Training in Church Walk - with family support
Apologies for the brief suspension in Moonwalking activities, it's been a hectic few months for us in training and getting organised. The actual event is now only a week away and here is what's been happening....

Sadly, we've lost 2 members from our team. Tanya Filer and Sarah Barnes have pulled out of the walk for personal reasons. It's a real shame and I'm going to miss Tanya's support and stoic attitude on the night (which incidentally is next Saturday).

Judith Ralfs and I have been walking up and down the Strawberry line from Yatton to Cheddar and back now for weeks. We started off walking from Yatton to Congresbury and back which is approximately 7 miles in total (depending upon which sign you read) and we've gradually been increasing our distance. We've loved the Strawberry Line as we've been able to watch the countryside bloom from week to week. When we first started, the trees were quite bare, but now it's like walking through the Lord of the Rings set at times, and the smell of wild garlic has been wonderfully overwhelming the last few weeks.

But if I'm totally honest with you, it's not the lovely bluebells and the gentle cows we see each week that keep us coming back, it's the bloody fantastic Thatcher's cider shop in Sandford which motivates us !! Can you imagine our delight when we stumbled into Sandford and found the cider shop open at 10am one Saturday morning ?

We've become regulars in there and are averaging 2 bottles each on a walk (great eh...) We've become connoisseurs of cider and I'm paticularly partial to the Pear cider, yummy. We've been in there so often now on our training, we even know where the bottle opener's kept (next to the sink on the left by the till, in case you're wondering). Of course all the cider drinking leads to the eventual call of nature on a 10-22 mile walk. Poor Judith even stung her bottom a month ago - well, it's all blooming at the moment (the countryside, I mean).

Judith, Tanja Waack and I have been hard at it. Last Saturday we did a 22 mile walk from Cheddar to Yatton and back. It was quite eventful, to say the least. We started in Cheddar, as we wanted to be back there for cream tea after our long walk. So we set off at 10.30 and headed for Yatton. By the time we reached Congresbury we were starving. Judith had the brilliant idea of calling her husband and ordering some sandwiches to be delivered to us on the way back from Yatton at the Congresbury lane.

Adrian was very dutiful and brought us some gorgeous ham and mustard baguettes. At least that's
what he told us; to be honest, it could've been anything in there and we wouldn't have cared. We
looked a right sight as well, smeared with dirt and sweat, since it was hot and dusty as we sprawled all over the footpath.

While we were wolfing down the rolls and chowing down on Space Raiders crisps (childhood memories of when they were 10p a pack came flooding back) a bunch of very powerful looking power-walking women marched past us. When they saw our Moonwalk T-shirts one of them shouted out "What-oh, we're doing the Moonwalk, just come comeCribbs, Ciao!"

Can you imagine our shame, looking like a pack of animals devouring a fallen doe, with blood, sweat and tears all over us .. and we get caught by the most fit and healthy looking women marching past us. I could see the triumph in their eyes and I almost wanted to shout out "Cribbs, schmibbs, we're walking to Cheddar and back, so there", but my mouth was stuffed full of high GI carbs ! Never mind, we had to walk back past Thatcher's anyway, and that raised morale. By the time we made it back to Cheddar, we had aching muscles, blisters, jogger's nipple, you name it.

As I mentioned above, we're in for the main event next week, so wish us luck. 15,000 women all together, united against breast cancer. I will post some photos of the night, and the sponsorship can be added to until August. www.justgiving.com/samanthahawkins4