I think it rained once today – all day! Thank goodness we were home, warm and dry. It was also five degrees Celsius – a wee bit cooler than the previous four days! Oh the joy of lying on the couch, looking out the window, thinking what could have been! Horrible! Just horrible!

In general, I haven’t had to walk much in bad weather. The worst experience was in the Black Forest in 2013, when I plodded along for a day in non-stop rain. Stupidly, before I set off, I wondered how wet could I possibly get in seven hours? After one, the only dry part of me was my chest.

Water had soaked up my sleeves past my elbows (using walking sticks meant the water had the chance to run up and down my arms), it pooled around my toes when walking downhill and my rain jacket puckered in such a way under my backpack’s waistband that water poured straight towards my crotch. My walking pants weren’t waterproof and hung so low with the weight of the water that after only a few hours I was treading on the cuffs.

That was the day I saw one other walker. We nodded as we passed each other going in opposite directions and after about 20 metres, unprompted, we both turned around to look at each other and burst out laughing. I know we were both thinking, “Phew! I’m not the only idiot out in this weather!” Despite the dire conditions, the spontaneity of that moment is a happy memory.

That was also the day I vowed to always carry an umbrella in the future, to keep the rain off my face. My clothes dried pretty quickly and it took five changes of stuffed newspaper in my shoes for them to dry overnight.

My current right butt cheek injury still has me baffled. I don’t know how I did it, but I could feel a twinge on day two. On day three, after sitting in the buttercup field, it was really hurting. Everything was generally fine yesterday, except for the final hour into Einsiedeln, and I thought it was going to be ok. Plenty of heat-generating cream later, I’m still hobbling and really hope it will be fixed for Monday Runday!

Needless to say no major exercise for me today. I did some push-ups and sit ups but took it really easy and caught up on lots of reading. That’s good mental fitness!

Wishing you a wonderful day.