LEJOG Day 26 – Alrewas to Uttoxeter 19.14 miles. Cumulative 483.25 miles

Lovely to catch up with friends Oz and Margaret over tea and scones followed by a delicious dinner & desert. A cooked breakfast this morning set us up for another day of walking. Thank you again for your hospitality.

A cloudy start to the day but less windy, making it feel a bit warmer. The sun made an appearance late morning.

We set out along the National Forest Way, a mixture of forest and farmland, before moving to Staffordshire ‘public footpaths’.

The fields are much smaller now which meant climbing a lot more stiles and the grass was long in a lot of places which made it hard going at times, but manageable.

Then we reach the field of horrors. First a very wonky stile which Lynn navigated only to be surrounded by frisky bullocks. Steve is half way over the stile when he suddenly falls back into the first field, landing on his back and grabbing his leg. Lynn thinks he’s injured so grabs the fence to climb back over the stile and gets an electric shock. Steve turns out to be OK, he had a shock on his leg which caused the fall. Once Lynn realised Steve wasn’t hurt she thought Steve’s fall very comical and laughed most of the way to Uttoxeter. When we had both negotiated the stile were trailed by the bullocks at close quarters until they thought it would be amusing to get ahead of us and block our exit stile from the field. Fortunately they are easily shouted away.

Soon after we find a much needed tea stop in Abbots Bromley. From here we pick up the Staffordshire Way which we follow to Uttoxeter. The path is well signed and much better underfoot.We had a quick chat with two guys walking the path southbound who did warn the signage wasn’t always good, we will find out tomorrow.

We make a mandatory hot chocolate stop at the Uttoxeter Wetherspoons before heading to tonight’s accommodation at the Premier Inn.