the Matt Damon strut

Day 4 St Austell to Looe (East looe, West looe then back again)

mileage : 20 ish grammage : - 65 (discarded maps and eaten banana chips) stan the dog balls : 1 sore bits : still the heel!!

I noticed today my strange walking gait. I seem to start the day in a manner not unlike Kevin Spacey at the end of the film Usual Suspects where he walks out dragging his leg then moving into a limping mode before walking normally to jump in a car. For me the transgression from dragging my blistered foot not being able to put my heel down to walking in a similar fashion to a normal human being takes a bit longer...roughly about an hour and there is no car to hop into at the end. Later in the day i seem to adopt more of a Matt Damon style of walking, a slightly hunched stacatto strut....looks odd but makes for good progress. A day of ups and downs, my second water crossing at Fowey and pretty little settlements nestled between steep hills and inlets. Fowey and Polperro and , it would transpire, Looe all very busy with september tourists. Tonight i had no bed arranged and as i walked into Looe i began to ring the numbers on the numerous B&B boards swinging along the roadside. No room at the Inn it would seem.....or if there was room it was of course a double with a hefty single supplement. Beginning to think i might be trying out my sleeping bag in the bus shelter or taking up the kind offer of a holidaymaker to bed down in their caravan awning i saw one last place that was flying the Vacancies part of their Vacancies/No vacancies sign. With no phone number and about 450 steps to climb up to the place i nearly opted for the caravan awning but instead went for it and a slighty drunken landlady possibly running a house of dubious repute did offer me a cut price room with breakfast included for no more than the price of a fish and chip supper for two and if you slammed the bedroom door really hard the broken lock did finally close.

I had some chips and a kindly loaned from the fish shop mug of tea down by the water as the fairy lights of Looe illuminated the darkening river and thought 'life is good'