Winter in the Lakes

Grasmere from Loughrigg Fell

Herdwick foraging

High Close Youth Hostel

Langdale from Loughrigg Fell

Helm Crag and Grasmere

St Oswald's, Grasmere

Grasmere village and Seat Sandle

Grasmere lake

Moss upholstered walls

We spent three days in the Lake District, our first winter visit in 40 years. The hills were mainly in cloud, and it was grey, wet and lashed by storms. Many of the smaller shops, cafes and facilities were closed, but there were still dozens of baby boomers rattling around the car parks clad in Gore-Tex whilst juggling their walking poles and umbrellas.

The hotel in Langdale provided a level of comfort that was in stark contrast to my previous visits at this time of the year in a basic hut near the Bowder Stone with no heating or facilities. We had shivered through the freezing nights in flimsy sleeping bags and climbed, walked and skied in Borrowdale during the day. We had the consolation of meeting Beryl Burton, who was staying with her family at the nearby Longthwaite Youth Hostel on Hogmanay. A more down-to-earth legend would be hard to find.

The weather on this visit was similar to the occasion when we scattered my close friend's ashes on Scafell Pike in December 1973 and then got banned from the Youth Hostel at Elterwater for arriving back late and the worse for drink, having got caught up in a darts competition in Ambleside. Other than these two occasions, I had often driven through the Lakes during the 1980s and 1990s en route to visit my family before Christmas and usually managed to climb some of the smaller hills near Ullswater before stopping to buy some presents in Ambleside.

This time, we were confined to walking round the shops on a day of torrential rain and became so thoroughly soaked that we eventually retired to the cinema to watch the film, Paddington. We took advantage of the next day, which was just showery, by walking from Langdale to Rydal Water and Grasmere, during which I managed a quick diversion up Loughrigg Fell. The views were etched in the grey and brown of winter landscapes, but we were treated to a brief passage of brightness as we ambled around Grasmere village.

We visited St Oswald's church in Grasmere after listening to the midday peal of bells, bought some gingerbread and had a coffee in Miller Howe cafe. We walked back over Red Bank and traipsed around the gardens at High Close Youth Hostel, where I had spent a perfect summer's evening falling for a girl from Leeds whilst we listened to Bach on the record player. It was my first holiday with teenage friends, and we spent 10 days climbing all the highest hills whilst I juggled our itinerary to reconnect with the girls from Leeds as often as possible.

We returned via Skelwith Bridge for tea and a cake. In the queue, I met the treasurer of Kendal Town Council. It was the first day of his retirement, and his sense of humour had been honed in Leyland. He said there was little to do other than pay for the Christmas lights, collect rents for allotments, disburse grants and answer questions on whether Wainwright had really been a miserable buggar.  He explained that there had been little to do as town clerk to distract Wainwright from his misery other than to sketch and write books, and, yes, it seemed to be unanimous by those who had worked with him that he was a miserable buggar; his humour was confined to the footnotes of his sketches.

The highlight of the visit was the food in the quite outstanding vegetarian restaurant, Fellinis, in Ambleside. It is part of the cinema/restaurant group that includes Zeffirelli's cinema and restaurant. These two facilities provide amazing quality food and events, and are an example of how a business with passionate attention to quality and detail can uplift a community. What a contrast to the franchised mediocrity that is the staple provision of food and entertainment in the majority of our languishing small towns.

Mid Winter

Throwing out the Christmas Tree this morning I was regaled by the colours of mid winter. The orange of the bracken on the hills, the flaming red berries and the pea green shoots of the spring bulbs pushing through the leaf mould. 

The Road less Travelled

The Road Less Travelled might make all the difference.

The state of the economy has been triangulated by three news items at the start of the new year.

• The announcement that the UK monthly consumer debt has reached £1,250m in November, the highest level since the crash in 2008. This is explained by banks competing for credit business - payday loans with plastic- and the squeeze on purchasing power as wages have failed to keep pace with inflation.
• The collapse of the parcel delivery company City Links, bought for £1 just over a year ago by Better Capital, a private equity fund, whose owners declared bankruptcy as soon as the bumper income from Christmas deliveries was achieved. It has led to 2700 staff being laid off and not even told of their plight until the end of their Christmas Eve delivery runs, and then.
• The strange poster from the Tories inviting us to "stay on the road to a stronger economy".

Tory politicians seem to be honing their abuse of statistics even before people have got back to work in 2015. Let's be honest, we live in a country that is dominated by corporate greed, regressive taxation, massive erosion of public services and a general disregard for the common good.

The axis of the current government, the financial sector, corporate tax evaders and the establishment have a stranglehold on power that is irrefutable. But to claim that there is a stronger economy is a dodgy declaration, as evidenced by a Telegraph article today that acknowledges that the UK has "the biggest deficit of any major industrialised economy in the world."

"The UK's balance of payments deficit reached £72.4bn last year, its highest ever cash amount, that’s 4.2% of GDP. It is calculated by subtracting the value of our imports from exports, and adding things like the flows of money we send abroad, and income earned by Brits on their foreign assets. Since the start of the recovery, our balance of payments deficit has actually grown from 1.7% of GDP in 2011." This was at the tail end of Alistair Darling's attempt to inject some Keynesian economics to foster recovery, since when George Osbourne's strategy of austerity has seen the deficit rise to over 4% in the most recent year. And how many of all those 'new jobs' are full-time or have pensions, pay a living wage or have working conditions that should be the right of all citizens.

So, who do you think you are kidding, Mr Cameron? The economy is not strong, and underinvestment in public services means there are not even cat's eyes or white centre lines on your neo liberal road to purgatory. Taking another road, the one less travelled, might make all the difference.

Billie Whitelaw

I was deeply saddened to hear that my co-star from the 1971 film "Gumshoe" had passed away yesterday. I had watched Billie Whitelaw in numerous TV programmes, Dixon of Dock Green, Robin Hood, various dramas on Armchair Theatre and films such as Charlie Bubbles during the 1960s. She had an understated glamour and presence. Her principles were encapsulated in the tough realism of the roles she played.

We were having breakfast in our condemned flat in a flaking and once opulent Victorian terrace in Liverpool 8 when the two girls in the flat spotted Albert Finney, the male lead of Gumshoe, standing on the vacant derelict land across the road from the flat talking with the director and film crew. They opened the sash window, waved at him and asked if they needed any extras. The director replied saying that they were looking for a young male to play a news reporter and were there any in the flat. Paul and I finished our toast, dawdled to the window, anxious not to show any interest, and were asked if we would like a part in the film they were shooting.

Thirty minutes later I had been hired as the getaway driver for Billie Whitelaw as she ran out of an adjacent building where, in the film, a heroin addict had died. The road had been closed and I was to drive her away at speed. They made eight takes of the scene, it took an hour and a half. I am not normally into celebrity but this was Billie Whitelaw, a real actress. I had the unbelievable pleasure of her jumping into the car, demanding me to drive her off and being told by the director to squeal the tyres of the getaway car. Even in a Hillman Imp, this was about as good as it gets for any 22-year-old male student.

I did miss a couple of lectures and gave my apologies, the lecturers said they would have done the same. I was paid £20, enough for 200 pints of beer (10p a pint in the Philharmonic pub) or my flat rent for six months (£3 a week between 4 of us). The whole scene was edited down to about 15 seconds in the film. Billie Whitelaw has remained a lifetime icon.

Gumshoe with Albert Finney

Lincoln

West Norman frontage of Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral

Frieze above north west door

Sanctuary

South West window

Top of the Strait

Looking from the castle to the cathedral

Lincoln is the largest UK city that I have never visited. Its position halfway down England on a flat plain never inspired me to make the effort. I even turned down a trial to play county cricket for Lincolnshire in the Minor Counties league after graduation. Aileen had bought a car online, and by chance, it had to be picked up in Lincoln, so there was an excuse to visit. The journey to Lincoln after a weekend in London was remarkably cheap at £17 once we had figured out to buy two separate tickets: London to Newark and then Newark to Lincoln. The direct fare bought from the online "cheap rail ticket" sites would have cost £47, but that's what happens when you split rail travel across 26 companies and let the corporate ticket touts enter the fray to (mis)sell tickets.  Station booking staff are far more willing to give the passenger a better deal, and they seem equally dismissive of all the ticketing scams.

We arrived at Lincoln in the early afternoon on a cold but sunny winter's day. We walked up the pedestrianised High Street that continued and became the Strait and then Steep Hill to the ridge on which the massive 11th-century cathedral and castle are built. Several locals commented on the fact that we were dragging suitcases up the hill, which was a pretty sharp incline, making me wish that I had brought a rucksack. The castle was closed following the weekend's Christmas market, with over 300 stalls in and around the castle. The market had been a roaring success; the throngs of visitors were described in the local newspaper as having to walk like penguins along the narrow streets.

Town Map

Our mission was simple: dump our bags and spend time visiting the cathedral, once the highest building in the world and responsible for the largest diocese in England, established by William the Conqueror in 1072, stretching from the Humber to the Thames. Built on the Lincolnshire ridge at 250 feet, it looms over the vast flat plains of Lincolnshire and was described by John Ruskin as "the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles". It has suffered several calamities from earthquakes and collapse from poor construction, and today, like almost every other large church or cathedral, it is undergoing a massive restoration.

It was the scale that impressed us and the fact that one of the four copies of the Magna Carta is held in the cathedral, although at the time of our visit, this was on loan to the Lincoln Center in Washington DC.  The Magna Carta with its message that all free men could not be held or imprisoned without being judged by their equals and that "the King was not to deny, delay or sell justice" were radical concessions by King John to quell the uprising of the barons. Whilst there have been claims that this was the precursor to civil liberties, it applied primarily to the barons and did not extend to the common people.

Magna Carta

We tramped up and down the steep hill several times and discovered that it had been voted the best shopping street in Britain. It was interesting but not that remarkable and the High Street was cluttered with the usual offerings. Brayford Pool and the river Witham provided a linear water feature through the heart of the city and there was an impressive collection of civic buildings.

Apart from its location in the midst of a rich agricultural area, the town is also home to Siemens and has benefitted from a new University which has acquired a good reputation for business studies in its short 20-year life. The outskirts of the city are an ugly addition to a fine city centre and have extended too far into the flat plains, the area is a melange of car showrooms, warehouses and modern housing. As we left the next morning the roads out of Lincoln were at capacity and even the 10 miles on the A46 to the A1 north took a good half hour amidst heavy commercial traffic.

So that's Lincoln crossed off the visit list although I could be tempted back if only to see the cathedral again and visit the castle. I would like to think that the surrounding countryside would be a palette of Lincoln Green in summer but I suspect that yellow fields of rape seed and a smattering of commercial buildings with grey roofs amidst blocks of tarmac would flank the historic city.

London

Brixton Tube Station

Ritzy on Windrush Suare

Electric Avenue

Brixton Market

Santa run from Windrush Square

Bubbling dissent against austerity measures

St Pancras Station: true Victorian splendour and home to Eurostar

King's Cross regeneration

For the first time all year, we caught a flight to London, I had been working during the day and that ruled out the train. The flight tickets from Scotland were cheaper than the train to London but the cost of the train from Stansted to London (36 miles) was almost the same price as the flight and 50% more expensive than our rail tickets to Lincoln (153 miles) at the end of the weekend. It illustrated once again what a nonsense rail franchising has been and how the customer is being routinely fleeced by the operators.

London is never quiet or content, every visit this year has witnessed demonstrations, petitions, heavy policing and edgy incidents. Arriving in Brixton on Friday evening we were harangued by touts selling Kasabian tickets outside the tube station, it was crazy! Did I look like a Kasabian fan with my suitcase and Rab jacket? The streets were thronged with thirty-somethings, nightlife was rife and the hundreds of pubs and restaurants of every ethnicity were sucking in and spilling out crowds.

The next day dawned cold and bright, I decided against the Saturday Park Run in Brockwell park and pottered around Brixton's street markets in Electric Avenue, which had inspired Eddie Grant's eponymous 1982 hit. By lunchtime, the streets were full of mock Santa's outside the Ritzy cinema. I assumed it was just another demonstration - "a living wage for elves" but it seemed to be part of an annual Santa run. Protest and fun are yoked together in Brixton. We retreated down Acre Lane passing a bedraggled student demonstration and ate at the excellent Boqueria tapas bar that had been partly hired by a 'ration book' of retired baby boomers for their Christmas lunch. We were lucky to have an inquisitive toddler granddaughter to entertain us as she sampled the food, lapped the table of noisy baby boomers and entertained the waiters.

I was surprised the next morning to be running amidst a hundred or so primary school children in Brockwell park, there is now a children's Park Run on Sunday. By early afternoon the roads were at a standstill with traffic as we caught a bus to East Dulwich, it took an hour to travel 3 miles and that seems to be typical of most bus trips in London. Transport for London doesn't seem to be making much progress in improving bus travel, which seems to be used mainly by young mums with children, pensioners and young people surviving on a less than a living wage. The journey was worth it as we spent the afternoon in a cosy cafe on Lordship Lane with a carafe of wine and some craft produced cream cheese. Bare wood tables, a clientele that included all ages and races gave an easy atmosphere that was the upside of London displaying the benefits of diversity.

The journey back from London is always made easy by the speedy tube service and King's Cross has trains that depart with a remarkable high frequency. I was disturbed by the claims reported in the London Evening Standard by Mike Brown, the Managing Director of the Tube. He was demanding that as well as HS2 (£42.6bn) and the Crossrail project (£16bn), which is due to open in 2018, that there will be a need for Crossrail 2 to allow mainline trains to run into the centre of London. This is endorsed by London First, a corporate lobby group encouraged by Boris Johnson, which is seeking a further £12bn to be spent on Crossrail 2 for London transport. It is yet another example of London's obsessive selfish demands that seem to find receptive ears in government departments and ministers. It will ensure that Heathrow to Canary Wharf (23miles) can be made in 40 minutes, about the same time as it takes the new Edinburgh Trams to travel 8 miles from the centre to its airport, even the buses in Edinburgh are quicker than this.

I calmed myself down from this latest example of London-centric indulgence by taking a walk around St. Pancras, my favourite railway station, and then observing the regeneration of the area north of King's Cross by the canal. We caught a fast train from King's Cross to Newark and changed to the slow train from Newark to Lincoln. The contrast was marked and fully illustrated the inequality in transport spending, outwith the London commuter belt the country has been starved of investment. The single railcar dawdled across the flat landscapes of Lincolnshire and even that seemed fast compared to some rail trips across the Pennines. 

The sums required to procure and build HS2 plus Crossrail 2 could transform rail services across the rest of Britain, without the expensive tunnelling and land purchases required in London and the southeast. This could ensure that travel times are reduced by up to 50-60% as well as providing comfortable modern trains like those serving the London commuters. Transport for London should sort out priority lanes for buses rather than constantly surcharging the rest of the UK for its tunnel vision. The sooner we have a truly federal Britain the better; the North and Midlands of England have suffered more than Scotland and Northern Ireland in the government's unalloyed prejudice towards favouring the capital. As well as devolved nations, we also need to devolve power to the less prosperous regions of England.

Newark to Lincoln railcar

Ladder Hills

Carn Mor summit

The ridge to Carn Mor

Eastern Cairngorms from Carn Mor

Trying to lose my shadow on Carn Mor

and failing - Ben Rinnes and Corryhabbie Hill from Carn Mor

Carn Mor from Carn Liath

Walking to the Lecht from Carn Liath

Lecht Ski Centre

Osprey Tow, the Lecht

Carn Ealasaid from Carn Mhic an Toisich

Summit, yes that's right, of Carn Ealasaid

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

Ascent:    750 metres

Distance:  20 kilometres

Time:        5 hours 5minutes

Carn Mor            804m     1hr 25mins  

Carn Ealasaid      792m    4hrs  3mins

Day 2 of the Moray Corbetts began with a proper breakfast in the B&B.  The sun had returned with vengeance but without the accompanying wind of yesterday. We drove a dozen miles from Auchbreck in Glenlivet to Tomintoul and then south along the infamous A939 towards Cockbridge and parked by the 'Well of the Lecht' corner. The track to the former iron and manganese mine was frozen hard and when it became an impassable frozen pool we took an old hill path to an illicit whisky still. The path was a stream of sheet ice but fronds of heather and mashed peat from previous footprints made it passable. It climbs steadily to the Carn Dulack ridge by which time we had emerged from the morning shadow into the sunlight  Reaching the ridge opened up tremendous vistas and we followed the ridge as it curved round to Carn Liath. As we reached a fence the short grass gave way to the heather slopes that were deep and difficult to negotiate. We headed to the bealach between Carn Liath and Carn Mor, it was a maze of peat hags that we dodged our way through.

I had stuffed the map in my rucksack as visibility was perfect and assumed the 799m top ahead was Carn Mor, it was about the right altitude for Carn Mor according to my altimeter. Mark continued over the edge of the plateau, at first I presumed he was taking a few photos but he then continued another kilometre to the real summit of Carn Mor. Meanwhile, I was lolling on the tiny cairn on the 799m top eating a sandwich and enjoying the still winter conditions. Fortunately, the route across to the real summit was easy walking over a thin layer of snow and it took little time to reach the summit. We looked across at the views of our hills of yesterday, Corryhabbie Hill and Ben Rinnes and realised that we had been blessed with the very best of conditions for the ascent of these wicked heather-clad hills. 

The route back to the Lecht ski centre was a roller coaster over the Ladder hills with three intervening tops, it was a long and hard six kilometres of hacking our way through snow-coated heather. The ski centre was closed but we took the opportunity to have a quick lunch break before the sun sank behind the hills and then began the steep climb up the heather covered piste next to the ski tows. It is not a big climb (150m) but it was a relief to reach Carn Mhic an Toisich. We looked askance at the tricky route across to Carn Ealasaid. The heather was partly covered by snow but there were 800 metres of peat hags to cross before the final climb. There were lots of new animal tracks following the narrow path tracing its way through the heather, the snow was only a day old, and it looked as if the hares were being tracked by foxes.

The summit of Carn Ealasaid is about as flat and pointless as they come and the descent was not much better - a long traverse to the north of Beinn a' Chruinnich and then a leg sapping descent down 200 metres of deep heather to hit the road at the Bridge of Leachd. The car was frozen up and the temperature was well below freezing even at 3:30pm, we changed and began the long journey home via Cock Bridge, Balmoral, Braemar and Glenshee. Sadly it was too dark to see any of the scenery in its winter finery but at least it was not the A9.

Corryhabbie Hill and Ben Rinnes

Ben Rinnes

Heading up the snow slopes to Corryhabbie Hill summit

Cold and Blue on Corryhabbie

The Barley Mow in the Folds of Corhabbie

Winter landscape Glen Rinnes

On the ascent of Ben Rinnes

Ben A'an and Beinn a'Bhuird at sunset from  Ben Rinnes

Tuesday, 2 December 2014
Ascent:   CH: 560m., BR: 575m
Distance:  CH: 11km., BR: 7km.  
Time:  CH:2hrs 58mins., BR 1hr 59mins

Corryhabble Hill   781m      1hr 36mins
Ben Rinnes           840m      1hr   4mins

The northeast is part of the Scotland area that I know least well, possibly because there are no munros nor is it close to the ever-beguiling west coast. For a year or so I had planned to take a couple of days in winter to climb some of my remaining corbetts near Glenlivet and, when the Met Office predicted two consecutive days of winter sun, I jumped to attention and arranged an outing. Leaving at 7:15am I collected Mark in Callander and drove up the A9 amidst very nervous traffic, everyone was watching their speed following the introduction of the 60mph average speed restrictions. By Aviemore we were driving in a convoy so slow that the average Tour de France cyclist would have been able to break away. Fortunately, I was able to turn off for Grantown on Spey and then enjoy the glorious Moray countryside to Glenlivet and continue to Glen Rinnes.

We parked by an assortment of wheelie bins at Ellivreid to begin the ascent of Corryhabbie Hill. A local lady passing in her car gave us her blessing to park and said it would be wonderful on the hill although she was not tempted to join us. She said she was off to the hairdresser to fill her day but she would watch us climb Ben Rinnes through her binoculars when she got home. It confirmed our perception that not much happened in these parts in winter.

The walk from Ellivreid was in perfect mid-winter light, we crossed a field of grazing sheep and eventually found a way across a waterlogged burn, through the gate and southwards over easy ground to the Hill of Achmore. From here it was a long tramp through deep heather to reach the foot of the steeper slopes leading to Muckle Lapproch. The hard work was over and we were privileged to alight onto a snow-covered ridge that eased us towards the Corryhabbie. We crossed some peat hags and then attacked the steeper and deeper snow slopes to the summit. The sharp breeze from the lower slopes had become a mini jet stream with a chill factor that rapidly extracted all body heat. We took a quick stop to admire the fine vista of the Cairngorms and the pristine rolling hills dotted with wind farms.

We descended to the north, quickly seizing the opportunity to escape the wind as we scattered noisy grouse and flocks of starlings. As we reached the Folds of Corhabbie, the fields of mown barley created beautiful patterns in the sunlight. We crossed a burn and climbed the ridge behind Sheandow before dropping back down the slopes to Ellivred. Despite its reputation as a troublesome hill, Corryhabbie had been a good outing, maybe helped by the sun and the snow on the tops which lubricates progress through the heathers.

From here it is only 5 minutes to the car park on Edinglen road from where a well-made path ascends Ben Rinnes. We made good time along the long flat ridge of Roy's Hill and we arrived at the summit as the sun set over the Cairngorms. The winds of midday had blown themselves out and we just had the sparkling coolness of a clear winter's evening and a nearly full moon to accompany us back to the car. My trusty Olympus camera succumbed to the cold and froze and I am seen trying to fix it in the light of the silvery moon.

It was just about dark by the time we were down and we retreated to a superb Bank House Glenlivet B&B that I had booked the night before. We were made to feel at home, invited to an evening meal as the local pub was closed in winter, enjoyed an open fire, a malt whisky and conversation with the welcoming owners. In 25 years of fairly intensive hillwalking I have spent about 250 nights away from home; mainly in tents, bunkhouses and hostels. This was only the sixth time in a B&B but it was undoubtedly the most comfortable and relaxing night during all my hill walking exploits thanks to Helen and Ruud.

Ben Rinnes man triangulates with the moon