Arnside local walk

I am experimenting with the Mac's dictation facility. Composition does not happen in the same way compared with normal typing;  mentally it is similar to trying to write with the wrong hand. Perhaps with practice one may be able to use this facility with more ease, but I don't think I am going to be able to get on with it. That seems odd because in my erstwhile employment I dictated most of my letters to a shorthand secretary.

Yesterday I continued with my local walking, setting myself a target to arrive at the Green Olive café in Milnthorpe around lunchtime so I could have tea and a bacon butty.

I have bought myself a small sling pouch to put my bits and pieces in, and that seems to be working well. Having my arm in the sling creates a pull on my neck, and after walking a few miles I'm developing pain in my back.

From the cafe I walked nearly to Beetham, and then found a footpath that surprisingly, I have never walked on before which took me, Bela riverside, past the old Heron Cornmill, and into Dallam Deerpark. The path through the park climbs high up giving splendid views across the estuary, followed by a descent to exit the park. Old elevated limestone tracks followed, and then into mature mixed woodland. I briefly took a wrong path which fortuitously brought me high up looking down into the huge quarry, with massive wagons rumbling about in the bottom, but at that distance looking more like busy beetles. A double back took me past DOG HOLE CAVE well hidden in the woods. I set out to find this a couple of years ago and was having some difficulty when I came across a lady and she owned a large field which contains an isolated oak tree in the centre, reputed to be the oldest and largest in the area. She kindly showed me the way to Dog Hole Cave, and then on our return invited me to go into the field to have a closer look at the tree. On the gate to the entrance she had fixed a small sign quoting the line from Yeats well known poem "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams", and today after passing Dog Hole Cave I went again to have a look at the splendid oak.

Another lane and then Tarmac took me into Storth village where I visited the tiny post office now run by volunteers, and I bought an ice cream and sat outside in the sunshine on the village bench. Storth is a particularly pretty little village. Once again I found another footpath that I have not walked on before, bringing me out on the main road from Armside to Milnthorpe. I was able to get back on the old railway embankment with great views across the estuary, and retrace my outward journey back to home.

I was surprised  to find I had walked nine and a half miles.

Clockwise, start/finish bottom left corner