Day 12: Media morning, mum arrives, foot is going to fall off

Holly wakes me up at quarter to 8. An hour later I'm sat in the BBC's Carlisle studio doing an interview on the breakfast show. At the end of it, a person from TV comes in so we do an interview and a few bits and bobs for the lnchtime show. Then I get a call from ITV Borders, and we shoot a good interview and a bit of skating in town.

Don't get on the road until quarter to two, but boy has the media coverage been good. Right foot is in a right state. Every push sends a spark of pain through my body. A lot of those left. Blisters on the toes are bigger than yesterday. I need to get to Kendal.

On a country road just outside of Penrith my mum turns up on her bicycle! It picks me up a bit, we roll into Penrit an have some lunch. Then we navigate out of the town (PS. Please improve signposts to the A6 from the centre) and I plod on. Going is ok, but the day is wearing on thanks to a late start and we need to be at tonight's ost be sevenish.

At a place called Shap we stop in a pub and get them to put the 6 o clock news on. I'm on there! Great little piece, I didn't realise that Kate, the lady who interviewed me in the centre, was actually a co-presenter of the show. At the end everyone in the room cheered. Brilliant.

Push on for twenty minutes more. I'm in absolute agony. 12 miles short of Kendal I pull up. That's it for the day.

We drive to our hosts, a spurious friend of a friend connection had turned into a bed for the night. Charlotte Pople was waiting for us south of Kendal, and so was a lady on a horse at the entrance to the driveway. The place is massive. Compare this to last night, we were in a service station. A strange day, disatisfied in terms of miles covered and my diminishing pain threshold, but amazing media coverage and an aristocratic bout of hospitality at the end of the day. Great hosts, amazing food, good beds, a much needed bath. And today I was inches from crying.

One last thing: for the second time this journey our nightly stop was further along the road than I'd skated. Which means.....I get to see the road before I skate it, horrible. Driving along it seems like hours, skating will seem like days. Tomorrow morning is going to be tough work, the 12 miles into Kendal are mountainous, boy I hope I reach Lancaster.