Day 12 - Shepperton to Teddington - Tuesday 8 August

Distance: 11 miles
Time: 3 hours 44 mins
Walking partners: Karen Smith and Fiona Parker (Two qualified nurses whose professional opinion was that several of my toes will need to be amputated. Either that or get a pedicure, I forget.)
Accommodation: Fiona's house in Teddington

My glamourous walking partners on day 12

Day 12 dawned clear and bright and we three St Andrews Alumni skipped out of bed and made breakfast in our kitchen (it was a bit of a BYO type B&B, or maybe DYO). To say that we reciprocated noise levels for the benefit of our upstairs neighbours would not be exactly true, but seeing as we all went to a catholic school I'd have to admit it's not exactly a lie...

I met Fiona and Karen when we were twelve years old (you'll see from the photo that than can only have been about 10 years ago.) Even at twelve there was a certain emphasis on, how shall we put it, personal presentation in the face of which I can only stand in awe. It was therefore no surprise to discover that Fiona's day pack contained, one large make-up bag, one hairdryer, one set of hair straighteners, two changes of clothing, two pairs of shoes and a pair of Prada sunglasses and was in fact about three kilos heavier than mine. Annoyingly they are both incredibly fit, with Karen having recently completed the 26.2 mile Moon Walk; they barely seemed to notice their loads and even offered to carry mine.

Our walk started with a free lift from Ann to the tow path as well as sponsorship for Mpora for which I am trully grateful. We then caught the small ferry (with a ferryman who, as Fiona put it, seemed to have had a charisma bypass. Personally I thought we were being incredibly witty,) to the Weybridge side of the river. It was a lovely shady walk with glimpses of riverside chalets and house-boats all the way to Walton on Thames. In fact I'm surprised I can remember anything about the scenery as we were on a marathon gossip fest for the entire journey. Before we knew it we were at Hampton Court having a coffee break and then all the way through Kingston for a lunch of tapas (which though bearing little relation to what we'd actually ordered was really quite ok) at The Boaters. The last stretch to Teddington Locks was a doddle.

Fiona lives very near the lock with her family (Mathew, Jessie and Harvey) in a lovely house and once again it was rather like experiencing a high class spa day with luxurious bath elixirs complete with adjoining gin and tonic, michelin starred cuisine courtesy of Ms Parker and a fantastic night's sleep in the bed that kindly Jessie had given up for me. Sylvia, another school friend joined us for supper and said all the right things about how fit I was looking (pfff) and not how tired I seemed (which is more accurate.)