Sadly for Paddy this leg is not going to be the highlight of the crossing. He has decided he will avoid any sections with gradients, which means he can walk today and tomorrow's very flat sections. After passing via some sewage works we enter a fragrant little village where there's a handy postbox into which Pad pops his room key to the youth hostel we left three days ago. They operate a useful freepost system.
It's lots of wheat and barley fields after that...
...and the most colourful profusions of wildflowers with white butterflies whirring about.
Elevenses today is accompanied by a Tunnocks caramel wafer. Paddy says a prayer of thanks to the god of biscuits.
The highlight of this leg is our symbolic traversing of the A1. You can see it behind us. We have to go under the road this time but marvel at how we have actually walked from the M6 to the A1. Even more marvellous is the nose to tail bank holiday traffic. 
At one point on the walk we have to take a diversion and, Lynn Truss of the Coast to Coast here, can't resist correcting a typo. What a clanger, though – 'Bridal path', I ask you.
A churchyard looks like the perfect place for lunch, but I notice that some Coast to Coasters have got there before us. Then we realise it's Americans Jim and Jane and Aussie Graham. As they get ready to go Pad tells them about his re-wording of St Benedict's 'laborare est orare' (to work is to pray) turning it into 'ambulare est orare' (to walk is to pray). And with that they're on their way.
Meanwhile we buy some of the cold drinks on offer inside the church and meet the friendly warden, who gives us a tour of her church, complete with its recently restored 1902 frescoes and, more to the point, unlocks the loo. As we leave, she's donning her marigolds for the unenviable task of cleaning the church. A warden's work is never done, her expression seems to say. As we drive off Mick remarks that within ten minutes of meeting her we'd heard her whole life history. 'Yeah,' I laugh, 'Just like you!'
We visit Easeby on the way home, a large ruined abbey complex on the banks of the Swale outside Richmond. This church has frescoes that date back to 1250. I am reading Wolf Hall at the moment so all this is slotting right into my head full of Henry Vlll history. Peace, man.
Old friend of my childhood, Char Motley – our parents were good friends – is up in the Dales with her other half Janina. They drive over the moor to have dinner with us at the Bridge Inn in Grinton. The food there was really good the night before – one of the most moist and succulent nut and seed roasts I've ever tasted. Following that I nearly passed out eating chef Liz's Ginger Pudding. I've become a ginger ninja since joining the choir. It seems to be very good for the throat and singing. The Reeth Bakery does a fabulous Ginger & Melon Liqueur Preserve, which I bought a jar of, and I've been quaffing ginger beer on this walk like it's going out of fashion. Funnily enough, we did sing in this pub on the choir's visit in 2006. So our second dinner at the Bridge Inn doesn't disappoint and we finish off with Ginger Puddings all round. It's lovely to see friends from the 'outside' world.
We wake up to rain and a damp mist down in the Swale valley. It's hostel changeover day again and quite a schlepp. I have to pack up my stuff in the dark as my roommates are asleep, so I'm grumpy, of course, growling at Pad and Mick who try to help me with my bags. It's so easy to slip into bossy big sister mode, even to my shame, with men who have raised families and are decades older than me. I'd say I'm channelling their big sister Maureen, but I know she'd have been far more gentle. And the brothers confirm later that, indeed, Mo was not the bossy sister... Hmm, just me and Jo then.
It's 11am before we start walking, but the late start has given the day a chance to brighten up. This stretch is quite possibly one of the most tedious of the whole Coast to Coast, 75% of it on a tarmac roads, albeit eerily quiet ones. In walking terms, we trudge along somewhat going through the motions. Consequently we're distracted by the hedgerows more than usual. The sloes round these parts are doing really well. Shame they're not quite ripe enough to pick or I'd come back with the car and fill my boots for sloe gin making back home.
We're talking about how Pad's heart is getting stronger – he's feeling less tired today. 'But my heart hasn't softened towards the perpetrators of this villainy,' he adds. He does mention later that he's starting to enjoy himself. Yay.The rain starts when we're a couple of miles from the end, so I throw on my plastic poncho, as it's just too hot to wear a big cagoule. As I hope over a style the poncho billows out and Mick remarks that I look as if I'm about to take flight, like a hot air balloon.
Our new billet at Osmotherley is another former mill, slightly grander this time, but full of about 30 small children on a school trip or some such. It's a pretty stone village and Mick has already earmarked our pub for grub and wifi.
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