I started walking in Horton at 6.30 in the morning, the sun coming in
through the tent having woken me up at about half five. It's much
easier to drag myself out of bed when camping, lying in just doesn't
hold the same satisfaction. I made good time in the early hours of the
morning while the air was cool and the sun barely out. I had a rather
extended breakfast stop in wooten-under-edge because the chef had just
popped out at the cafe I stopped in, I'd lost an hour of the best part
of the day for walking. When it came though it was delicious and I
needed the fuel having only had noodles and smoked sausage cooked on
the camping stove the night before. Later in the day as the sun
gathered heat my pace slowed and the need to get my bag off my back
increased. I stopped for short periods just to recover from the climbs
but it adds up pretty quickly and the afternoons distance was much
less than the mornings but I made it as far as Painswick just 10 miles
south of Cheltenham. Another pretty Cotswold town with all the
buildings made of the local stone. From here I was picked up by
Robert, who I've known from junior school days, and taken out for a
nice pub dinner and given a comfy bed for the night; bliss!
The photo shows a monument on top of one of the Cotswold hills to
William Tynesdale, translator of the new testament in to English who
was subsequently burnt at the stake in Germany for heresy. A similar
monument can be found only about 5 miles away to General Lord Robert
Somerset, though there was no information about who he was or what he
had done.
