Rambling...the verbal and the striding

This blog is about my recent adventures to the north of England, more specifically, the Lake District, even more specifically, Keswick, and down to the square meter, a little bed and breakfast called The Lake-mere Inn. I had the left side of the bed, all was as it should be.

Our holiday began at a slightly unorthadox hour, normal hour if you are perhaps a farmer, but a considerably abnormal hour if you are a student. This is the way it should be because of differences in morning agendas. Anyhow, the unusual agenda of hour day dictated that we must begin it at 4.00am. Now I have laboured my hardship (getting up early), I may continue.

The car journey up was spent comatose and dribbling on a pillow. It happens now that whenever we embark on a long journey a pillow (dribble absorber...drabsorber) is thrust unceremoniously 'neith my head to catch any wayfaring drips. But from what I gathered during my brief waking moments, the journey went fairly smoothly for us. But it seemed that everybody else on the motorway was being over zealous speedwise. This meant that we passed one morbid warning against speeding after another.

We arrived safely in Keswick and found the small B+B that was to be home for three nights. We were greeted acrimoniously by a sour faced woman who, on opening the door and on clocking that we were walkers who intended to walk that weekend, informed us that the weather was set to be terrible and she didn't know why we bothered. She was right, but it is still not the best of greetings for weary travellers. Following these tidings she thrust breakfast menus in our sleepy faces and told us to cross of the items on the breakfast menu that we did not want and informed us briskly that breakfast was from 8.30-9.00am. Maybe she should also have told us to cross off what we didn't think we could wolf down in the short half hour gap she had allocated for us to nourish ourselves.

That evening we took a wander over Castle Rigg, this is an old stone circle and these are a couple of things the leaflet informed us about the spot: It was a circle of stones, It was old (they don't know how old), It was used for something (they don't know what it was used for) and by someone (they don't know who) and they found an "unpolished stone axe" there which may, of course, just have been a stone. So slightly baffeled as to why they bothered writing the "information" leaflet and feeling notably uninformed, we made our way back to the B+B for the night.

Day two of our trip was Skiddaw day. We managed most of the walk up over bleak ridges with beautiful backdrops of lakes and peaks. But as we got closer to the apex we realised that we may have gone unprepared for the conditions. It turns out that my mothers crampon dreams should not have gone unfulfilled. It was when a grapple with a jutting rock prevented a perilous and all-too-fast descent over ice and snow, that I realised we were ill equipped and had we wanted to climb further we could not have done. It seemed the mountain was trying to shake us off indignantly as we were unworthy ramblers. We got back to the the bottom (the long way round) unharmed and with only a tear in Ellies waterproof trousers to show for it. Said trousers had to be replaced as the tear was in a rather inconveniant buttock proximity which would have made the regular hiker's activity of sitting down on things that are wet (moss, grass etc) impossible. This, had it gone unattended to, may well have caused piles. No, a replacement pair were a must...to avoid health implications.

The third day was easier as we tackled "Catbells", a smaller mountain with veiws over Derwent water. It is said that this is where squirrel nutkin lives, but Beatrix was mental, so we weren't sure if this was true, other evidence against this story is that squirral nutkin is fictional and also how does a squirrel, especially a sketched one, make its way across a river and build its home on the small island in the middle? I for one am suspicious of the whole affair. This mountain was also a little treacherous as we scrambled the icy rocks nearing the peak, but was managable in comparison to the struggle at Skiddaw.

That, is a short summary of my weekend. I will finish this blog by telling you two observations I made over this weekend. The first is that there are two types of rambler, the old school rambler with wax jackets, gaters and polished sticks for walking aids. Then there is the new school rambler with gortex and collapsable walking poles made of "extra light carbon fibres" and WALKMAX written in lightning up the side. These are the kind that walk extreme, eat extreme cereal bars (PROMAX) and extreme bird watch. The old school kind have a set of binoculars around there necks and munch home-made peanut butter sandwiches out of foil. Another discovery was the HOC. This is the Hikers Overfamiliarity Code. Observers of HOC will greet you as relatives and comment on things such as tea shops, the weather and how much they are sweating, they may even compliment your equipment, tell you they have spotted a red kite on the east side and on going seperate ways they will pat you on the back and agree to meet you in the tea shop. Non HOC observers will sneer at you for being on their side of the mountain.

On that note, bye!