Reasons for Reasons
I was ‘raised’ – to use a phrase from our American friends – in south Lakeland and it has always remained home. Even though I left to study when I was 18 and didn’t return untill September 2010. A lot of years.
During those interim years I have had a great life, travelled and met some wonderful people and also have a managed to bring up my son fairly successfully. So, it although it was sort of ‘on the plan’, my move back North was not without trepidation.
As part of my ‘self affirmation’ that I had made the right decision I started a Facebook album ‘Reasons To Move North’. This has had wonderful comments from my friends but I never had the courage to make it public. Then recently I went on a Travel Writing Course with Zoe ,and much to my delight and surprise received more affirmation from positive comments on my travel writing. Something else which has always remained strictly within closed leaves.
A mindful review of my first year here followed and I realised that I had had an amazing twelve months. Yes, I have travelled away, but I have also done more here in the North West than I would have previously thought possible. And I have had so many visitors! People like it here! I have become a guide for friends and acquaintances who then spread the word about how wonderful the Lake District is. This led to my providing itineraries for weekends or longer visits. Some I accompanied, others I simply provided a ‘bespoke’ itinerary, with or with accommodation booked.
So, now it’s time to go Global!
And now I have built my own blog I have used my technical, from a previous life in IT, to build one for the Howgill Harriers. If you would like one put together then please contact me for a quote.
Autumn in Cumbria
It’s been a while since I published on here. Blame houses. Or rather the ridiculously stressful system of buying and selling we have in England. It all takes so long! Everyone tells me how lucky I was to sell my house so quickly. The first viewing resulted in a sale, within the first week. But I then went away for three weeks with no idea of where I was going to live, except I’d decided on Kendal. The detail is boring, but suffice to say that it became all consuming when I came back from the Balkans...
read moreA hike through the Balkans
The last time I crossed the Balkans, the map wore different colours. Travelling through, what was then Yugoslavia, to Greece in the late 1970s. Not daring to leave the train with images of Midnight Express flashing through my eyes, and currency changed almost stop by stop as the Euro had hardly been conceived. Now the Balkans are open. Only Albania has the Lek and even here there was an easy acceptance of EU currency. Flights arrive from all over Europe and English, French, Italian and German are...
read moreShould I use a Map or a Book or App?
A topic I have debated at length before. Way back when in 2013! Yes, I have been scribbling and publishing for that long. So long that I’d almost forgotten I’d written about the benefits of all. But I think it’s worth revisiting as my life, and therefore perspective, has changed a tad. Then I was clearly struggling with maps and squiggly lines. Now, well I am a convert. After slogging through my ML and now vaguely making a living from leading and teaching others out on hills, I’d sooner have a map than a book to...
read moreA short walk up a hill
There was more to drive than walk from my home in S Lakes, to our eventual camp. But the day was hot, so the drive at the end of my day job tipped the temperature to a more manageable level. Sharp silhouettes were forming across the skyline, natural and created by man. Folds etched into hillsides unseen in the height of the day. We walked up, the sun dipped down. Throwing the distance into sharp relief and brightly clarifying closer colours. Setting up camp there was just the remnants of the harsh summer sun. ...
read moreWhich Way to Walk up Helvellyn?
I was up Helvellyn last week. A glorious blue sky day in what I am sure is going to be remembered as the ‘summer of 2018’. So many continuous days of Cumbrian sunshine. Unusual and welcome. A chance encounter with a friend, whom I also met on my last hike up this particular hill in the lovely February snow, made me start to wonder how many ways there are to walk up the hill, or go down, and how many I had set foot on since my fist walk up from Thirlmere aged about ten. As always on a good weather day there was a larger...
read moreWild Camping Weather
It has been so glorious the past few weeks. Weather almost unprecedented in Cumbria, Scotland and Yorkshire for that matter. Being outside has been wonderfully pleasurable. No need to worry about rain, the cold or wind whipping through the layers. No weather excuses then. Nothing to stop me hiking up and hill and staying there. For a night. All that superlight kit I invested in under the pretext of ‘oh, it will be well used’ has hardly. So I set off, making sure not to take more than my Osprey 35L...
read moreOnly one Peak
I am, again, going to be ‘hurrying’ over the Yorkshire Three Peaks. Soon. Tomorrow! But this walk was merely a wander at leisure with my camera for company. Limestone countryside is rich in spring. Covered with wild flowers which can extend my day by hours. This was not a walk to do with a group trying to complete a 12 hour challenge. Lazy summer haze hung low over Ingleborough wondering whether to obey the forecast of a bright day. Horton made a chilly start and using the pay machine was to prove my challenge for the day! I...
read moreLanguage School
Immersion or submersion? There was, at times, a feeling of drowning. Not knowing, not having any idea of what the ?.. was going on. I’ve throw myself into a lot of things without thinking through the consequences in life, and this was certainly one of them. Imagine Big Brother in Revenga. Revenga? you may well ask, is a tiny pueblo, let’s get into the vernacular here, north west of Madrid. Set in the Guadarrama National Park, an area steeped in civil war history. Accommodation was a local ‘casa’. Square...
read moreBest of the Bluebells
There are a lot, many, mucho…. bluebells on this blog! In May it is impossible to no go and wander through the woodlands of south Cumbria and watch. It’s been a family tradition for as long as I can remember. My mother and her family lived in the area for many years and we went as children, I’m sure often dragged, to see the bluebells. Their iridescent blue carpet graces much of south Cumbria on the fringes of the Lake District National Park for a few brief weeks each year. Always a bit of a gamble as to when. Dependent on the...
read moreMoments in Madrid
Is it possible to ‘do a city’ in four days? The Lonely Planet told me I was practically a local if I stayed that long. Certainly it was a longer stay than that of our friends from ‘across the pond’ whom we found stood in line for the Museo del Prado. A whistle stop tour of the whole country. City per day for a week, before moving on to another European ‘state’. Madrid lacks the dreamy quality that wrapped round me in Andalusia. Northern Europe geometry of buildings, wider streets. Less mañana, more efficacy. A deal of...
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