The End

As Sean has mentioned, last night's dinner was a somewhat unusual affair in a dining room the like of which I have never experienced.

The hospitality was great and despite my misgivings about the place, I really enjoyed the evening.

In the morning, neither of us wanted our adventure to finish and we distinctly dawdled over breakfast.  We had to leave eventually though, and when our hostess gave us a £25 donation on checking out, I immediately felt terrible about all the things I'd said about the place.

So off we set, towards the moment that we'd looked forward to for so long and then didn't want to arrive.  Once I got to John O'Groats it all seemed rather surreal and I whiled away some time talking to a lovely couple who were waiting there to meet their son who was also cycling from Land's End.  It felt good to exchange experiences of a loved one completing the challenge, and their pride was touching.  They also gave us a donation of £5, which I thought was very generous.

Sean arrived a little earlier than I expected, and I wasn't quite ready for him.  I'm not sure what ready would have meant in practice, but we hugged tightly and predictably I shed a few tears.  Romeo says he was totally dry eyed but I don't believe him.  The proud mum I was speaking to kindly took our photo and as usual, naughty Romeo managed to sneak into the shot.

I couldn't resist purchasing a doormat stating "The Lord giveth and the government taketh away" from the gift shop and after that we began our long homeward journey.  On the way we exchanged thoughts about our endeavours which could probably be summed up as "that was great wasn't it" "gosh, it's a long way" and "that was quite hard".  Our stop tonight was at Boat of Garten where we went to the pub for dinner and I ate and drank all manner of forbidden things.  Mmmmm.....

On Thursday it's our tenth wedding anniversary, meaning the next couple of days are just for us, so I'll bid farewell for now.  Thank you to everyone who has sent us messages of encouragement during our journey, it really has made a difference.  We get home on Friday, so I'll probably post some reflections on the trip as a whole over the weekend.

What a great experience.