments to sort out a dodgy shoulder.

Twenty minutes out and my 5,000 mile landmark came and went ignominiously at Cullimers Pond. Throughout the entire walk I had been religiously recording my cumulative mileage total against my original estimate of 5,032. It was the one thing I had always considered beyond a couple of days in advance. It was the one thing I always kept my eye on. It was the one target I always wanted to exceed. My plan told me that I should complete 5,033 miles and it had never given me much leeway if my daily mileage didn’t live up to expectation. Over the last nine and a half months I had been both in front and behind my projection and more often than not frighteningly close. For the last few weeks I had relaxed in the knowledge that I’d got things pretty much right and I now reckoned my final total would be nearer to 5,045. So when the 5,000 came and went, I wasn’t elated, nor was I deflated. I just felt relaxed that I didn’t have to worry about finishing the entire walk on 4,999.

More sea-wall took me around Cobnor Point with bridged sections now sacrificing farmland back to the sea, making the pathway into a curving causeway rather than a permanent headland. Thorney Island was quickly bypassed and by Emsworth I was back in Hampshire and soon back on The Solent Way. The circle was almost complete and my mind now overloaded with targets achieved.

The weather was decidedly dull. It was a heavy lead grey sky and cold with a mist of rain in the air, definitely a mizzle. Gladly, the walking wasn’t dull. It wasn’t thrilling either, but with lots of twists and turns in the path the minor scene changes kept my interest. With my mind travelling at a million miles per hour, I barely noticed Hayling Island to my left as I swept passed the bridge where flashing blue lights indicated a distant road accident.

Langstone and Brockhampton came and went quickly too and a last dip down around the headland at Farlington Marshes took me back to the aural discomfort of road noise and the suburbs of Portsmouth. My last march South took me to Eastney and a meeting with James for our one and only evening together catching up on work gossip and a damn good pub meal. As a good old work friend I had always wanted James to come along for a week. Like many of my friends who work for themselves, his work commitments meant that he had found it difficult to commit to a guaranteed slot, but to have his company for even one night was grand.

Stage 246, 5th December: Eastney to Warsash

James dropped me back in Eastney and drove off back to Maidenhead to leave me to walk into camp at Warsash.

For my last full day I had planned to take things easy and the seafront of Southsea was a stroll which became a sprint as a cold Northwesterly breeze chilled two cups of tea and a bowl full of milky Oatibix. For reasons known to the local councils and probably the occasional well-known celebrity or two, heavily populated towns and cities close many of their public toilets in the winter. So when a walker with a gallon of chilled tea and milk onboard cannot find a tree or bush to sneak behind his gait becomes a hurried pigeon footed mince as the urgency to avoid a warm legged accident becoming a reality increases.  Fortunately Southsea pier came to the rescue, or so I thought. 20p for a pee and no change. A knock on the window of a man probably called Desperate Dan, revealed a true British official with no imagination or vague sense of mercy, who didn’t carry change and who wouldn’t let in a man about to wet himself. Fortunately a merciful passer-by flicked 20p in my direction, but it rolled tantalisingly under the barrier and out of my reach. At the offer of a fiver to let me in, the official relented and he entered through the exit barrier to retrieve the rogue coin – my dignity was safe.

Now relaxed I was able to enjoy Portsmouth with the shapely curve of its Spinnaker Tower overseeing all sea movement for miles around as prolific boat traffic filled a marine equivalent of the M25. A quick anonymous trip on the Gosport Ferry took me to my last bit of peace and quiet around Gilkicker Point and across my last MOD range and an empty shingle beach at Browndown.

At Lee on Solent my phone buzzed up a missed call from a private number. Voicemail gave me the telephone number of a BBC TV chap who wanted to cover my final day and return to Southampton tomorrow. I tried to remember the number he repeated but my brain was frazzled and I just couldn’t remember the whole number despite three retries. I felt disappointed that I couldn’t do something that in normal circumstances wouldn’t test me one bit but relented and nipped into a newsagent in search of a cheap pen that writes on the back of a hand. Media interest was, at last, growing and I suspected a few friends had intervened.

A brief low cliff walk and a tame muddy path into Warsash and my final night aboard Snickers was one spent alone. I treated myself to a steak in peppercorn sauce with creamy mash made with french mustard and a tin of baked beans – well I was sleeping alone. The end was truly nigh and everything felt a little quiet, very still and more than a little alien. I just wanted to get home now and anything else was just a blur. Tomorrow would be a very strange day and one I hoped I would remember fondly.

to be continued……