Day One!

Yesterday suddenly something happened to Michael. He went very anxious about people and COVID. Also he was absolutely exhausted. But rather than complain he went very silent. We'd walked hard most of the afternoon to Nonsuch and Ewell until we reached Epsom which was busy and abysmal.

In Epsom he wanted to stop so we looked for accommodation, but luckily the Travelodge was only available online and the Premier Inn was fully booked. We were forced to catch the train, a packed commuter train, the short distance between Epsom and Guildford and then catch a bus for the short journey to Puttenham. The train was slightly delayed, and I could find no sign of a bus stop alongside Guildford Station, so we were virtually out of time to get the 65 to Alton.

After the longest day we stepped onto the bus just as it was leaving the bus station, within the Trinity Centre, and couldn't pay because the ticket machine wasn't functioning. The bus driver said I don't go to Puttenham, which was true, but he dropped us off on the road exit into the village from the main road connecting Guildford and Farnham.

It's wasn't much fun leaving London. After Streatham High Street it was tedious and uninteresting. The edgeland has nothing of value about it, except for millions of cars filling up the artorial roads leading into London. London was slowly fading away, so that by Nonsuch and Ewell it was almost vanquished.

Perhaps walking along the Thames into London, or out is more interesting - especially upstream - but the south bulge is a string of hamlets which have merged into bland. And it was very unforgiving to my feet. We stopped in Cheam, for a coffee and water, and I had two Lady's Fingers the Trattoria provided, and got prepared for the final 10 kilometres. Slightly less meaningless drudge through the large Nonsuch palace park, leafy Ewell and the back way into God awful Epsom: thirty five kilometres day one ... Well done Mike. I do hope he can forgive me?