Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Day 9: Setting out by the book!, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

Today is the day they walk from Reeth to Richmond. Since we slept in Richmond last night (many thanks to Frenchgate Hotel, which we are all enjoying), I drove them to Reeth this morning soon after breakfast.

It was sunny — it was raining — it was not raining but still cloudy — it was (in a word) England.

We barely got out of Richmond before roads shut down for a bank holiday parade. People were already lining up on sidewalks as we drove by. To avoid driving back into the huge parade-chaos, I walked with Team Wilczek a while, then happily dawdled in Reeth’s Swaledale Museum. More photos on my Flickr pages, of course.

Day 8: Rainy day beginnings, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

As I drove across the Yorkshire Dales to drop my four walkers in Keld, for their walk day to Reeth, cold rain blew sideways and up from the valleys below us. What a first day for the two new arrivals from Boston!

Still, they all set off in good spirits, windbreaking jackets pulled tight over warm layers, hoods up — and at least the main wind was behind them. By lunchtime they had reached the Ghyllfoot Teashop in Gunnerside, which I’d found when I got lost.

Then, as Salieri would say, a miracle! The clouds opened up, the sun came out, and they walked through buttercup meadows all afternoon. So it was a very good first day for two new after all!

Poster in Richmond beauty shop, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

I saw this poster this morning, in a small beauty shop in Richmond. I couldn’t wait to show it to Mickey — and how we both laughed!

A few minutes later, walking along, she remarked, “I’ve experienced that, of course, but I’ve never paid for it.”

Yes, up in NH lakes you can get your toes nibbled by cute little fish at completely no charge!

Day 7 offtrack: When in doubt, stop for tea, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

Today, I drove seven miles in the wrong direction on a narrow windy road beset with stray sheep. Oops! Fortunately, I had noplace I had to hurry toward or away from.

Eventually, I saw a place to park with some people nearby, getting ready for hiking. They told me that I had arrived in Gunnerside, in between Keld and Reeth. The working blacksmith shop seemed to be closed that day, the pub would not open until noon, but there was a very nice tea shop just around the corner.

And so there was, the Ghyllfoot Tearoom, where they serve not only tea but amazing strawberry pavlova. That is English thick cream on the top, not American whipped cream.

After tea, I turned around and drove back to Kirkby Stephen, 17 miles on the same winding road to which had been added an 80-mile bicycle race. It was all smooth sailing. One good Pavlova can work travel-trouble miracles.

Day 7: Near Keld , a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

Today, on the West to East hike, the path starts in Kirkby Stephen (Cumbria) and ends up in Keld, in the Yorkshire Dales. In between those two places, you cross the watershed peak — rain that lands on its west side will drain toward the Irish Sea; rain that lands on its east side runs into streams and rivers that feed the North Sea.

Thanks to an extremely clever suggestion from Katie, who runs the Castle View Bed and Breakfast in Kirkby Stephen, they decided instead to get driven this morning to Keld, and walk back, East to West, ending up at our nice comfortable bed and breakfast instead of waiting somewhere in Keld at the end of the day for me to drive over and find them.

After dropping them off, I saw quite a bit more of the Yorkshire Dales (James Herriott country) because I drove 7 miles in the wrong direction before deciding to turn around again. So I have seen part of the route they will take tomorrow, and it is beautiful.

Day 5 Offtrack: Glaciers were here, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

Day 5 — Today they walk out of the Lake District and into Shap.

I took this photo on my drive back to the Red Lion in Grasmere from the White Lion in Patterdale. The White Lion is a huge pub/hotel by the side of A592 where Frank and Amity waited for me to fetch them yesterday. They are doing the walk in segments, starting each morning where they stopped last night.

The Red Lion is a small pub/hotel in Grasmere, where we have been staying for two nights and will stay one more. There are many good things about having booked three nights in a row at the Grasmere Red Lion Inn: convenience, comfort, laundry room, and friendly staff. But the somewhat inconvenient thing is that driving any distance in the Lake District means either coping with mountain passes or making long detours from valley to valley.

Whichever you choose, there will surely be sheep on some roadway, somewhere and somewhen. The sheep don’t seem to be startled by cars at all, and this driver is trying hard not to be startled by sheep.

Day 3 offtrack: Shades of green, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850, as we say in Wikipedia) has strong opinions on the moral value of scenery. His poems celebrating the Lake District inspired poets who inspired the Romantic Age. Less well known, but also deserving of some mention, was his absolute hatred of a particular tree that had been introduced to the Lake District during his lifetime.

The larch. Yes, the larch, a tree that figures heavily in one much-loved Monty Python episode, was to Wordsworth simply despicable. For example:

… as a tree, it is less than any other pleasing: its branches (for boughs it has none) have no variety in the youth of the tree, and little dignity, even when it attains its full growth: leaves it cannot be said to have, consequently neither affords shade nor shelter. In spring the larch becomes green long before the native trees; and its green is so peculiar and vivid, that, finding nothing to harmonise with it, wherever it comes forth, a disagreeable speck is produced. In summer, when all other trees are in their pride, it is of a dingy, lifeless hue; in autumn of a spiritless unvaried yellow, and in winter it is still more lamentably distinguished from every other deciduous tree of the forest, for they seem only to sleep, but the larch appears absolutely dead.

And so on, and so on, at very great length in his instructive and often quite funny book Guide to the Lakes. I hope that he would not have disapproved any of these greens, however.

Day 2: Ennerdale Water, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

Yesterday (Day #2 of the coast-to-coast walk) was windy and watery — very lake country weather. At the end of the day, shoes and (everything else) were very wet, and it was nearly time for the kitchen at our hotel to close but they stayed open just a bit longer, just for us.

We are staying at the Borrowdale Hotel, very close to the falls at Lodore, the subject of a famous poem by Southey. It’s a lovely hotel but it would have been 3 miles more uphill at the end of yesterday’s 15 mile slog from Ennerdale Bridge. I picked up the travelers instead in Seatoller, at the Seatoller Bed and Breakfast, where I’ll be returning them in just a few minutes to restart again right where they left off.

Botticelli’s backside, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

Not many people have seen a rear view of Botticelli’s Venus, but, as a reader of my blog, you are one of the few!

A hotel/pub where I had lunch in Workington yesterday has transformed the famous painting into a giant shiny plaster statue. Progress marches on.

Purely in a spirit of service to you, dear reader, I walked around to the back to take this photo.

Solitary figure says hurray!, a photo by betsythedevine on Flickr.

That is Amity Wilczek, on her way back from the surf’s edge, where she picked up a genuine Irish Sea pebble at St Bees low tide.

Amity flew in to England last night from the Azores, where she has been nature guiding around the Azores, Canaries, and lots more islands whose names I don’t know, a fun part of her vacation from Deep Springs. She really came that extra mile to be part of this adventure–and the photographer says hurray right back to Amity.

The Wainwright Coast to Coast walk starts at St Bees beach, where the walkers pick up on Irish Sea pebble, which get thrown into the North Sea at Robin Hood’s Bay, 192 miles later.

Frank and Amity and other beloved family members not yet here will walking the Wainwright walk to celebrate his 60th birthday.

I am the road crew and advance team for these touring rock stars. My goal is to hike a bit with them each morning, hike back by myself to the car and the luggage, schlep stuff around, blog, think about William Wordsworth, then find everybody and feed them at the end of the day.

More hiking, less thinking would be fun if not for two vertebrae–C6 and S3, I think. Besides, if I were hiking all day every day, then where would our team get its groceries, batteries, juice, and daily email from William Wordsworth?