After thirty miles, my blisters had blisters. My nipples were raw. I had walked all night. Like a chump. It was 8 a.m., precisely. I fell over and then slept in a ditch just outside Uckfield. I was awoken, at ten, by a black Labrador bitch whose owner thought I was a corpse. I was a corpse. The gentleman in question took me home for breakfast. Special K and a nice cup of Nescafé with a generous spoonful of lo-calorie creamer (Q. What the hell’s happening to the English working classes these days? A. Please print your responses on a postcard and mail it to …).

His wife then kindly dressed my feet (Savlon, Germolene). They offered to drive me on to East Grinstead (the wife ran the tearooms at Hever Castle) but I declined. I’m not sure why I declined. But I declined. I suppose it was something to do with my being a pilgrim. Some rubbish of that sort. Ten minutes later, I regretted it, heartily, but I was too exhausted to turn tail by that stage.

I could go into endless detail about my various (mis)adventures. I rescued a sheep from a cut. Pulled her out by her ears. I found a gold locket in a storm drain (stashed it away in my pocket where it got caught up in a crisp packet which I duly tossed into a bin). I was almost hit by three cars, four times. On the third occasion the female driver reversed to pull off and bruised my shin with her mudguard.

I lost half my thumbnail trying to break into a barn and the angry farmer attacked me with a rake (ripped my jacket) and then gave me a bag of apples and a spare oilskin which stank of horse. I spotted a Wild Bee Orchid in a little wood west of Reigate, alarmed a nightjar in Send and inadvertently stepped on a rare, Long-tailed Blue in a car park in Aldershot.

I imagined I might think a great deal during my voyaging – philosophize (as surely pilgrims are wont to do), but in fact all I thought was, Why the hell am I doing this? I hate this! Why the hell am I doing this? How far am I? Is that car going to hit me? Will my knees hold? Why the hell am I doing this? Is it time for a break, yet? A Planter’s salted peanut or … or a quick Rolo, perchance?

After approximately sixty-five miles (a mere marathon left) I tried to stand up, following a brief rest, and I realized that my buttocks had sealed.

Yes. Yes, I’m afraid that they had. My buttocks had sealed. There’s no polite way of putting it. They had melded. Plasma from the copious blisters on either cheek had (somewhat unwisely: Q. What kind of pilgrim am I? A. A rank amateur, that’s what!) been given the brief opportunity to dry and so had set into a fierce, crystalline glue. Two buttocks had merged into a single buttock. They had become permanently conjoined.