Oh dear. What have we let ourselves in for in coming here?
Sam: sadly there was no Merry Man action whatsoever in the vicinity of Robin Hood Airport, nor did we even see a single bow or arrow. Which was quite a relief after last year.
Kat: Your advice was good. All hail Compede, for it is good and noble.
Rosy: Your bribe is good. To be honest we were planning on doing the sheep thing anyway in thanks for such a lovely evening before we set off. Any other tasks you'd like to request?
Sue and Pam: Get knitting!
Kate: We still blame you for Corby.
Only this time it's nearly all stopped working. The first inkling that all was not as it should be was before we even set off, when we discovered that our "hotline" phone was completely functional unless you wanted it to make a sound of any kind. Not terribly helpful as a telephone then.
Next was the comment left anonymously on our blog simply asking "Where are the pictures supposed to be appearing?!" Indeed, it appeared that not a single photo had been posted, despite our using a Flickr service especially designed to do just that. Unable to fathom why, we've taken the Argument From Ignorance approach and assumed that someone just has something against us. Anyway, we quickly found a solution to that. His name's John.
Next, our internet tracking system stopped working for an entire day (see earlier post). That has now been put down to the fact that most of Leicestershire has rubbish mobile reception.
Next, the big one: on a roadside outside Corby (where else?) Ewan knelt on and thereby resolutely smashed the Pocket PC that has been the source of our navigatory prowess as well as our blogging panache. Yes, the poor old thing, on its last legs already, was unceremoniously dispached from the world of function.
But at least we could still send blog updates by text message. The marvellous little service whereby we send a text and it appears as a blog post a moment later. You may remember it from such gems as "We've got a Yorkie," and who could forget the classic "Selby does a marvellous curry"?
Well, no. A couple of days ago we discovered that since about day two, none of those has got through either. The reason? Two days into our walk, the SMS Country service spontaneously changed to become only available to those in India. No, really. So it turns out that you had no idea that we'd been answering al your comments, and even composing poetry, as we walked. Not a word of it.
Anyway, the real purpose of this post is to announce that it all now works again! Without going into too much detail, let's just say that Curry's in Kettering came to the rescue, and we are now once more entirely blogtastic and hotlineal. And we'll start answering your comments... Again.
- The Yorkshire region of our walk was defined by power stations.
- The Midland region has been defined by windmills, both functional and decorative. The functional ones scared us a bit at first but we liked them in the end.
- Fewer southerners request that we have a reason for our walk: we began last year, when people asked why we were walking to Edinburgh, to consider saying things like 'It has been foretold', or 'Because our ASBO requires it'. Southerners, maybe being more used to pointlessness, just tend to laugh and congratulate us. And in the case of a receptionist yesterday, insist on giving us more tea.
- Whilst all regions are equally primarily suited to Meatloaf and Alice Cooper, the south leans toward 70s disco classics where the North was all with the 70s and 80s glam stadium rock.
- The south has also seen a surprise entry on to its top 10 listening classics with the hits of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
- A key split between north and south is revealed in public footpath blocking methods. Where the north favoured piles of manure and farm machinery, the south has so far revealed a penchant for motorways and huge piles of felled trees.
Drat. It appears that our photos aren't getting through. We'll try and fix it when we're not in a field near Donacster.
