A week of admin..... and other things...

 

As we move into the last three weeks of our planning, we seem to be making lists! Lists for this, lists for that, lists for clothing required, lists for personal items, lists for food, oh aye, and a list to make sure we have all the lists for everything else.........

Earlier in the week, on the only dry day we've had, we were up at Callander Park getting some photos taken that were sent into the Falkirk Herald. Here we are with our walking gear on in front of our mobile accommodation.

We're trying to look, what do young folk say "cool", us cool I don't think so but believe me looking cool wasn't hard, we were actually frozen stiff. It may have been dry, but it was absolutely baltic. 

Anyway, we are extremely grateful to Drew Watson for all his hard work in taking the photos and making us look presentable.

Here is another one with us, sitting in the back of our mobile accommodation, wearing our specially printed "Shona and Mike Take a Hike in AID of Cancer Research UK T-Shirts", I'm afraid we look as if we are grimacing a bit, for two reasons:

1. Trying to hold our feet up to show the bottom of the boots was quite a task.

2. It was baltic.

We're fairly certain our boots won't look like that when we've walked nearly 1200 miles.

The T-shirts may also look a bit worse for the wear, not to mention the feet in them. We do however believe the words of Paul when he said: "We can do all things through Christ which strengthens us".

Along with making lists and getting photos we were still beavering away with the various admin stuff, drawing together all the various bits of "bumph". Hopefully we will manage to collate all the necessary information so we can give everyone a rough idea of where we will be over the course of our walk. These will be available in PDF format and can be emailed to anyone who may wish to follow our Hike progress.

In addition, we have been able to put our blog, after a bit of faffing around, into PDF format, so enabling us to email it to anyone who may like a copy.

After such a "driech" (the drie is pronounced "dree" the ch is difficult to explain but it is not as in lock but as in LOCH, there is a huge difference), start to the week and because of various other commitments, we would be able to get some distance training towards the weekend.

On Saturday we managed to travel by train over to Alloa and walk back to the house. On arrival we thought it best to avail ourselves of the facilities at Asda, always a good idea when you are about to set off on a 15 mile walk. Maybe I should say "other supermarkets are available".

Anyway, facilities availed of, and a purchase made, we left Asda, as we tried to make our way through the car park, neither of us could find the pedestrian exit as we wandered about looking "glaikit" I'm sure, I started to laugh and said to Shona, "what a right pair of numpties we are, here we are planning to walk nearly 1200 miles from one end of the UK to the other and yet we cannot even manage to negotiate ourselves a 100 metres out of the Asda Car Park".

Eventually we worked it out and we were on our way, but that got me thinking, and I realised there is a lesson to be learned about making sure we are on the right route, or that we are taking the right way. 

We must confess, that many times, when we are out and about, there may be a way that has seemed like the right way to go but we have ended up at a dead end, or completely off our route. This has caused us much extra effort and cost us valuable time.

Is that not so much like life, which after all is sometimes referred to as a walk, a journey we are all on. Our readers by now will be aware that we always try to leave you with a little thought from the Bible, this blog is no different, and we would refer you  to the Book of Proverbs, which by the way is a really good book to read as it covers many, many aspects of life. 

In chapter 14 verse 12 we find it says this: "There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end, it leads to death". I wonder have we ever considered this? 

Thank you again for all your support and encouragement.

Shona and Mike