1March1997

1 March, 1997
My dear folks

Saturday evening:
We have come to a special place, a cottage converted from a barn on a Lake District sheep farm. All around us are soft velvety brown hills, like the backs of sleeping bears, newly rid of winter’s snow. The valleys between are wet & green, dotted with sheep, ribbed with dry-stone walls. Slate-grey farm buildings snuggle up against the hillsides, as if they have too have evolved here in the natural course of things. Our own cottage is snug & warm, equipped with every appliance, full of floral carpets & curtains. One has that rare sense in England of being far away from everything & everyone.

We have met Mark the farmer (a part-time Anglican priest who looks the Wizard of Oz & is into computers), Maggie his wife, Tara the black Labrador & Aggie (short for Agnus Dei) the pet ewe who has just produced her first lamb. We have been for a walk down the valley, water seeping everywhere. Rivulets trickle into babbling brooks that burble into busy streams that tumble into the river below. Mark says one of the wettest Februarys on record followed one of the driest Januarys.

We tramped along an old railway embankment, now the graveyard of rusting farm implements. In the cuttings, water streams from rock walls turned into fern & moss gardens. The tracks have gone but the rugged stone bridges look good for a thousand years. I feel a sense of waste at the enormous effort that went into building the line with its viaducts, bridges, embankments & cuttings. Now sheep graze there.

Sunday evening:
It’s 4 meandering miles down the valley to Sedbergh, the nearest town, a place of 3 miniature banks, 2 minor petrol stations (all closed on Sundays), one shopping street, 2 pubs & lots of houses. There is also a school (founded in the 1500s according to an inscription on the gate) & a cattle market. The car park was full of cars & the town of walkers. This is serious walking country. Sedbergh also has good public loos, which were much in demand. In this weather, every mug of tea or cup of coffee wants out ten minutes after it’s downed. Even a miserly few drops produce a tingle which demands instant attention or else!

We carried on down the road towards Dent, stopping at a craft-shop cum tea-room which we had all to ourselves. As we’ve left our knick-knack phase behind, we merely admired the paintings & contented ourselves with coffee & toasted hot cross buns in front of the fire. (I didn’t say that we ate them Anita, I merely said that we contented ourselves with them!)

Jones wanted a good walk in the afternoon. So, after consulting the ordnance survey map we’d acquired in Sedbergh, we set off up the hill behind us in the teeth of a wind that was intent on blowing us down again. We were both of us zipped into anoraks & we needed them. It’s a long time since I’ve felt physically threatened by the elements but yesterday was a reminder of how wild & woolly it gets in this part of the world. The wind is both fierce & cold & comes armed with icy showers.

We sat up last night to watch the 3-hour production of “JFK”. Jones got about half way before her eyes starting closing & she took herself to bed. It’s a fascinating film that leaves one with deep misgivings about the enquiry into John Kennedy’s assassination. The trouble is that the film is said to have taken liberties with the facts, something that leaves one with further misgivings about the film itself.

Monday evening:
Jones wanted to walk down the route of the old railway. We saluted the sheep that sometimes followed us & sometimes fled, stopping often to climb over or through the fences that now criss-cross the route. 30 mins down the line we spotted a footbridge across the river below. Our map showed a footpath that passed through a farm & linked up with the old Roman road that runs down the far valley to Sedbergh. We took it. It was a 2-hour hike into Sedbergh, a lovely one as the sun came out & painted the hills with glory. There was little traffic on the narrow road, fortunately, for we had to press up against the hedgerows to allow vehicles by.

Above the road, the valleys lead up to the extensive range of round hills known hereabout as the fells. Mark tells us that many of the farms are small – his is only 25 acres – & some farms have fell-grazing rights. The sheep may spend weeks up there but apparently, like salmon, know instinctively where they were raised. The sheep themselves, mainly ewes, are black-faced with white muzzles & grey patches around their eyes. They are not endearing creatures – unlike their lambs -- unlikely to win support from fur campaigners or other supporters of cuddly rights.

We fuelled up in the local pub & sandwich shop, then varied the return journey. Jones hoped to follow the old railway but we found the viaduct had been fenced off to protect walkers from the big drop into the river. Instead we squelched back along the bank, squeezing through the fences & admiring the views until we got back to our footbridge. I thought 5 hours a sufficient walk for the day but Jones was tempted out again by the sunset. She’d twisted her (ski-injured) leg slightly while climbing over a style. I’m still battling a bit with my back. The one weakness we’ve discovered in the cottage is the mattress on the double bed which sags, tipping sleepers into the middle. I have reluctantly retired to the single bed in the adjacent room.

Tuesday evening: It takes 45 minutes to walk from the main road to our farm, The Bower. If the walk palled slightly, it was only because we’d already got enough walks under our belts to last us the day. More of that later. The day started out as the loveliest of the week, bright sunshine beating down on a hoarfrost so heavy that Jones thought it might have snowed. I’d probably have thought the same thing had I been awake. We breakfasted – porridge & molasses (sorry Anita) with the sun streaming through the window. But by the time we set out on a lake land drive, the skies were already clouding over.

First to Kendal & thence to a resort named Grange over Sands. We were 2 miles from Grange when I spotted a VW dealer where I could get new wiper blades - & pulled in. A helpful VW spares man selected the blades & fitted them. I thanked him & tried to start the Rocket! No luck! Back into the garage to seek help! While they attended to the problem, Jones & I set off down the road on foot to Grange on Sands. When you arrive, you understand the name. The sands begin at the promenade & run out, as flat as a baking board, to the horizon (when the tide’s out). There were signs warning visitors of quick sands & dangerous tides.

Our one stroke of good fortune was to find the Tourist Office in Grange still open & run by the most helpful woman in the county. She spent 15 minutes sorting out the bus schedules necessary for our return to the farm – should the car not be ready. Indeed it was not. We gathered from the VW garage that they had to order in the new “relay” required. Come back tomorrow! We caught a double-decker bus – which we had all to ourselves – back to Kendal & then a smaller bus which dropped us off at the bottom of our road (3.5 kms from the farm). The rest you know. Except that we allowed ourselves a rather more generous Armagnac & coke than usual.

Wednesday evening:
(You can tell this is England because a bishop is marrying a divorcee in a registry office with the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury; or, if that doesn’t convince you, because a bloke who was nearly killed by a ton of frozen faeces dislodged from an aircraft (landing at Gatwick) lost his claim for compensation when he failed to note the offending plane’s registration. While off the subject, let me add that I saw a wicked interview with the PM in which one of television’s sharpest questioners quoted from a new autobiography which accuses Major of “hanging around Chequers, imitating the curtains”. Major himself found it hard to suppress a smile! I hooted aloud. Trouble is that the book is written by the Tories’ former chief fund raiser, Lord McAlpine, who has now deserted the cause for James Goldsmith’s screwball Independence Party.)

Our host dropped us on the main road in time to catch the mid-a.m. bus to Kendal. He’s just got his recently acquired Land Rover Discovery back after a clutch replacement job. Very nice! The day was grey; no sign of the sun. Apart from 3 old dears set for a day’s shopping, we had the bus to ourselves. We browsed around Kendal for 90 mins, then took another bus to Grange. The part was just being fitted to the Rocket. Joy! So, bill paid, we took off for the hamlet of Crossthwaite where Jones was keen to have lunch at a highly recommended pub called The Punch Bowl. This was to be our special occasion. We needed the brolly to get from the car to the pub door. It was a very good lunch, served at just the right pace in the nicest way in front of a cheering fire. In deference to Anita, let me say no more.

After lunch, we drizzled around Lake Windermere, passing through chocolate boxy resorts without ever mustering the resources to go for a good walk. This time, the gearbox played up. Over the years, the Rocket’s 1st gear has grown increasingly notchy & reluctant to engage – to the point where it’s sometimes impossible to slip into gear. There are bad days & worse days. Today was a worse day.

Mark & I had a chat before supper about the state of the Anglican Church & about my own spiritual path, if it can be described as such. Interesting! He comes into the lounge morning & evening to fire up the coal heater that drives the heating system.

Thursday evening:
Kirkby Lonsdale has to be as close to the idyll of an English village as it’s possible to come by. It’s 15 mins south of us & it’s where we chose to start our walk this a.m. on as perfect a day as ever God created. Jones wanted to explore a geological feature known as the Limestone Link, an elevated 13 mile table of rock shelves. It took an hour’s squelching through paddocks where angelic lambs stared at us in-between thumping their mums’ udders. The route was often vague & hard to ascertain from the map; we spent a lot of time looking for the reassuring arrows which are supposed to be attached to each gate or style along the Right of Way. The effort was well worth while for the rocks are quite extraordinary. They are huge, forming rough layers up to 2 metres high & hundreds of metres long. They’re also contorted every which way, crazy works of ancient art, riven with holes & fissures where softer limestone has apparently been washed out. We clambered up for a view across the fells as far as the eye could see!

As on previous days, our tranquility was interrupted by the frequent shriek of low flying fighters whose fleeting shapes had to be sought in the valleys below the horizon. Even so, the outing seemed to us as perfect as they come. From start to finish it took us 15 miles & 5 hours. Tomorrow, rain is forecast.

Friday evening: Not rain, but heavy cloud, heavy enough to persuade us to stay in this a.m. & finish the new Quintassential guides that Jones wants to take back to Portugal with her next week. These out of the way, Jones expressed a need to visit a craft shop & go for a walk. We drove first to Hawes where Wensleydale cheeses are made. I didn’t know them but a tasting of the various offerings at the visitor centre was impressive. We lunched in the restaurant attached to the Creamery & then drove high over the hills to the village of Dent to follow a walk that had taken our fancy.

Dent is a remarkable place, a village which has somehow resisted the onset of the 20th Century, whose narrow cobbled roads make little compromise with the traffic crawling through it. It was once famous for the woollens knitted there & trekked by packhorse over the surrounding hills. We followed the packhorse route for the first mile up a steep, stony path to the top of the fell. A 2-mile traverse along the fell went according to plan; so did the equally stony descent. But then it went wrong. First Jones & I failed to co-ordinate when trying to shut a stubborn gate. It trapped my finger against the post & my hand flew up, whacking Jones in the eye! Took us a couple of minutes to recover.

Then we somehow managed to follow the wrong river out of the valley. Eventually we reached the main road & set off back to the village. We’d covered about a mile before doubts began setting in. A passing motorist put us right. We were three miles out of Dent & heading briskly in the wrong direction. So we turned around & walked back the way we’d come. It was a long walk that ended in the gloom of evening & not a moment before time. It’s not often that Jones gets as much walking as she likes. Today she did. Early beds all round.

Saturday evening:
Home to an “about time” welcome from Mavis who promptly lay down to have his back scratched. Heaps of mail & faxes from family (thank you), tenants (don’t need it) & Quinta enquirers (always useful). We’ve missed the wretched lottery, yet again! Didn’t get a single number. Yikes! Jones’s ticket is here. She’s off to Portugal next Friday. Her nephew, Bevan, is coming to lunch tomorrow.

I begin a solid week of nightshifts on Monday, having been done over by the rota lady who was desperate to fill vacancies. Her name is Sue Heaver & she has given rise to the verb, to be “heavered”, i.e. press-ganged just when you were looking forward to a day off. I sense that my complaints do not fall on sympathetic ears. As I explain to my colleagues, I don’t ever really take holidays. I just manage to slip away from time to time.

Let me get on with the Quinta letters & the heap of things that wait to be done.

Greetings ever from London.
T