Lightning strikes

I spoke too soon about the brilliance of my friend rota. My friends, of course, remain brilliant but the rota is in tatters. A few bolts of lightning struck the East Coast mainline during Thursday night’s storm and the kind of transport chaos that only the UK specialises in predictably ensued.

Poor Dan spent several hours at King Cross trying to move north but to no avail. So, I will be doing the last 6 days (instead of 5) on my own. But every (storm) cloud has a silver lining and the delays and cancellations also disrupted Liz’s journey home to Newcastle  meaning that we could spend more of my day off together.

We walked the castle walls, ate ice cream down by the river and drank coffee on the market square. We also had the perfect start to the day visiting the stunning Millgate House garden. We were the only ones there and the overnight downpour had left everything smelling fresh and sparkling with raindrops. 

Having seen Liz off on the bus back to Darlington, there was time for a quick snooze before meeting Brian and Inge for drinks and dinner.

It was so lovely to see them again and we were also joined by Rachel, another Aussie who we had encountered several times along the trail.

I enjoyed their company and what must be about my tenth steak and ale pie of this trip before heading back to the guesthouse to repack and get an early night in readiness for another day of one foot in front of another.

Day 10 (rest day):
Walked: 10,607 steps around Richmond
Stayed: The Old Brewery Guesthouse, Richmond

Ate: The King’s Head Hotel

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post watershed

Day 7 and, after a hug and a point in the right direction from Mark, I was on my way again - this time solo. This must have been exactly how Christopher Columbus felt when he set out to discover new worlds! I wonder if it was raining quite as much on him.  Dressing for a long walk when the forecast for the day is mixed is no mean feat and it’s probably no bad thing that no one else had to see me as I stripped off my wet weather gear later in the day only to find that you could still wring me out underneath it all! The big focus for today’s walk was to reach the Nine Standards Rigg which marks the point at which you cross the watershed of England and any rain that falls drains eastward to the North Sea instead of westward to the Irish Sea. Fortunately, I could just about make out the nine giant cairns through the mist but, as far as I could tell, the rain was still going nowhere other than running down my face and dripping off the end of my nose!  I struggled...
Read more

The ocean at the end of the lane

The three or four people reading this blog already know that I successfully completed the Coast to Coast Walk yesterday afternoon at around 1:40pm. Either because they were there to cheer me in and buy me the obligatory pint (thanks Mum and Dad) or because they have since been sent copious amounts of photo evidence. I dipped my boots in the North Sea, which must have added an extra 200 yards to my walk as the tide was fully out, and made a wish as I cast our pebbles carried from St. Bee’s beach into the water. How do I feel now that I’ve done it? I think it’s too soon to say. Perhaps more on that in a day or two. As Terry Marsh, the writer of the excellent guide that has accompanied me on this journey puts it: “success, in the final analysis, is a very personal thing. Few people will know of your triumph and most of those will think you are mad.” He also says, “There will have been bad days, almost certainly, when spirits were low, or feet and shoulders ached, or the p...
Read more