A Septagarian's Wedding

PGS Old Boys with Neil in sling

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, weddings were regular events as the baby boomers, having had fun in the sixties, settled down with mortgages, children, and debt, which was ramped up by inflation. I had been a best man on five occasions for a school friend (Neil), a couple of university friends, a flatmate and my brother. This weekend was a party for Neil on his second wedding to Jessica, his partner of twenty-five years. 

His children and his grandchildren were there along with old school friends and others that I had met over the years. It was a relaxed affair deep in the bucolic fringe of the Lake District at a house and garden straight out of central casting. The marquee, piper, casks of real ale, sparkling wines and the chance to play croquet or table tennis were available, but so were a spectacular array of canapés that were interlaced with conversations from yonder years. No presents had been stipulated in the invite, and dress code was whatever was comfortable, although my choice of jeans was probably a bit naff.

Neil and Jessica had got married at the registry office in Edinburgh City Chambers back in April. The party had been put off until summer, when an outdoor event in a marquee and the grounds of an eighteenth-century house would be more appealing. The only problem was that Neil had fallen down a ladder and broken his ribs and left elbow when painting windows. Neil had been a fearless rock climber and had never fallen when climbing to a high standard in the Alps, the Lake District and Scotland; I could vouch for that, having seconded him up many climbs that had scared the hell out of me.

Jessica's mother hosted the event at her house. It started at 12:30 pm. Neil's stepmother was there, along with a motley assembly of friends and distant relatives who had negotiated the maze of local roads to a location so remote that it was absent on most satnavs. A nearby field was used for parking, and a handful of folk came on bikes. Neil and Jessica had met through cycling. 

The summer heatwave was finally over, and we were regaled by an artistic blue and white sky that induced a relaxed atmosphere, perfect for conversations that provided answers to life's journeys and secrets. I met a distant cousin of Neil, a retired Doctor from Herefordshire who had worked with my old girlfriend's brother, whom I had climbed with in the Avon Gorge. We both had memories of their eccentric Irish father who was the local GP in an idyllic Cotswold village. I met a Pilates teacher who promised to provide me with exercises to improve flexibility after my hip operation. Another of Neil's friends had married one of Neil's former girlfriends, whom I had inadvertently introduced to Neil during our underage drinking days. An old school friend had just published an illustrated children's book; he was always a talented cartoonist and had been an amazing javelin thrower. Jessica's brother was over from Montreal with his family and had 2 days before his flight home. He was taking his boys to Glencoe to climb Buachaille Etive Mor; I was able to show them photographs of the treat they had in store.

I chatted to Neil's children, in their forties now, and probably revealed some scurrilous episodes from Neil's past. I was asked by many about Ian, Neil's older brother and also a good friend who had sadly died in his mid-twenties after a badly executed operation. Neil and I had scattered his ashes on Scafell Pike on a miserable December day before drinking away our sorrows in an Ambleside pub. 

Guests had been asked to provide playlists for the dancing and eating in the marquee. The bubbly and casks of local ale kept people talking during the buffet. People rotated, shared stories and found common ground. The party had fizzed on as time whizzed by, and by 6pm people were drifting off to nether regions. I reflected on the way home that I had been to four funerals and a wedding in the past twelve months; it's a baby boomer's thing.  A film waiting to be made, perhaps?

Fit for a wedding

The setting

 

A Dash up Great Calva

The Dash

Friday, 14 August 2926

Great Calva      690m    1hr   54mins
Little Calva      642m    2hrs 16mins

Ascent:         530 metres
Distance:      11.5 kilometres
Time:            3 hours 42 minutes

I was attending a wedding party for Neil and Jessica in the North Lakes and decided to leave earlyish and climb one of my remaining singleton Wainwright hills. After the heatwave of recent weeks, I had been awoken by a thunderstorm, and it was raining as I left. The M74 was relatively quiet. After Carlisle, I navigated the narrow lanes to Outhwaite using satnav, then, using OS maps online, to the start of the walk on the Cumbria Way at Peter House Farm. I squeezed into the last parking space. I was feeling a bit anxious having struggled up Ben Gullipen in the heat a couple of days earlier, but nothing ventured. All the hills were enveloped in grey cloud after weeks of sunshine, wildfires and eclipses.

The track was just what I needed, a steady incline and the prospect of reaching the imaginatively named Whitewater Dash, a soda syphon of a waterfall on the Dash Beck, that unlike most water courses in England was still spouting H2O. At the top of the Dash, I was about to start the steep path onto Little Calva when a couple warned me against it. I followed them along the Cumbria Way for another mile and found what I thought was the start of a narrow path through the heathers to Great Calva. I could see them a couple of hundred metres ahead, but they had found the real path; I had been hoodwinked by a sheep's path that disappeared into a bog along the stream before eventually joining the path that was scored into the peat and heather. And then, just twenty minutes of a slog to the summit, enlightened by a chat with a couple from Middlesbrough who were descending and on the way to Bakestall. 

My last visit to Great Calva, in 2010, had included Bakestall. They were part of 10 Wainwrights climbed with Gregor in a frantic day and a half involving 4 separate walks; I had moaned about the tedious slog up the heather-clad Great Calva despite having speed and fitness on my side. Arriving at the summit, the clouds had dispersed although they lingered on Skiddaw and Blencathra. The woman from Middlesbrough had made a disdainful reference to Mungrisdale Common, a piss-take of a hill listed by Wainwright. My sentiments exactly. It is no more than a gentle uplift of less than 10 metres on a descent towards Great Calva. Wainwright had probably stopped for lunch there to do a sketch. 

I decided to descend via the adjacent hill, Little Calva. It was an easy path across to its flat summit, which was decorated by a small gathering of stones that certainly didn't constitute a cairn. Obviously Wainwright didn't have lunch here; otherwise it would be listed. The descent was gentle at first, following some fence posts until the final 120 metres of descent, which were steep as they gauged out a channel through the heather. Arriving at the Cumbria Way, I made reasonable time down to Peter House Farm, but it had not been a dash; last time the walk had also included Bakestall and took 2 hours 41 minutes. This time it had taken almost 4 hours, including a couple of stops for chats and 15 minutes on Great Calva having some lunch and imbibing the joy of a summit. Summits are not only viewpoints but self-inflicted endorsements of achievement. 

I had booked a hotel for the night in Cockermouth, one of the few places, even in this less visited part of the Lake District, that had a vacancy. I showered and changed and then drove to Hesketh Newmarket, where the wedding party goers were meeting for a meal at the Crown Inn, the fuelling place of Mount Everest junkies Chris Bonington and Doug Scott. It was the perfect summer evening, but the occasion was interrupted by a government announcement on the danger of wildfires, all of our phones going off at regular intervals. Apparently, a fire chief in the Midlands had demanded the warning, although for most of the UK there was no such danger. The consternation was viral, another example of a centralised UK government decision that should have been devolved to localities in danger.  Scotland had been subjected to heavy rain for the previous 48 hours.

Conversations resumed after phones were switched off. Chance to catch up with old school friends, and acquaintances of Neil whom I had met at various birthday and other significant events since we first became friends at school 65 years ago. We had spilled ou to the street and mingled with locals before being herded into a back room for our meals. Driving 20 miles back to Cockermouth at 10:30pm was a bit of a trial, but sleep was easy.

The next morning, after my first full breakfast for over a year, I explored Cockermouth for a couple of hours. On the edge of the Lake District, it has a friendly demeanour, located on the banks of the River Derwent and with some fine buildings. The main street was host to many independent shops, including a splendid bookshop, and half a dozen coffee shops with not a franchise amongst them. I visited an arts fair and found paintings by a local artist; she had imaginatively combined her paintings with OS maps to make greeting cards. She had one of Slater's Bridge in Little Langdale, one of our very special places. After a coffee and charging the car, I drove back to the wedding destination near Caldbeck for the wedding party.

Binsey from Cumbria Way

Path to Great Calva

Great Calva summit

Great Calva from Little Calva

Skiddaw from Little Calva

A peek of Thirlmere beyond Lonscale Fell

Slater's Bridge

 

Eclipse of the Sun

 

7:25pm 12 August 2026

There was a great deal of publicity for the total eclipse of the sun on 12 August, but that was for Iceland and Spain. The UK will have to wait until 2090 for a total eclipse. So in the UK we had a partial eclipse visible in most of England. In Scotland, the eclipse was largely concealed by the cloud cover.  I was a bit underwhelmed.

I think Pink Floyd did it better in 1973.

And all that is now

And all that is gone

And all that's to come

And everything under the sun is in tune (Everything)

But the sun is eclipsed by the moon

Spain had a total eclipse

The elusive Ben Ledi

 

Ben Ledi from Ben Gullipen 

Loch Venachar and Ben Ledi

I have climbed Ben Ledi over thirty times, more than any other Scottish Mountain. I could climb it from my in-laws' back garden and did so several times a year, sometimes carrying skis to the top for some dodgy descents. I trained for mountain marathons by running it in the 1980s and 90s and occasionally dragged my children and their friends up. Although it is less than half an hour away from home, I have only made a handful of visits since moving house several years ago.

It has been my intention to climb it since my hip operation, but I had been diffident about attempting it too soon. I had climbed the local smaller hills half a dozen times and had a couple of days hillwalking in the Lake District. After my weekly exercise session in Callander and on a perfect summer's day, I decided the time was right for Ben Ledi. It was midday as I drove to the start point at the Stank; the car park was full and so were the parking places on the A84 to the north. It was the day before the schools went back and families and teachers were maxing out on their summer holidays;  I decided to make a shorter excursion up Ben Gullipen instead. As recently as late 2004, it had taken a mere 45 minutes if I ran the less steep sections on the ascent and ran all the way down.

It was 27°C as I began the seriously steep section at the start of the ascent, stopping every few minutes; and when I reached the gentler gradients, there was no oomph in the legs. I ambled to the summit in 45 minutes. The reward was Ben Ledi looking magnificent set against the crystal-clear blue skies. I was thankful that the car park had been full. It would have taken a couple of hours to reach the summit in the heat at today's pace. I began to justify my walk by telling myself that it is sometimes better to admire the mountains from below. I walked down at a sedate pace; the hip was no problem; it was a sore back and breathing that held me back. I was home by 2pm. My exercise class and a slow plod up and down a micro hill were sufficient to prompt a heatwave-induced siesta. Ben Ledi could wait.

Mountebanks of Reform

Crashing out is becoming a habit for the leader of the Mountebanks

Back in January, the then Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, refused to allow Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester,  to stand in the Gorton and Denton by-election that was subsequently won by the Greens. He claimed it was to avoid an expensive and time-consuming by-election for the Mayor of Greater Manchester if Andy Burnham had won the by-election. At the local elections in May, the Reform Party took 30.7% of the votes in the 10 local authorities that make up the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Labour received 23.6% of the vote and the Greens 19.1%. The Reform Party had become the dominant party in Greater Manchester. Keir Starmer had signed his own dismissal notice.

By the time of the next by-election in Makersfield, caused by the resignation of Josh Simons as the MP, Andy Burnham was allowed to stand, and won in a seat that had been expected to be won by the Reform Party after the results of the May local elections. Within days, Starmer had resigned, the election for the new Mayor of Greater Manchester was called, and six months had been wasted. Starmer's vision of time was metronomic but set in months and years, not days.

Meanwhile, Andy Burnham had become the new PM and was cooking up a storm of new initiatives and zealously dominating social media. He was generating some hope after the moribund days of decline under Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer. 

Starmer had not been wrong about the cost, or the slow pace of the election count as we waited up until 11pm on the day after the poll to get the result. His handling of calling by-elections characterised his period in office: mindful of cost, devoid of imagination and always cautious. His demise was his failure to inspire or provide a glimpse of hope that the UK needs in these troubled times. The Reform Party had become the gathering post for the Mountebanks who amplified the problems with all the deceit to be expected from their leaders, who are hard-core members of the very establishment that they mock.

Like so much else in the UK, the pace of the count was diabolical. The technology is there to do this count electronically; we piloted the technology for the Electoral Commission in 2002 for a ward by-election in Stirling. It led to the use of the technology in the 2007 combined Council Multi-Member Ward Election System and Scottish Parliament Additional Member Voting System. Both of these are much more complex than the Supplementary Voting System used in Greater Manchester. We had the results for both elections completed and the counters released from the count by 3am, just 5 hours later than the close of polls, not 25 hours later.

The Labour candidate, Bev Craig, won the Greater Manchester Mayor with 66.3% of the share of the vote, including the second preferences. Reform took 33.7%. The respective figures for first preferences were 47% to 21%, with 12% for the Greens. Yet at the Council elections in May the results were the other way round. Labour had 23.6% and Reform 30.7%; these should be most realistically compared with the first preference votes.

Once again, the Grand Old Duke of the Mountebanks, Nigel Farage, had marched his latest wheeze, the Reform Party, to the top of the hill, to see them have a great fall. He has lost his fabled ability to popularise the zeitgeist of despair, and even the sympathetic right-wing media and senior Reform members are distancing themselves from him.  Can all Nige's crypto and all Nige's friends ever put Reform together again? Well, there is plenty of evidence that this is unlikely, especially if Count Binface chips away at his vote share in the Clacton by-election he brought upon himself. His previous incarnations as leader of the UKIP party died away in 2019, and the Brexit Party was killed off in 2021. It would appear that each of his regenerations to cheat death gets darker as he ages. Expect him to emerge from a TARDIS with a new gang of Mountebanks sometime soon. Perhaps he could call it the Dalek Party or, better still, the  Underworld Party as it fades out and he finally stops bleeping.

Dalek Party unveiled

Commonwealth Games and Broadcasters

Tunnocks Tea Cake Lands in The Hydro

I had switched to Channel 5 to watch the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The games had crept up without the pizzazz that normally accompanies major events. Partly because Victoria State in Australia had pulled out as the hosts for the 2026 event and Glasgow had stepped in with less than 2 years to rescue the 'friendly games'. Advance publicity was then scuppered because the BBC had been outbid for coverage of the event by TNT Sports in partnership with Channel 5. 

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the opening ceremony, although nothing could compete with the London Olympic Games. For the first time, it was an indoor ceremony held at the Glasgow Hydro. It was classy and sassy. The King and Queen arrived in a TARDIS, and the First Minister joined in the singing of the UK national anthem by the excellent Scottish Youth Choir. This provided both humour and, in the absence of the Flower of Scotland as the national anthem, a certain edginess.

A Scottish Nature Garden provided the centrepiece of The Hydro for the arrival of the 3000 competitors from 74 Commonwealth countries and was inspiring, as were the changing images on the massive screen. The competitors were regaled by pipers, dancers and a raucous Glasgow crowd with not a traffic cone in sight. It was the arrival of a TARDIS and the landing of a Tunnocks tea cake from the roof void that typified Glasgow's comity and brutal self-deprecation.

But, being Channel 5, there were adverts, and when the wannabe influencer, Emma Radacanu, popped up on yet another advert, I switched off. Radacanu will cash in on her fleeting shelf life to advertise anything. It prompted me to think about all the superb broadcasters we have in the UK who have moral integrity that forbids them from behaving like Raducanu, Beckham, and their ilk.  They are as irritating as broadcasters who flaunt their self-seeking importance or those who are just crap at broadcasting.

I have listed those for whom I reach for the zapper and immediately tune out when they appear on TV or the radio. To achieve balance and offset the critique of influencers with no shame or irritating broadcasters, I have first listed plaudits for the worthy TV, radio, or podcast broadcasters of news, knowledge, and facts, 

In no particular order, here is a list of broadcasters that I most value and respect as worthy bringers of news, knowledge and facts as I watch TV, listen to the radio or seek out podcasts.

Jeremy Hardy (deceased)

Anna Foster, BBC Today

Evan Davies, BBC PM

Helen Lewis,  Atlantic and Private Eye (p94) Podcast

Gary Gibbon, Channel 4 News Political Editor

Anoosh Chakelian, New Statesman Podcast

Jeremy Bowen, BBC International Editor

Emily Maitliss, Newsagents Podcast

Steve Rosenberg, BBC Russia Correspondent

Anushka Asthana, Channel 4 US Editor

Steve Cram, BBC Athletics

Mishal Hussain, ex BBC Today

Mark Chapman,  BBC TV and Radio 5 Sports presenter

Katya Adler, BBC Europe Editor

Andrew Marr,  LBC

Pipa Creaar, Guardian and Politics Weekly Podcast

Dominic Sandbrook, The Rest is History Podcast

Orla Chennaoui, TNT Sport cycling presenter

Andrew Rawnsley, Observer and Newsnight

And a list of those self-important or crap broadcasters and influencers that I switch off instantly 

Emma Barnett, BBC Today

Robert Jenrick, Farage apologist

Laura Kuensberg, journalist

Nigel Farage, GB News

Naga Munchetty, BBC Radio 5

Micah Richards, BBC Football pundit

Fiona Bruce, BBC News and Question Time 

Robbie Savage, BBC Radio 5

Helia Ebrahimi, Channel 4 News

Michael Owen, football pundit

Emma Raducanu, former future tennis star

David Beckham, King of sponsorship and advertisement deals

Influencers: add cost and stymie facts

Best 2026 World Cup Advert 

Watching the World Cup forced me to watch some games on ITV, which means that I have been bombarded by adverts fronted by a baleful bonanza of influencers. What are they for? What do they add other than cost? Davis Beckham has appeared in 11 adverts for products, some of which he has probably never consumed or used. Companies believe that celebrities sell products, and perhaps they do if they are authentic. Those promoting charities are probably doing it because they have a genuine commitment to the cause. Footballers promoting a make of boot are probably sponsored by Nike or Adidas; Nigel Farage promoting Crypto Investments is a genuine attempt to reward himself. I am less sure about Alan Shearer advertising Betfair, Coral or McDonald's, or Micah Richards promoting We Buy Any Car when he drives a Lamborghini.

In the days of newspaper adverts, we got pictures and some facts about the product or service, and we could easily skip over them. TV adverts gave us colour and sometimes humour. World Cup adverts give us fantasy, and they cost a bomb for filming, payments to influencers, and FIFA's broadcasting charges passed on by the TV and streaming advertising costs. Who pays? The supporters for tickets and TV networks. And we all have to suffer the intrusion of adverts not only at half-time, which can last 25 minutes, but also before and after the games and during hydration breaks. FIFA created as many opportunities as possible to fire adverts at us. 

The result: I only managed to watch 5 games from end to end. The others I gave up at half-time or, on some occasions, at the first hydration break. The prospect of watching David Beckham and similar money-obsessed influencers raking in even more dosh was a complete turn-off.

I was delighted to see that the best-ranked advert in the World Cup was a home-based product that had no influencer other than Susan Boyle, and she was an AI insert as she swayed about on the girders of the Forth Railway Bridge. Pure Dead Brilliant.

Irn Bru World Cup Advert

Andy's Prehistoric Adventures

I switched on the BBC News to catch up on the new Prime Minister's cabinet appointments, and on came Andy's Prehistoric Adventures. I presumed that Laura Kuensberg had been re-employed to deploy her cynicism on the appointments before I realised that I had dialled into CBeebies. 

Alas, the News was an interview with Robert Jenrick; he was once the supposed saviour of the Tories but is now relegated as Nigel Farage's apologist. He was telling porkies about immigration, despite having been the immigration minister when net migration reached its peak of 745,000 in 2022; it fell to 171,000 in 2025. I had watched the transfer of power from Sir Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham earlier in the day. I welcomed the new PM's promise to work in collaboration across political parties and his instinctive commitment to devolving power to localities. I suppose that could be called a prehistoric adventure with democracy! The importance of place and less tribalism are vital ingredients for gaining pace and releasing the energy of both the public and private sectors working in step with each other at the local level, as they did before Westminster and Holyrood centralised business taxation and controlled and froze local expenditure. 

The responses to the new Prime Minister from world leaders and the devolved governments within the UK were positive and welcoming. They expressed a desire to work collaboratively, unlike the immediate messages from Reform and the Conservatives, which respectively called for an election and criticised policies that had not been announced. The UK media had a cynical tone; they were peeved that they had not been able to obtain leaks about new cabinet members and policies.

Most of the management of the transition has been well handled, apart from the hasty and populist announcement by Lucy Powell, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, that digital identity will be abandoned. This will make it more difficult to manage immigration, voting reform, and information sharing among health, police, education, and social work. This could vastly improve our response to child abuse, community care and special education. Most of the other broad hints of new policies address issues that have hindered progress and been the reason Keir Starmer lost the support of the press, voters and Labour MPs. They seem to have landed well, and the optimistic mood in the Downing Street sunshine was enhanced by a crowd of scousers, being respectful to Evertonian Andy Burnham. They should have sung You'll Never Walk Alone!

It is 3pm and still no announcements. I desperately hope for ministers who will not be afraid to instigate some disruption in the tax system and speed up the pace of change.  The new PM needs competent ministers brave enough to drive change, unlike some of the moribund crew who supported Keir Starmer.. 

Digital Boycotting

It was when the US President phoned Giovanni Infantino, President of FIFA, and asked him to rescind the red card given to the US player, Folarin Balogun, and allow him to play the next game against Belgium that I thought things had gone too far. The rules of football were being trashed by an unholy alliance between two narcissistic men behaving like autocrats. Objections rained in from Belgium, Germany, UEFA, and the football press. All to no avail, but Belgium had the final say, beating the USA 4-1. Justice was done. The United States had treated the Iranian team with similar disrespect by refusing to let them stay overnight in the United States, a violation of international sports protocols.

If the World Cup teams had threatened a boycott, would Infantino have caved in to the pressure from the US President? Who knows, boycotts are seldom observed by all and can take years to yield results. I recall a sleep-in at the Senate House at Liverpool University in 1970, organised by Jon Snow, to persuade the University to relinquish its investments in South Africa; effectively a boycott of apartheid. Jon was red-carded, and it was 24 years before Nelson Mandela became President and 41 years before the University apologised and awarded Jon Snow an honorary degree. 

National and International boycotts have had sporadic successes since Rosa Parks sparked the Alabama bus protest after she was told to sit at the back of the bus. Long-standing boycotts of South African products as part of anti-apartheid protests and the boycott of Russian oil and gas have had success over longer periods. Twitter (X) lost half its advertising revenue after companies boycotted it for inaccurate and toxic content.

On a personal level, I have boycotted many things, notably anything owned by Rupert Murdoch, American fast food and coffee chains, Virgin Trains, many companies owned by American hedge funds, Heathrow airport, Israeli produce since the genocide in Gaza and companies that have provided poor service or refused to refund payments like Booking.com. Does personal boycotting have any effect? Not a lot, but like voting, it is more effective than just abstaining, and it gives you a sense of doing the right thing.

I noticed that Lisa Nandy, the Secretary for Arts, Culture and Sport, has boycotted the use of X by her department. I cannot understand why the government and other organisations haven't done the same. Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart constantly air their gripes about X, where they are routinely abused for their moderate views. Still, they seem too worried about losing their followers to do the virtuous thing and deactivate their accounts. UK users of X have fallen from 8 million to 5.6 million since Musk took over. Notable company withdrawals from X include the majority of Higher Education organisations, many Councils, The Guardian, Sport England, London Marathon and British Red Cross. X responds by claiming to be the custodian of free speech, but its algorithms are surprisingly incapable of identifying abusive tweets and toxic rants. 

Most MPs seem to be frightened of losing their followers if they switch to Blue Sky or Threads. Perhaps we need a European microblogging site that banishes the use of algorithms that promote toxic views. In the meantime, I will stick to my own digital boycotting. I have never been tempted by X or, in its time, Twitter.  I seldom visit Facebook and LinkedIn; there are far too many unwanted adverts and mindless shared posts. Unlike our precious time, which is finite, tweets are for those more concerned about losing followers; they know neither the cost nor the value of time.

Lakes, Central Fells

Derwentwater from Brown Knotts

Thursday, 2 July 2026

Ascent:      690 metres
Distance:   12 kilometres
Time:         3 hours 42 minutes

High Tove Summit

Armboth Fell, a bogtrotter's heaven

Heigh Seat Summit

Blencathra from High Seat

Looking South to Scafell from High Seat

Gatbells and Grizedale Pike from Bleaberry Fell

Derwentwater from above Ashness Bridge

Ashness Bridge

I had been contemplating a longer hill walk all week and took the plunge, nothing ventured...

It was 12:40pm when Gregor dropped me off at Watendlath. It would reduce the height to be climbed, and I optimistically said I would be back at Ashness Bridge in 4 hours, the time predicted for this walk. I could always (gladly) opt out of Armboth Fell if things were too hard. There was a stiff breeze from the north-west that helped during the steep ascent to High Tove from Watendlath. There is a good stone path to begin with, then a paddle across some boggy ground to reach the uninspiring summit. Wainwright was spot on: "It is hard to imagine that anybody feels any affection at all for High Tove...water cannot drain away from it...everywhere is shockingly wet". 

Well, not quite as wet as the route to Armboth Fell, I went south and then turned east to avoid the more direct route over boggy ground, but ended up tramping along sheep tracks that were essentially streams. There are two rocky tops, and I topped them both before stopping for a drink at the more impressive, but not necessarily the higher, of the two. Four walkers from Lincolnshire were far less kind about High Tove than Wainwright, but they had taken the direct, waterlogged route from High Tove to Armboth Fell. Nevertheless, I decided to return to High Tove by this route. They were not wrong. I was not going to stop at High Tove, a barren stack of stones on a hump of a hill, despite it being well past 2pm 

The initial path to High Seat had been improved by large blocks of stone, presumably dropped off by helicopter. Only the final 60 metres of climbing were on grass, and the ground was sufficiently steep to minimise the bogs that had been the recurring feature of the walk so far. A large trig point and excellent views made it a worthwhile summit. The Helvellyn range to the east, Skiddaw to the north, and the Scafell range to the south competed for attention. But best of all was the profile of Blencathra to the northeast.

It was decision time: did I make the direct descent to Ashness Bridge to collect my lift or visit Bleaberry Fell, a good mile away on a boggy twisting path, which would leave me with another 4 kilometres to get back to Ashness Bridge via Falcon Crag?  I was taught by my friend Keith Adams in 1990, when in doubt, always try to do what you planned, otherwise you will have to return to complete the missing hills. After reaching Bleaberry Fell and admiring the views of Skiddaw, I charged down the initial steep rocky path and then upped my pace to Falcon Crag, where I doubled back on the path to Ashness Bridge. A kilometre short of the bridge, Gregor arrived running at pace up the steepish path; he was loosening up for an evening run up the Langdale Pikes. 

He turned back whilst I lingered, mesmerised by the views over Derwentwater and pleased that I had managed the walk in 4 hours, including the two stops for drinks and food.  I took a photo of Ashness Bridge that I had first visited during a primary school holiday when a man called Vivian Fisher with a Jay sitting on his shoulder would open the gate for passing travellers. We used to visit with our young family to admire the views of Derwentwater. (see below). Today would replenish my memory bank and inspire future memories and perhaps convince me that there is still life in the legs and lungs.

View from Ashness Bridge 1986

Barf and Lord's Seat

Looking down the ascent route from Barf

Saturday,  27 June 2026

Ascent:          545 metres  

Distance:       6 kilometres

Time:            2  hours 35 minutes

Barf                468 m      1hr 15mins
Lord's Seat     552m       1hr  40mins

A couple of years ago, I thought I would be finishing another round of Wainwrights this year. I had been averaging about 25 a year. However, things changed, and I have managed only two Wainwrights since my hill-walking days were put on hold in March 2025. I decided to leave early for Langdale on Saturday morning and climb two small Wainwrights, Barf and Lord's Seat, overlooking Bassenthwaite Lake. I was parked just north of Thornthwaite by 11:15am after travelling through a heavy shower in the North Lakes. 

I found a parking spot behind the Swan House and wasted little time getting on the path. On previous visits to Barf, I have attacked it directly by climbing a steep scree path marked by a white painted rock outcrop. It took about 25 minutes. I had no intention of doing the same and took what I thought would be a more leisurely path alongside Beckstones Gill, and then, after leaving the forest and crossing a stile, cutting back to the cairn. The path was far steeper and rougher than I had anticipated, with tree roots, brambles and at times streams from the rain making progress slow. The top third of the path towards the stile was deep and dark, with two sections of scrambling up exposed rocks that had become water features. My nerve held, and I reached the stile after almost an hour of climbing the 2 kilometres from the car park. 

The final section from the stile and on the open hillside was a delight, with wonderful views to Skiddaw, Derwentwater and the Lakeland fells and decorated by foxgloves. A cool breeze moderated the now-emergent midday sun, a treat after the humid conditions, as I traipsed up the Beckstone Gill.  I was soon at the grassy summit with splendid views of Bassenthwaite to the east and the easy-looking path to Lord's Seat to the west. A mountain biker arrived from Lord's Seat shortly after me. We both hunkered down behind grassy banks to avoid the stiff breeze. 

The walk across the path to Lord's Seat was pleasant apart from the final ascent into a wind that stopped you in your tracks. The mountain biker had made the return trip, and he arrived a few minutes later after lugging his bike up the last 75 metres of ascent. A family arrived from Broom Fell, the smiling five-year-old boy leading the way, the father eked out a smile; he was carrying a baby and dragging a three-year-old, while the morose-looking mother brought up the rear, eyes focused on her feet. I recognised the feelings, having been there during our first visit to Langdale when Gregor was three months old, and the girls were two and four.  I had foolishly thought we could pop up the Langdale Pikes after breakfast. Aileen did not agree, and the girls had to be bribed to keep moving by bars of Twix.

The hillwalk had taken longer than I had anticipated, and there were no direct paths from Lord's Seat back to the stile, so I went off piste, through long grass, bogs and nettles to save time. The descent of the rock outcrops required some care. I reached the car park by 2:30pm and set off for Langdale, stopping at Grasmere for a coffee and cake with Gregor and Emily.  It had been my first real hill walk for a year and had drained me of energy with just 13,000 steps completed.

Barf white stone with Skiddaw behind

Final ascent to Barf

Bassenthwaite from Barf

Lord's Seat from Barf

Barf and Skiddaw from Lord's Seat

Back Up the little Ben

Ben Ledi to Ben Vorlich

Loch Venachar

It is over a year since I last climbed Ben Gullipen, which is when my hip found it too steep and difficult. It is a lung-bursting ascent for the first kilometre, and I have been warned by physios not to attempt too much since my new hip operation, although I have had a few longer walks with less steep ascents and made a couple of walks up the slightly less steep Lime Craig. 

The bad weather, supporting Gregor on his Big Run and now the World Cup have provided a good excuse to avoid a hill that is only ten minutes away and could be done, up and down, in 45 minutes in the past. Today it took 47 minutes to reach the summit. I did have a chat to a man on an electric Mountain Bike on my way up; he urged me to get one.

I ran part of the way down until I met a local Councillor and her partner and stopped for ten minutes for a blether. The actual descent took 23 minutes compared to a PB of 13 minutes. I was still pleased and celebrated with a Corncrake Beer from Orkney. The Netherlands 5-1 defeat of  Sweden in the World Cup was an easy watch on the couch after some exercise. The weather is to be fine for the next three days, so I will try to get back into the habit of a pre-breakfast walk up the hill. (I did and was out by 7:30am the next day on a perfect summer morning. I managed to get the ascent time down to 41 minutes by taking no rests, but it took 25 minutes for the descent despite running several sections. My legs and lungs still have to get used to running again. I am good with the couch, but the 5k jaunt up Ben Gullipen will need some patience.

The outing convinced me that I should buy a new bike. I have a 1970s steel-framed road bike, a 30-year-old Cannondale road bike that has had little use since I was running 3 or 4 times a week until 18 months ago and a 25-year-old heavy Mountain Bike that I have used for getting into the more remote hills on mountain tracks. None of them suits my current need, which is for cycling on forest trails as an alternative exercise to running. I am tempted to buy a gravel bike, but the local shop thinks a lightweight Mountain Bike might be more useful. Several friends have suggested an e-bike might be better at my age! Time to make a decision.

The early morning view of Ben Ledi