Biscuits and sledging

Written - Tuesday 28th February second day of cold and snow (The Beast from the East)

Recent posts referred to my discovery of The Miller's Way, a long distance path supposedly charting the route of Mr. Carr of Carr's biscuits fame when he left the family business in 1831 in Kendal to go to Carlisle and set up his own milling/bakery/biscuit business.

Further research uncovered Rich Desserts and Captains Thin, a biography of Carr and his family by Margaret Forster. Margaret hails originally from Carlisle and is a prolific novelist and non-fiction writer. She is married to Hunter Davies who I criticised many years ago for his A Walk Around the Lakes, but then revised my opinion when he published his excellent biography of Wainwright.

Margaret has had access to family and business records from the Carr family and other sources including much material from the local press, and she is undoubtedly a professional and accomplished author telling a lively and interesting story.  Mr Carr was a Quaker and much of that background is intermingled with the social history of the Victorian period.

I would certainly recommend the book which held my attention sufficient to devour it in two lengthy sessions whilst avoiding the weather over the last couple of days.

I decided to rest the knee from actual walking for a few days, but I have set an hourly alarm to prompt me to walk properly, rather than peg-legging up and down my stairs three times (now extended to four) to strengthen the muscles, and I think this, along with the original continued exercises, is having a beneficial effect, but it is a slow process.

All that remains now is for me to walk the Miller's Way.

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Katie update

( No school today, Tueesday 28th Feb.)

The alarm has just gone off again calling me to my stairs challenge.