Robert Buckland Weblog

I am pleased to report that the Walkely Midnight Walk was a success.  About 150 people took part, leaving the Red Lion at Avebury at just before 11pm on Saturday night.  After five hours and twenty-five minutes, we reached the True Heart Inn at Bishopstone and ate the saltiest breakfast imaginable.  There was no rain, no fog and hardly any wind, so it proved to be pretty hot work.  The greatest difficulty was in negotiating the often rutted path.  There were several moments when we were unsure of the route, but thanks to my natural sense of direction, we did not err.  One of our group, Louise, was beaten by blisters after 17 miles but the rest of us were in pretty good order.

Seeing the dawn break over the Wiltshire/Oxfordshire border was a beautiful sight.  The walk took us North from Avebury to Barbury Castle, and along the southern boundary of the South Swindon constituency up to and over the M4.  There were several difficult hills to negotiate.  My language was not pretty at those stages, I have to confess.  Our group, which included North Swindon Candidate Cllr Justin Tomlinson, will have raised over £1300 for the Swindon MS Therapy Centre.  It was great to see Dave and Jackie Wray, who work so hard for the Centre, and who live very near to the True Heart and who regularly take part in the Walk.

My daytime preparation consisted of a day trip to Legoland, where we met some old friends with their young families.  Rollercoasters do not bring the best out in me, it has to be said, but the Viking World Water Ride was something that I did really enjoy.  The views of Windsor Castle and central London were excellent.  As we were under the Heathrow flightpath, Millie had a busy day telling us all about the planes that she could hear before anyone else.