Our luck seemed to be holding as today the sun shone once again as we made the most of our fabulous walk-in shower before putting on our gear and packing our rucksacks once again. The pub did a rather expensive pack lunch, so as the walk today was pretty straight-forward and one of the short days, we saved our pennies and used our stock of goodies instead. The pub served only continental breakfast, which is no bad thing as you are in danger of fry-up overload on cooked breakfast especially if you are weak-willed like me. Breakfast was good though with cereals, local ham and cheese, plus toast and tea or coffee, all you should really have. We availed ourselves of them all together with all the refills that were offered and 'borrowed' from the fruit and cake basket as well to smuggle into our rucksacks!
We left the Rose & Crown, 
Lesley marking it high in her accommodation book she had been keeping. Soon we were passing by the village church followed by a gentle but warming stroll back upwards for about a mile to join the track again, where we had left yesterday afternoon. We had been looking forward to this day as we had marked a couple of places of interest we wanted to dwell for awhile on the way to Wantage. Beeb said weather would be mixed with sunshine and heavy showers, possibly of hale! even in this late May! The first of our stops on our to-do list was Wayland's Smithy, a Neolithic long chamber tomb, managed by the National Trust. The way the large stone covered the tomb at the front reminded us of the Dolmen in the Lot Valley we visited many years ago.......another walking story?
We stopped for photos and to soak up the atmosphere we seem to feel when visiting these "ancient man-made' tombs. 
We always seem to do the obligatory walks around the tomb, helps us to feel the power, we say, a bit like hugging trees and trig-points (yes I do all of these) probably because they have so much history in them and not for any other spooky reason!
The next few miles of walking we shared only with the occasional horse & rider and dog-walker, but all that changed when we reached Uffingham Castle Fort. We ascended a chalky section of path and entered the field to pay our respects to the castle, when the promised showers of hail, that had been sweeping the vale below us for several hours, suddenly decided it was our turn to experience them. 
So we donned our waterproofs and huddled under the trig-point that protected us from the large marble sized lumps that were hitting us and turning the grass steadily white! It was soon over and a deserved thank you hug of the trig-point for sheltering us before we entered into the castle. We chatted to an Australian couple from Adelaide who had embarked on a tour of Europe 6 week's ago and were moving on to London before going on to the States. Its at this point we had forgotten about the Uffingham White Horse and they pointed us in the right direction! Just a few hundred yards away and Its proximity to a car park made it an easier visit and today was no exception. A group of smallish children were doing a school study of the horse, with the teachers doing their best keeping them to their task when all they appeared to want to do was to run around in the strong breeze, and who can blame them? The views here were stunning, with glorious sunshine and even more hale showers scooting along the valley below us at a rapid rate of knots, we gazed to the west and tried to second-guess which one of these showers was going miss us and which were to get us next.
On the walk back to the Ridgeway we decided to cir-cum-navigate the castle walking around the elevated mound, separating and both walking it in opposite directions. 
We weren't alone at the castle as a guy on a horse decided he would enter the inner sanctum and ride around in circles also. Perhaps he too might also suffer from that 'feel the power' thing, like us!
Back on the trail again and we rounded a bend where Didcot Power Station came into a distant view. We were to see these chimneys and the adjacent 'Clumps' for every day remaining of our walk, save for our last day, but this was only due to a soft haze restricting our distant views back. This more remote section was now entering horse training country and training gallops appeared to our left and right. We were now heading towards yet another communications mast as we arrived at Sparsholt Firs, a poplar stopping off point, we believe, for those doing a greater distance-per-day walk than us, with ensuing less days overall than ours. It's also worth noting at this point that Sparsholt Firs is not a pub, so we didn't give it a second look when doing our pre-walk planning. A lovely escarpment appeared on our left, called the Devil's Punchbowl. It was very similar, but on a smaller scale, to the larger National Trust land at Hindhead in Surrey. 
Following the Ridgeway map we counted off the number of byways and small lanes we had to cross before we arrived at our end of day turn near Wantage, the busy A338 road. We didn't plan to walk the 3 miles down into Wantage but to continue for just 600 yards down the road using the ample width and well walked verges on to the Court Hill Centre. Here we stopped for our afternoon tea and homemade cakes in this superb ex-Youth Hostel. It now seems to mainly house children's groups and today was no exception. They were playing a game of hide something somewhere and all the others would try to find it, making as much screaming noises as is possible to do (showing my age )? We sat in the sunny courtyard and had a proper pot of tea. Inside the centre. As well as bunks, classrooms and a cafe, there are large maps and geophysical description of the whole Ridgeway, posted up on the walls by The Friends of the Ridgeway group. 
On the notice board was a local taxi business card and we phoned to get picked up and taken the 3 miles to our pub. Chris the taxi driver was pretty knowledgeable about our walk as he said he had done it himself before, albeit a few years ago. We soon arrived at The Bear in Wantage town centre and booked Chris to take us back where we left off, tomorrow morning for a 9am start.
The Bear is a typical town centre pub/hotel with lots of bedrooms, a large bar, restaurant and 24 hour reception. Checking in we took the lift to the 2nd floor and into room number one. Quite a nice room, nicely decorated, but this time with only a view of the kitchen rear door and the smokers hovel down below where smoke freely rose to enter our, soon to be shut, open window. Lesley became very excited when checking out the en-suite as it had a BATH! 
One of only two pubs (not counting our home ) to spoil us. Showers are the norm these days and a good soak is sometimes all that the body needs to revive and mend. Personally I go for the shower every time, due to the effort of getting in and the struggle to get back out! We changed into our selected choice of evening attire (we carried it, so we were going to wear it), before the obligatory sit with a slow pint and contemplate the hale storm, outside the pub window, that had followed us to Wantage. We took our evening meal in the side restaurant that had a reasonable amount of fellow eaters including what looked like a Rotarian, Round Table or Chamber of Commerce meeting at the far end. They thankfully closed the doors once all the food was served, to save us from the guffawing and self appreciating speeches that I guessed were taking place. Moving back into the bar we chilled later with a small drink, mulling over our strategy for day-four tomorrow, which was to be our longest walk of the week. Bed beckoned early yet again, we both read for a while before getting off to sleep very quickly, sometimes not always easy in a strange bed, but assisted I am sure by the exercise......and avery small medicinal brandy !