Best foot forward

I am fortunate enough to be spending a week in my favourite place with my family. We’ve been busy but I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on my Coast to Coast experience and it never fails to bring a smile to my lips.  I have flashbacks to special moments such as sharing Inge’s Dutch hot chocolate on the walk into Patterdale or discussing Zan’s wedding plans whilst clambering along the path beside Haweswater or crossing Old Gang Beck on makeshift stepping stones with Liz to find the perfect spot to eat lunch or discovering Mark huddled in his bivvy bag above Grisedale Tarn or hearing all about Brian’s family as we gazed out across the Moors towards his hometown of Middlesbrough or tucking into a tasty home-cooked dinner with a whole gang of Coast to Coasters at New Ing Lodge. More often than not, each of these memories (and many more) plays out against a spectacular backdrop and is accompanied by the sensation of the sun on my skin or the wind in my hair, as well as the odd ...

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...

For some reason, I was particularly eager to get away from the Lion Inn and back on the trail for Day 15. I must be beginning to crave the solitude or maybe it’s just knowing that there isn’t far left to go. I had the strange sensation today of never being all that far from the real world, yet somehow being completely hidden from view. Like being in my own parallel universe. Perhaps it’s no bad thing that I will be brought back to earth with a bump very soon! I walked non-stop for the first three-hours over Glaisdale Moor and then Glaisdale Rigg, taking a fancy en route to Trough House, a solitary and now boarded-up building which apparently used to be a shooting lodge. You may yet see me on Grand Designs: “Philippa, a previously well-paid corporate communications professional from London, had heard that her 40th birthday was as good a time as any to panic, so packed it all in, spending her hard-earned money opening a yoga retreat in a crumbling building in the middle of nowhe...