So I walked to Cambridge.

So, I survived my pilgrimage to Cambridge and even became a minor celebrity. After a glorious sprint finish*, I had a lovely jacket potato and several too many pints of lager in the Anchor on the bank of the Cam. We received a fabulous heroes’ welcome from Warren Dosanjh (who does the fab I-Spy Syd in Cambridge walking tours) and my lovely friends Charlotte and @AxStaffer.

For the official Syd Barrett Fund blog click here, and if pictures speak louder than words for you please check out our facebook. The walk raised an incredible £2,500 for Escape Artists work to make the arts accessible for mental health service users, and if you haven’t made your donation it isn’t too late. Equally, if you have, thank you so very much. You rock.

You may recall that EA Finance Officer – my mum - was bravely** striding out with us. Sadly, that was not to be. Five of us finally embarked on our training walk along the Thames Path, from the Barrier to Hammersmith (or Albert Bridge if we wimped out early). Well, we made it as far as Surrey Quays. Upon crossing a wooden bridge, Penny slipped and broke her ankle. A big brave soldier whilst the rest of us (read: me) were a mess, she kept a cool head as we phoned 999:

Them: Okay madam, we’ll send someone out to you.

Me: Oh, thank you.

Them: Where are you?

Me: Well, we were walking the Thames Path… erm… we’re on the South Bank and we’ve left Greenwich and we aren’t as far as Tower Bridge and… I don’t really know.

Well, we got them a street name (thanks Jen) and out they came. Only they didn’t. And it was starting to rain. Essentially, their GPS took them down the wrong road looking for us. But eventually Steve and John of the Deptford Ambulances arrived, exceedingly apologetic, very charming, and incredibly capable…

… but with a broken ambulance. The boys started doing tests whilst they waited for another ambulance to come to the rescue, when suddenly there was a distinct tinkle of crunched broken glass. An elderly man across the street tripped up the curb, smashed his glasses, and was bleeding from his face. Well, at least there were ambulance-types on hand.

So, make that an order for two additional ambulances please.

Except that the first ambulance sort of works, just the electrics are shot. Well, they lived near Dulwich and knew where the hospital was so didn’t need the GPS. After a manual cranking of the ramp back in to the ambulance (like, with a crow-bar winder thing) we were away.

Thank you to everyone who took such lovely care of my mum - the fellow walkers who stuck around, the lovely boys from the ambulance, the fab A&E, surgeons, and nursing staff at King’s College Hospital.

Well that’s one way to get out of a walk to Cambridge.

But, not one to shirk her responsibilities, Penny still managed to fundraise in her sparkly pink plaster cast, even putting her x-rays online! My mum rocks.

Flushed with a newfound affinity for some poet or other’s love of nature (except the mud and the creepy crawlies), I plan to keep up this new outdoorsiness. First to try will be the Cooltan Arts‘ Largactyl Shuffle – a guided cultural walk from Maudsley Hospital in Denmark Hill to Tate Modern, it “uses art, humour, architecture and local history to promote physical and mental well being”. With a different theme on the third saturday of every month, I’m thoroughly looking forward to it this weekend :)

* I ran twice that weekend when I thought that it would in no way be possible. The first was at the end of our 20 mile day on the Friday; we had finished about three miles early in Broxbourne (owing to exhaustion – and a very good job too considering the very scenic remainder would have been a nightmare along the very muddy banks of the aqueduct, not what was needed for morale at that time!), had a lift in lovely John’s minibus (must find the name of his minibus charity and plug accordingly…) back to King’s Cross, only for me to tumble (read: limp) out at Elephant and Castle to see the 176 pulled up 100 yds down the road. I ran. He closed the doors. I gestured pleadingly. He opened the doors. A lovely bus driver and a thoroughly worthwhile burst of energy but I have absolutely no idea from whence it came. The second unexpected burst was at the very end. Despite my smiling face (above) I had pretty much been carried from Byron’s Pool across Grantchester Meadows by Simon Webb, walk organiser and King of the Syd Barrett Fund. Then, suddenly, there it was. The finishing line. The pub. Hurrah! Jen, Astrid, James and myself made a good go of a (slightly limpy) sprint finish. Amazing.

** Not that bravely really. She is something of a rambler and actually knew what a 20 mile walk was prior to signing up – unlike the rest of us idiots.

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