Day 7 - Goring to Pangbourne - Thursday 3 August

Distance: 4 miles
Time: 1 hour 29 mins
Walking partner: None
Accommodation: The Ferryboat Inn, Whitchurch on Thames

Today was effectively a day off as I wasn't sure how I would be feeling after yesterday's herculean (by my standards) efforts. I had loads of time to kill in the morning so I went to Goring library ( a slice of Berkshire village life there I can tell you. The lady librarians would be very kind and helpful to everyone who came in and then launch into a character assasination of each library user as soon as they left - God knows what they said about me especially as one of their computer's crashed while I was using it) to use the internet.

Then I was walking again. Good thing I'd planned such a short stroll as for really the first time ever I had to go uphill. The Thames cuts through the Chilterns at Goring Gap and where the tow path runs out you have to climb (and I use that term advisedly) up the escarpment to get around the chalk cliffs. A mere nothing I'm sure if you are not carrying 7kgs (I've bought some bits and pieces en route) on your back.

Should that first 'G' be a 'B'?

I arrived at my night's accommodation just across the toll bridge at Pangbourne just after lunch and profited from a good old siesta and some daytime TV - fabulous. The Ferryboat Inn is a fairly eccentric pub inside with as many stuffed animals and soft toys on every surface as I think I have ever witnessed. Some of the trinkets in my room have to be seen to be believed (photos to come later).

A quick stroll around Pangbourne including a brief interlude in the organic supermarket where I haemorraged most of my cash as one tends to do in this sort of establishment (but I needed some dragonfly lipsalve, nettle and manure emolient and tonic of frogskin desperately....).

My brother Dom called by on the way back from work to take me out for a drink and meal at the Swan Hotel in Pangbourne. Sitting outside facing the weir and watching the sun go down replete with good food (it's a much better pub than it looks) - all very pleasant indeed.