South of Scotland.

It's been 4 days since I last updated the blog. Unfortunately the English countryside hasn't yielded much in the way of wireless internet.
I am now in my brothers flat in Nottingham, and tomorrow is my one and only rest day; which I am taking to wish him well on his graduation.
The past few days have been a mix. After we left Mike Hunter - one of the rotarians to put us up - in the Lakes the rain went south with us, there were times where I could have gone swimming and not gotten any wetter.
Coming out of Shap was something I'll remember for a long time. There's something about skating up a 10% hill against 30mph gusting headwinds carrying torrential rain that sticks in the mind.
On a lighter note, we have walkie talkies! They are a real help with navigation as I don't have to stop at every turning and consult with the driver. They are also fun to play games like I spy with, and arguing without having to look at each other.
The roads have been good to me too, after passing into England the traffic has picked up a lot though. Even going around, let alone through some towns has been very on and off with letting traffic pass, skating for 5 minutes, then doing the same. It's really tiring because I can't get into any kind of rhythm, even with the Ipod on.
The board is holding up fine, although we had to swap some bits over with the trucks, 500 miles of twists and turns takes a lot out of them, so we just swapped the base plates where the axles are mounted, and were rolling on again in no time. Actually it took 3 of us about an hour, but the time just flew by...
After the Preston day, the roads seemed to get a bit calmer, but we were still reminded that we needed to be careful when lorries and tractors went past; kicking up clouds of diesel as they went, which wasn't too nice to breathe in.
The hills are now definitely getting smaller by the day, the shoes are still taking a beating though as there are more traffic lights to stop for, and more pedestrians to avoid. People still look at me as though I'm not on a skateboard at all, that I'm some kind of alien thats rolling down whichever street it happens to be. I guess as I'm only the 2nd person to have done this, people haven't really gotten used to it.
Unfortunately, on one of our days, the GPS I carry with me stopped working, so we have 3 days with no record of me skating at all. So if anyone asks, just take my word for it, the very confused yet amused people of the north-west of England can back me up.
There haven't been any encounters with any sheep since the last one, I'm quite dissapointed at the English wildlife really it's quite unadventurous. Although I was woken by a sheep this morning, and before you start getting any funny ideas, it was in the field next to our campsite, along with some equally noisy geese.
At the end of today we were pretty much out of the busy part of the UK, the next busy place will be Bristol, and I think thats where the hills will pick up again, but hopefully after a rest day, and a few days of flat'ish' skating, I'll be ready for them.
From then on it's into Devon, and then the final few days.