Day: 23/07/2013

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Days 1-2-3 UKc2c

30 Jul 2013 – Lake District-Cumbria

Saturday 29Jul 2013 – Day 1 St Bees – Ennerdale Bridge 14mi/22.6km 0730-1630hrs including breaks

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St Bee’s Head – cliffs with seagulls and the companion of the Irish Sea for app 2hrs on this glorious day.
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Other hikers on the cliffs, St Bees Lighthouse and the coastline of Scotland in view.
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An old lonely bench on the UKc2c 🙂 Birkham’s Quarry and heading east away from the coast to the Lake District.
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Passing the Church at the village Cleator and took a few extra steps deterring to  the Ennerdale Country house Hotel for a cup of coffee and to use the restroom.  Well worth the detour! Heading back to the path, met some locals who had more than enough beers and sun and who insisted that they should be photographed…
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Gradual climb to Dent Hill, a cairn at the top with good view back toward coastline. Steep decent to a valley walk and down to road into Ennerdale Bridge.

 

Night: Sat 27 Jul at the Cloggers/Ennerdale Bridge, Cumbria GBP35 S$68. Thank you David for the load of an excellent map and for your advise.

Sunday 28 Jul 2013 – Day 2 Enneradale Bridge – Honister Pass 11mi/17.7km 0700-1500hrs 

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Soggy and wet as predicted by the weather forecast, no regrets listening to David’s advise by taking the route on the other side of Ennerdale Water.
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Heading to Black Sail Hut (most remote youth hostel in England), took a longer break there than usual to get out of the wet boots. Wetter and dangerous accent ahead to Loft Beck, concentrating every step so as not to fall. It is times like these with wet feet and focusing on every step makes me wonder if the sanity is in tact 🙂
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The sun came thru’ towards the end where Honister Slate Mine and the youth hostel are in sight. Rains are again the forecast tomorrow, so best to take pix of the descent to Honister Pass, the YHA to rest the worn-out body and  where the journey will continue tomorrow. Was touched by David from The Cloggers/Ennerdale Bridge to make sure that I arrived safely.

Night: Sun 28Jul at Honister Hause YHA/Seatoller, Keswick, Cumbria GBP18 S$35

Monday 29 Jul 2013 – Day 3 Honister Pass – Grasmere 12mi/19.3km 0700 – 0430

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Wet and soggy at Stonethwaite, more like a stream than footpath!
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The group who crossed my paths since St Bees, ie the past 3 days but today they will head on further to Patterdale.  Will miss their company. Rough climb to Greenup Edge-rocky, slick and wet. No pix, just concentrating on every step.  Unfortunately on the cloudy side when the top was reached.
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Heading towards Grasmere and to Broadrayne Farm, an independent hostel with internet and washing machines. Grasmere, town known for its association with English poet Wordsworth who was inspired by the Lake District but will not have the time of energy to visit the his grave.

Night: Mon 29Jul at Broadrayne Farm/Grasmere Keswick, Cumbri GBP21 S$40

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Covent Garden

23 Jul 2013 – Apple Market

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Tue: Happy 2nd Birthday James my 5th grandchild/USA (Linn & Jeff’s #5). For a moment I thought the pix is of his sister! Just goes to show that either time has gone by too quickly or that the eye sight is going downhill with the rest…

Mon: welcome to the royal baby who arrived on one of the hottest days 22 Jul 4-24pm followed by a night of thunders and storms; much-needed rains after over a week of hot dry spells. Will the baby be named James?? Also the day where the bombing and shootings happened 2yrs ago in Norway.

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A lovely 15mins walk from Paul’s to the station, crossing railway lines, blissful residential areas and meadows. Got to the station in time for the 0723 train to realise that my return ticket was for off-peak hours. 1min walk to Ashtead Cafe for a 2 eggs and bacon breakfast started another perfect day.

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Thanks to Paul’s clear instruction from Waterloo to Covent Garden Market (started 7th century). In the 13th century, the monks’ ‘convent garden’ became a major source of fruit and vegetables in London and, for the next 700 years, Covent Garden became inexorably linked with fresh fruit and veg.

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Was just stopping by in between trains to check out stuff for the MacBook Air! Silly me, was looking for the Apple Store at Covent Gardens to discover that the Apple Market was not it. But found the Apple Store across from the market at The Piazza…

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Around 1200 the first mention of an abbey garden appears in a document mentioning a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St Peter Westminster. A later document, dated between 1250 and 1283, refers to ‘the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster’  By the 13th century this had become a 40-acre (16 ha) quadrangle of mixed orchard, meadow, pasture and arable land, lying between modern-day St. Martin’s Lane and Drury Lane, and Floral Street and Maiden Lane.

The use of the name ‘Covent’—an Anglo-French term for a religious community, equivalent to ‘monastery’ or ‘convent’—appears in a document in 1515, when the Abbey, which had been letting out parcels of land along the north side of the Strand for inns and market gardens, granted a lease of the walled garden, referring to it as ‘a garden called Covent Garden’. This is how it was recorded from then on. Info from Wikipedia.

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Train from Covent Garden to King’s Cross. Decided to take a walk to be pleasantly surprised to an impressive St Pancras, originally a medieval parish, now a four in one, church, hospital, hotel and station. London is full of wonderful history and hopefully will be able to check it out more in cooler days some other time…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Pancras,_London

I’m not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why – William Hazlitt