NOTICES

1: Possibly record-breaking numbers of new members last week

A warm welcome to new primary members John Canning, Emily Coulson, Will Magnall, Susan McFadden, Robyn Pettiford, Alison Clare and Anna, Iris, Margaret and Tom Forster; and associate members Imogen White, Dawn Turner and Lucy and Richard Smith. 

2: Beach of Dreams

This is the London LDWA flag that comes with our Beach of Dreams participation. It is currently touring the country with over 600 pennants in total as part of the overall Beach of Dreams programme and will be returned to the group in October after the final event in Weymouth in September.  

To recap, as part of the Beach of Dreams programme, Gavin’s 3 day walk at the May bank holiday weekend had 26, 15 and 13 walkers with 6 in total (incl Gavin) completing all three days.  Lonica’s 2 day walk had 10 each day with 4 (incl her) completing both days. Special mention to Ruben and Belinda Cortes-Martin who did all 5 days.

3: London Group support for the Flower of Suffolk 100.

Twelve of us started our volunteer weekend at the Cricketers Ipswich with the usual gourmet meal and drink. Service was a bit slow and the manager offered us all an extra free drink on the house.  A happy start indeed to the weekend.

The following day after watching the start of the 100, 9 of us took the bus to Sutton Hoo to walk the 15 miles along the 100 route back to Headquarters in Ipswich.  It was a beautiful walk from the site of the famous ship burial along the estuary of the River Deben.  We stopped for lunch and lovely ice creams, made from the milk of Suffolk cows!  There was time to look at the replica of the ship built to take the Saxon King Raedwald on his final journey.  Very relaxing stroll especially if you hadn’t had to walk the other 85 miles.  I don’t think our London champions, with their blistered feet,  found this bit of the walk  quite as enjoyable.

Early Sunday morning and it was time to get down to work at Headquarters before the runners arrived.  We spent a couple of hours looking for coffee, tea, a water urn and a socket to plug it into.  The tables and chairs had to be arranged for the hundreds of exhausted walkers who were going to descend on us.

Chris as always had got the walkers baggage sorted out but two of our best baggage handlers Dave and Colin were sorely missed.

It had rained overnight and there were a few drop outs but the weather improved. Cloudy but dry.  Perfect for the 100.

As usual by early Sunday evening it was busy and for the next 24 hours there was a steady flow of walkers who needed to be fed, cheered and comforted. Our beautiful new blue aprons made it clear that us lovely Londoners were looking after them.   It was great to see how much we were appreciated by the exhausted masses. 

Finally on Monday morning over a lovely breakfast, cooked by the local group,  we were able to rest our sore feet.  Yes we also get sore feet from running up and down with plates of food.

Watching the pleasure and the pain on the faces of the completers though made it all worth it.

There were 16 of us volunteers 11 serving food and drink to walkers and 5 working on baggage.  This included 3 mercenaries, 2 from Beds and Bucks and 1 from Yorkshire to make up the numbers.

A big thank-you to all of them including Carrie, Graham, Ron, Jeff, Ken, John (all 3 of them), Gail, Fiona, Chris, Paul, Peter, Norman and Dee.  I hope more volunteers from London Group will join in at the next 100 in Kent.

Susanne Waldschmidt

Forthcoming Walk

Dartford Circular

Event Type: Group Walk.