Tuesday 5 August

My knee swelled up like a Mellon last night and was uncomfortable in bed. 3 applications of Ibulieve and tablets this morning, as well as wearing my knee support seem to have done the trick as I got through today's 12 miles OK. Julia has been suffering with a stiff shoulder which was extremely painful in the night, so she decided to see the doc today and not walk with us. Doc said to take co-codamol but to keep walking though without her rucksack. I had quite a bad nosebleed this morning, but not for long! Talk about walking wounded!!! Our B&B, which looked so great, turned out to be less so. They would not do breakfast before 9am - so we asked for a packed breakfast to take with us. They left sandwiches on paper plates in the fridge, drinks in glass bottles and nothing else! Julia and Kevin's WC blocked so they had to use mine and they tried to charge £5 more than agreed for my room! Kevin and I set off at 7am without Julia (she caught the bus to Looe to see the Doc) in the rain. We walked the 5 miles to Looe in under 2 hrs and called in a cafe in Looe for coffee and breakfast sandwiches. The walk from Looe was billed as strenuous but due to landslips the path had to be diverted and was a bit tedious in places, along roads. However the rain had stopped at about 8am so it soon got VERY hot and we were glad of out water supplies. On leaving Shipton Bridge the guide book suggested it was possible to walk to Downderry along the sea wall and beach, so we did! However, as Julia missed out a day last year and Kevin pushed me in the nettles (he still insists I fell....),this year when just the 2 of us were walking he kept telling me not to get swept out to sea or Julia would never believe he had nothing to do with it! We got to Portwrinkle at 2, had a drink at the cafe (there is nothing else there!) then walked 10 minutes up a steep hill to our B&B (The Finnygook Inn at Crafthole)