When Poppy was in high school she went on a geography field
trip, got her socks and shoes wet on the first day, continued to wear said
socks and shoes for the rest of the trip and got trench foot. It took a long time
and a lot of pain and discomfort before it went, and left Poppy with a horror
of wet shoes. When we were choosing shoes to wear on this trip my main criteria
was lightweight and flexible, Poppy’s was waterproof. During the walk in April
from Newcastle to Filey she was very happy with her choice, but although they coped with
clifftops and beaches, it seems that field edges were a step too far.
On the first morning we walked through long wet grass and
our feet got wet. An hour later mine were dry – my shoes are basically made of
mesh and the water can get out just as easily as it got in. Poppy’s shoes,
however, were doing a great job of not letting the water back out again, and
she spent the day walking with wet feet. Although she had plenty of clean dry
socks, and powders and bandaged her toes individually, her shoes didn’t dry
overnight in the tent, and she set off in the morning with incipient podiatal
dampness. By the time she unwrapped them in the hall in Goodmanham, her feet
were painful and raw.
In the morning packing up was easy as there was no tent to dismantle, and by 8am we were on our way to the nearby town of Market Weighton
to get some breakfast before setting off on our walk. We were meant to be doing
25 miles, but judging by the last two days, we suspected a taxi hop might once
more be on the cards. We could discuss it over our bacon and eggs.
As we walked though, I began to have doubts. Poppy wasn’t
walking, but hobbling, and I constantly had to wait for her to catch up. We passed a secondary school where the kids were all arriving for the day, pooling
in groups at the gates, pouring off buses and trickling in from the town. We
got some strange looks as we walked past with our rucksacks, Poppy hobbling
along with her stick.
She thought maybe she could do ten miles, but after a cup of
tea she got up from the table and could barely walk across the café to the loo.
It was no longer a case of how far, but - shall I carry on with out her or
shall we both go home?
In the end we decided to cut our losses. We could get a bus
from Market Weighton to York, then a train to get us home by lunchtime. We
could spend the afternoon planning a return trip to do the last 25 miles.
2 miles
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