Robins Walk and AXA PPP Step Up Challenge
Pandy, Llantilio-Crossinay and Monmouth
Last night we stayed with Ivy and Jim at Onchon Farm in Longtown. Ivy is 72 and still farming and running a wonderful B and B. Their farm is built around a building previously owned by Robert Newton the actor of Long John Silver fame in Treasure Island. It is an amazing location with the Black Mountain imposingly behind and picture postcard hilly Welsh farmland ahead. When we arrive we take tea in the garden with meadow flowers in the borders to attract local wildlife for all to see. Ivy looks after us superbly and tells us all about the challenges of farming in the hills through the winter. 
Rob can now embellish his silence of the lambs story as he learns more about the seperation process of lambs from ewes. He also learns that there are usually only two lambs per ewe as each ewe only has two teets. What I loved about Ivy was when she asked what time we wanted breakfast and we said 7.30 she said fine. The next morning (Sunday)she was up and smiling and cooked the best poached eggs we have had anywhere yet. It was a very special place to stay.The big decision last night was could we do the 16 plus miles to Monmouth after our 17 plus miles of yesterday. We decided to go for it. Again the locals tell us it is an easy section and also people we meet coming from Chepstow tell us our bit is all down hill. Don't believe any of them. When there is an up hill there is a downhill that follows and vice versa. We get walking and I engage Rob in the hundred articles in a hundred days I am writing for Ezine.
For me it is practice writing and for us it will pass the time. We discuss 'if you are too busy what do you do to do less?', 'if you are bored what do you do to get interested?', 'if someone is insensitive how do you make them more self aware and able to perform better themselves?', 'if someone is elevated to a role they are not equipped to fulfill how do you help them perform?'. This gets us through about 6 miles and is full of lively conversation. Read Ezine if you want to know what we came up with. We stop at St Cadoc's Church at Llangatock Lingoed and make our own tea as we were invited to do and make a contribution. It was a lovely spot and a wonderfully refreshing cup of tea. 
Just after Llantilio Cross Enny we come upon a scene of sheep being counted and loaded up in to a lorry. As we talk to the farmer Anthony Evans about what he is doing we find he is the neighbour of Ivy and Jim and has the farm next door called Great Turnout. Anthony is great to talk to and tells us all about the economics of sheep farming. He has his own flock of around 600 sheep which can make a margin of around £50 per sheep so a contribution of £30,000. From this he has to pay for feed, vets, transport and all the other costs of bringing them along. 
There is not much left and Anthony also drives a lorry to deliver sheep to market which is what he is doing today. 
Sheep are put in a holding field for the weekend as they will be going to market on Monday and Anthony comes and rounds them up Sunday evening for delivery. He drives the lorry three days a week to contribute to the business. Ben his son is helping and is going to follow in Dad's footsteps and go in to farming. We get a sense of the effort that goes in to giving us our lamb roast on a sunday. As Anthony says sometimes it is the most wonderful experience and sometimes it is awful.Our next excitement on this route is meeting a herd of bullocks with horns. Our route takes us from the gate we are at diagonally across the field. The bullocks, and there are about 30 of them are assembled around the gate we need to get to. I take the view that all the walkers that have gone before have survived so suggest we head towards them and deal with what happens.
I suggest we walk high side of the bullocks and stick together. So far so good. As we approach it becomes a little, or a lot, more worrying as they approach us menacingly. When they are five feet away we are both concerned about what happens next and in the moment I come up with the idea of shouting very loud 'hut hut' and slamming my walking stick in to the ground. Fortunately they understand and charge off. Our only problem is they gather round the gate we need to cross and on the other side of the gate are another 30 bullocks. All we can do is a 'hut hut here' and a 'hut hut there' and walk nonchallently onwards. We survived!
As we walk down through Kingswood I notice Crisp ahead. Crisp is a georgeous Golden Retriever wandering down the hill. They always catch my eye as Raffles my Golden passed away last year after 16 years and a big part of our lives. Crisp is with James and Georgie Zorab who tell us about the rare plants and orchids that grow in the Forest. They show us a local orchid which we can capture for the AXA PPP waymark. We talk and I pose with Crisp who has all the attributes of the perfect Golden.
We are tired as we approach Monmouth and impressed that we can do over 30 miles in two days. As we think about it we are very impressed. We always knew we would do it but it has been a big challenge and we have learnt a lot about ourselves.
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