Last night's meal was superb. An excellent salmon prawn mousse for starter. Three local lamb cutlets, new potatoes, green beans and glazed carrots, with a subtle jus with fresh mint from the garden, all beautifully presented with homemade apple crumble and proper custard to finish.
I was dropped off at Kirkwhelpington for 9:00am The village shop was closed for bank holiday and it started to rain, but I was ok and it only persisted for an hour or so. Walking was varied with some Tarmac and not so good fields. At one point I got the zip in my coat stuck and sat on a stile for ages fiddling with it. I got out Swiss Army knife and was about to operate, but a final tug suddenly released things. This is a common problem and I wonder why they don't devise some way of avoiding the zip getting caught up with the adjacent material - it should be easy enough?
A good track led to a farm marked Clay Walls. As the track arrived at the farm entrance there was a large notice saying PRIVATE. NO WALKERS. I had missed a diversion to go around the farm a hundred yards back. I marched back thinking what a miserable type he farmer must be. The stile over the fence was lethal with a rocking post nearly out of the ground and steps covered in green slippery slime. - it needed some care to negotiate. Once into the field there were four horses which converged on me and followed, one trying to bite my rucksack. I don't trust horses, and I was glad to get over another poor stile into the next field which contained a herd of bullocks, but they only looked on quizzically. The field was one of the worst cattle trodden, ankle twisting ever, so all in all thumbs down to Clay Walls farm.
Further on I stopped on a bench next to a war memorial on a crossroads miles from anywhere. Whilst I was munching a couple appeared and they were walking St Oswald's Way, the first I have met so far. He was a walk leader for Holiday Fellowship and was doing a recce for this section. I met them again at the top of the hill where they were eating and I pressed on. I then took a wrong turning and walked abou five minutes down the wrong path during which time the couple went ahead of me on the proper path. A bit annoying.
It had been a good walk and the final section over Todridge Fell was particularly pleasant.
I have just spent about three quarters of an hour trying to do the Bluetooth camera thing and it is totally messed up. I ended up creating new passwords very tediously, switched everything off and back on etc., etc. All to no avail so it looks as though photos for the rest of this trip will remain in my camera.
Glory be, I've done it! Photos here they come.
1. Kirkwhelpington. No sign of the vicar chasing me this morning.
2. One for my "relics" collection.
3. I had a chat with the farmer on his quod bike. A hobby, one is a show winner and preggie so he's hoping she will produce another winner.
4. A good sample of Northumberland scenery. This is a most attractive county.
Pleased to see you've had an easier day and are hopefully ensconced in a nice village pub. Tomorrow looks good, with coffee and cake before you get tired...
ReplyDeleteI agree regarding zips Conrad - infuriating when they catch fabric. The photos are excellent and I'm enjoying your walk although I didn't expect to be reading about it from a hospital bed!! Happy Easter...
ReplyDelete'Hospital bed' Gibson. Hope it's not anything too serious...
ReplyDeleteBest wishes for getting home soon.
I'm up to date now Conrad and very much vicariously enjoying your journey. I walked St. Cuthbert's Way with my Mum and Dad not too long after it was devised and found it to be very quiet and very enjoyable. Further South in Northumbria I've had difficulty with footpaths being obscured or apparently so little used that they were completely overgrown, although that was also quite a long while ago!
ReplyDeleteAll - when I look at my blog on my iPad (Safari) the photos are all cropped, e.g. Only half a right hand llama, and only part of a car, et al. How are others seeing it?
ReplyDeletePhreerunner - I'm on my second night at Brandy Bank which is even better than the paradise you describe.
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Afoot - hi Gibson. Have I missed something? I echo Phreerunners thoughts.
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Beating the Bounds - hi Mark. I've strayed once or twice from St. Oswald's Way and found problems on designated rights of way., but it's still a great county for endless exploration.
Ah yes, I forgot you said you were staying there for two nights.
ReplyDeleteI'm suffering the picture cropping problem when I view your blog in Explorer and in Chrome, and in Safari on the iPad, but when I first look at it in The Old Reader on the iPad there's no cropping, and my Samsung S7 Android phone also shows the full pictures, so they are definitely there. Maybe it's a settings problem, or you need to reduce the size of the images.
It's definitely a display problem as I can right-click and copy or 'save as' and get the full image even though it is cropped on the screen.
I'm surprised you could walk after that mega meal, wow.
ReplyDeleteZips can be a nuisance. The worst zips i have come across are in our very expensive PHD sleeping bags. Not only do they trap but also lock, sometimes i struggle to get out of the things.
Your pictures aren't cropped when viewed on the iPhone and are normal when enlarged Conrad.
ReplyDeleteConrad and Martin: In hospital following unexpected 'complications' following 'flu. Thanks for your best wishes.
I'm still seeing your photos as cropped when I view them on your blog, but still seeing them in their proper state when I read via Feedly. Happily, I always read via Feedly first and thus got to fully appreciate the alpaca photo (love that one!) before coming over to your blog.
ReplyDeleteI was nodding along with your comments about zips. Usually it's Mick who has trouble, and me who sorts it out, but I do remember throwing an uncharacteristic hissy fit on a summit one cold, snowy day, when I thought I was going to have to take my trousers off to free my handkerchief from my pocket.
All - I seemed to have touched on a familiar problem with the zip thing. I was amused with Gayle's anecdote. I wonder if serious high altitude and Arctic/Antarctic gear take this into consideration? Failure in those regions could well be fatal. A subject for a bit of research when I return I think.
ReplyDeleteThe photos. Well it's the best I can do, but at least most readers will now understand when they seem some awful composition.
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Afoot - very sorry to hear that Gibson. I really do wish you well and I hope my daily posts might bring a little cheer.
Thanks Conrad - you're very kind. Yes, your posts cheer me up no end although your account of a delicious meal was a bit much to take since I was 'nil by mouth' for two days - and may be again from tomorrow - so have a heart! At least the view from my bed is a pleasant one over the Tay and it's a glorious evening.
ReplyDeleteAfoot - I hope there will be more delicious meals to come.
ReplyDeleteDid you mention Mum worked for the Holiday Fellowship? Down here near the Brecon Beacons, up north somewhere close to Gargrave.
ReplyDeleteToo late now but here's how you choose a zip that will last more than thirty years, as on my ski anorak. The zips that fail first (usually when the teeth get out of synch with their designated "sockets" or, as in your case, by picking up stray cloth) are those with fine teeth, mistakenly chosen as aiding windproofness. Such zips also tend to have metal teeth.
My anorak zip has a coarse mechanism with no more than three teeth per inch. It is also made from a robust, slightly flexible plastic and equipped with a huge puller. Having a zip fail at 2500 m with temperatures below zero can be life threatening since one is disinclined to take off one's gloves. I was always able to engage the two ends of the zip with gloved hands. I bought the anorak ca. 1980 reduced from £200 to £100 which was very steep then; far too bulky for you of course but it never failed me, thermally or mechanically.