| Weather: Cloudy with blustery westerly, then some sun |
| Distance covered today: 18.1km (11.2mi) |
| Last night's B&B: Packhorse Inn (£67.50) |
| Cumulative distance: 852.6km (529.8mi)/ % Complete: 44.6% |
| GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 44 (click!) |
Yet another first for me! I’m sitting in a laundrette in Glossop waiting for Veronica and Marion to arrive, because Marion is intending to walk the last few kilometres to Torside with me. They are still a couple of hours away, so I decided I might as well make use of the time and the laundrette to wash my clothes so that this sort of chore doesn’t waste our time together tomorrow. The trouble was that the only clothes that needed washing were everything I was wearing. So I took myself off to a public loo, stripped naked in the booth and changed into a fresh, clean set of clothes. I felt something between a thief and a spy and I wondered on exit whether the bobby on the beat that I had seen on the way in would have noticed this transformation and decided it was just a mite suspicious; “’ullo, ‘ullo, ‘ullo, wot ‘ave we ‘ere! And just why might you be feeling the need to change yer identity at 12:30 in the day?” Well, disappointingly, he wasn’t there on the way out.
Today’s walk was pleasant and undemanding so far, though after the past few days of flat walking, the return of the hills is a significant change. The moors are now all around me, looking very high and very forbidding. The weather is also a little intimidating; low scudding cloud and a blustery and very chilly wind. I will now be rather pleased to actually start the Pennine phase of the journey. It has been looming in front of me for what seems like ages now, and the anticipation is generally worse than the reality.
At least last night’s B&B was a real pleasure. It was the most expensive night of the journey so far, but it really was equivalent to staying in a 5-star hotel, only with personal service and really good beer! It was so good that I’m sure that when I look at my final ratings of all the B&Bs that I have stayed in, it will be up there at the top, achieving a rating of “Make a special trip to enjoy this B&B”. The food last night was almost up to home cooking standard! The wifi connection was the strongest and fastest I’ve had away from home, the bed was extraordinarily comfortable and the breakfast was superb (though I limited myself to fruit, toast and tea. I did feel a wrench turning down the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs)! I also felt guilty enjoying it all in Veronica’s absence!
While sitting in the laundrette, as one does, I have been busy on my netbook! I have made a minor administrative correction to the statistics of my trip to date. I now have to hand at last a reasonably accurate estimate of the total distance from Glossop (where I am right now) to John O’Groats, following the precise route that I intend to take from here. This means that I can now calculate a more accurate percentage of the total distance covered to date. My calculations show that I will walk a total of 1,913km, rather than my initial estimate of 1,760km. As of last night, I had walked 835km, which means that the percentage complete reduces from 47.4% to 43.6%. This is about what I had expected and is the result of the rather eccentric route that I took through Cornwall and Devon and my decision to walk up Offa’s Dyke and across Shropshire, rather than take a more direct route to the Pennine Way. In effect, it means an addition of about 3 days or so to the journey, which isn’t very much.
By the next post, I will have completed my first day on the Pennine Way!! Tally Ho!
Those are the Pennines glowering behind the friendly hill!
Now we are in stone wall country. The hedges of the south have given way to the walls. Why?
Cloudscape with wall....
I kid you not! Pistol Farm is situated in Gun Lane!
As is Gun Farm. These must be aggressive people!!
Wherever I go, even in the loneliest of places, the posties in their little red vans are always cheerful, always courteous and always present. It is inconceivable that rural Britain could survive without them.
They are trying to make me homesick!
6 comments:
Well done......getting cleaned up for the arrival of the ladies! Re your stone walls vs hedges..... Usually you have the former where the latter won't grow well due to the poor soil. Cost of 'whips'(young hedging plants)in the past would also have been a factor - the stones for the walls were generally 'free' being collected from the surrounding landscape.
Enjoy your day off and good luck with the Pennines, Love Fiona
Are you aware of being consciously happy? reading your posts, you seem to be getting happier and happier, there is a real joy to them. which is wonderful. Maybe next time try changing in a post box and you'll emerge as you-know-who and the walk over the Pennines will be a doddle.
Stone walls vs Hedges -- I venture to suggest (note the circumspection) that in the south, the bedrock is mostly chalk, which does not resist the forces of weathering too well, and so people do not build walls with it. Here in the pictures, we can see what looks like slate (stone wall in photo 2 and roof tiles at Pistol Farm), quartzite(?) in the cloudscape and the wall at Pistol Farm, and quartzite/sandstone for the wall at Gun Farm.. All good building stone material. Those Pennines got to be made out of some resistant rock type....
Jared Diamond lives!
At Willand our conversation bordered on the linkage between a blog such as yours, and the marketable genre, travel writing. This weekend's FT has a piece by Paul Theroux with a bearing on this. He refers to numerous travel books.
'I hate vacations and luxurious hotels are no fun to read about. I want to read about the miserable, or difficult, or inhospitable places; the forbidden cities and the back roads.' But I would say do include the nice things, the odd things, the surprises and the reliefs.
The whole thing might interest you when you get home if you ever think of writing it up.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/71b85180-87e5-11e0-a6de-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1Nm5zsExL
Fine photos. 'Cloudscape with wall' and ohers give me wanderlust.
Roger,
As always, a pithy, useful contribution. Many thanks!
Trying again - think I may have cracked it finally to be able to post comments. Really enjoyed the walk on Monday - will keep watching your progress. best wishes Richard.
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