Gulp! After all that training, all that thinking and planning, today is the start of the 'Great Adventure'. Okay! I know thousands have done it before and thousands will follow, but WE haven't done it before. The longest we have done is just under 200 miles on the Coast to Coast back in 2007 so I suppose an extra 68 miles shouldn't present too many problems - should it?

Only imponderable is, as always, the weather. Six soaking days on the C2C, which rather spoilt it as could be imagined. And I mean soaked. In spite of the right gear, we were wet to the skin a great deal of the time but we survived and no doubt we will survive this - I hope.

I'm being picked up by Dixey at 14.00, then to Joe's followed by John Baldwin's who lives near Stamford. Then, it's up to Malham in Yorkshire where we stay over night and leave the car. Early tomorrow, we will be taken to Edale in Derbyshire for the off.

We are not going into this trek gently. The first day looks fairly tough, 15.3 miles and 2,671 feet of ascent. Part of it is a 1 in 3 and that's steep.

So, final packing, mow the grass and deliver some Around Corby books to a new customer in Corby, lunch and ready to go. The next seventeen days will be unreal I suppose. It won't be like real life at all. We'll be in a different time and space where all that is important is to put one foot in front of the other - a lot of times. But what an experience it'll be. There's not many like us four who'll will be able to say "We did that". Thank God for reasonable health and the ability to even consider such an excursion.

And how will my good friend John with his Parkinson's cope? No doubt extremely well. He has a great fortitude (helped of course by the best sort of help by the NHS and a great drugs regime). But he puts me to shame. How can I complain when his achievement in even contemplating such a trip is so fantastic?