Day 4 - Tuesady 29th April - Thorlby to Askwith

Another good days walking. The old Roman road from Skipton over to Addingham is special. Had tea in the café attached to The Fleece in Addingham. That pub was one of our late night drinking spots back in the early 60s.

I am on Top Farm Camping and Caravan Club CL at Askwith . It is dump. People friendly enough but no toilet just a water tap. The place is like a scrap yard. They only charged me £3.

All this has now been overshadowed by news from home. Daughter Jill looks like being made redundant and she is going to need support. They are having to be interviewed for their jobs and hers would only be at reduced pay anyway, and redundancy money for her after 4.5 years service would only be 4 weeks pay, and possibly capped at that.

Looks like I may have to abort? Do not have motivation to write more here. Thanks for all your comments.

Also a big thank you for M for picking me and feeding me royally last nigh.


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Day 3 - Monday 28th April - Settle to Thorlby (between Gargrave and Skipton)

The King William the Fourth guest house in the centre of Settle was excellent. Immaculate decor, spotless, and very comfortable bed. Good breakfast and friendly welcome from Jaqui ( I think, sorry if I got name wrong).

Off to a good start in the morning feeling much fitter and gung-ho. Now much warmer and no wind. Fabulous walking after ascending to the tops often along those enchanting dalesway lanes with surrounding limestone hills, larks singing, and that on top of the world feeling.

Descent to Airton. Nibbling lunch on the bridge looking at the river Aire sparkling in the sunlight, and then over the tops again to Gargrave. I had arranged for my friend M who lives in Ilkley to pick me up. It was only 3:00pm so I walked another 3km down the canal to Thorlby where I was collected and driven back to splendid eating and an entertaining evening including a visit from M's friend J.

M is going to drop me off in the morning at Thorlby to re-start where I left off. I could have just carried on from Ilkley, but whatever happens I would like to think I have attempted to follow all of my planned route. At some stage that will be revealed in detail, but for the moment the outcome is uncertain with my knee problems, and I don't want to make myself look stupidly ambitious.

I will try and do the photo thing with the new camera next time if circumstances are favourable.





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Day 2. Sunday 27th April. Bentham to Settle. About 13 miles. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Packing up this morning I found THE HAT was missing. Must have left it at the pub last night.

Twenty minutes down the road a pleasant young lady was calling her cocker spaniel who had run after a hare. The hat story was told. Andrea knew the pub people and my campsite hosts and promised to retrieve the hat and post it home to me if possible. Eventually the spaniel returned from half a mile away at great speed - he'd had a great time - been across the river - great dog.

Farmers fields and elusive footpaths on top of still being weary from yesterday's big walk made for hard going. Some of the walking was on the old Dales limestone tracks. with the dramatic backdrop of Three Peaks country - that is great walking. I am still in familiar territory which is fine but I'm looking forward to moving into regions less familiar.

Weight is onerous for my old creaking frame and I am thinking of ditching food and reducing cooking equipment to one pot, one stove, one mug, tea, coffee, choc drink, and one small gas canister.

I am in a guest house in Settle. Have bought another hat - Jack Wolfskin - no chinstrap. I produced black elastic from the Miscellaneous dry sack, and with the aid of Swiss Army knife Wolfskin is now chin strapped.


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Location:Penny Green,Settle,United Kingdom

Day 1 follow up.

In the pub somebody stood on a Greyhounds foot. It squealed so loud everybody got a fright. A youth with some kind of problem came to my table every five minutes taking away sachets of condiments. I had no choice but to have a table near the pool table. Every so often somebody stuck their bum in my face whilst bending down to take a shot.

Day 1 Saturday 26th April - Arnside to High Bentham

Arrived High Bentham (Mason Gill SD 683 691)  4:30 - 22 plus miles, 10.5 hours! Camping at Curlew Camping. Tea on arrival. Rucksack carried to pitch £5. Chauffeur one mile to village and back for meal at pub.

Not the Knott again!

A day looking after Katie. Jill's school have sadistically arranged an inset day to mess up the last weekend of the Easter holiday.

So Katie has climbed her first Marilyn, and I have ascended Arnside Knott for the several hundredth time.

Very expensive trail food

Gimmer's suggestion for apricots on my last post has been heeded, more by circumstances than intention. Why?

Last Sunday (Easter) daughter Jill and granddaughter Katie were coming for an
Easter egg hunt for Katie and a family meal - son William was away with his motor bike racing team.

I decided to cook a ham and make an apricot chutney as seen on TV done by Mary Berry and prepared the latter the day before. First of all my weighing scales needed its obscure batteries replacing. A trip to the shop to buy batteries and ingredients proved fairly expensive. It was a tiresome job fine cutting onions, apricots, chilies, garlic, and peeling and grating root ginger, zesting and squeezing oranges, and measuring out quantities of sugar, maple syrup and cider vinegar. I followed the recipe precisely. The result was disgusting and it went straight down the lavatory. There were some apricots left over, so now you have the answer.

I am typing this on the iPad to get a little practice for blogging on the hoof after I set off on Saturday.




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