Witherslack, quick round

 Friday 27th October 2023 - Witherslack

"The spirit was aloft, I was pulling on my boots"

W.H. Murray, Mountaineering in Scotland

Well old Bill Murray might have enjoyed putting on his boots.

I don't!

It is the worst part of any walk!

The quote heads up my blogging friend's blog, Afoot in the Hills, and I seem to recall asking him if he got the same enjoyment as Mr. Murray and he said he did. I don't infer any criticism, each to his own. I'm pretty sure there are things I enjoy that Afoot and Bill would not.

A belated decision for a walk at about 12:45 finds me bending over, huffing snd puffing and then moving to another location to get boot and foot onto a higher position. Then I struggle because my trousers obscure sight of the laces and I am working blind trying to notch the laces into those awkward, but so effective hooky things. At last it is done, I could hardly say my "spirit was aloft."

It's only twenty minutes on the A590 to Witherslack but I find an endless line of cones with traffic diverting me in unfamiliar fashion and I miss the turn off and have to drive a kilometre further to the roundabout and another kilometre back.

At last I park in a friendly little lay-by just past the church at Witherslack, disembark, don rucksack and grab poles and lock the car. Now I sense spirits lifting. 

If I walk from home I don't carry my walking poles. I think that is because I see a local walk as something inconsequential, and also I am mildly concerned that fellow villagers  may perceive me as even more doddery and ancient than I really am. That of course is illogical - on  backpacking trips I am walking through somebody else's "inconsequential" locality in just the same way as I do at home. Feeling self conscious, if I am in a populated residential area I carry the sticks rather than use them.

Today however I have plotted a route on previously unexplored paths and have an overestimated vision of more demanding territory and challenging terrain. In my heart, having studied the map and knowing the locale in general I know that is unlikely, but it is good to dream now and then and the poles win the day.

Steep climbing through birch, hazel and mixed broadleaf woodland with the pleasing musky hint of autumn makes for a start which has me now thankful for the poles, but with my breathlessness I have to climb with tiny steps maintaining progress but in ultra low gear like the spring on a clock unwinding oh so slowly.

Eventually I top out onto more open heathland and then the land drops steeply with a sort of exaggerated 3D view through a skeleton of bare tress to the distant Kent estuary and Arnside Knott. I drop down and follow a muddy track to Nether Hall farm, yes, we are now definitely back in the muddy season. I come across the farmer's dsughter and her three year old girl and she directs me on the footpath through the farm in cheery fashion and I remark on the tidiness of this farm and she says she will pass that on to her dad.

My route brings me out onto the still cone-stricken A590 at the filling station. From my study of the map it is not possible to tell if a short  hundred yard stretch of the A 590 to gain a minor track leading off can be negotiated, but all is well.

A much overgrown path continues and I take meticulous care mot to have any brambles wrapping round my ankles - I am currently on yet another session with my GP's nurse having a previous wound dressed - they seem to be so slow to heal on that part of my legs.

Back at the car I look again at the fuel gauge which I has been approaching zero for a while and I have a debate with myself whether to go and fill up at Milnthorpe on the way back. That is another irksome task akin to putting on the boots, however it has to be done, telling muself that I will have the reward of uplifted spirit when I remove my boots back home.