Captain's Log

Late Start

I was late up this morning. That might have been something to do with my close acquaintance with a bottle of 10 year old Port from Aldi, over yesterday evening. I probably had a bit more of the ruby refreshment than was wise and concluded the session by singing some ill-remembered Portuguese sea shanties. This was quite remarkable since I don’t know a word of Spanish, and certainly not the Portuguese variety. I woke up this morning with a thick head and when I reported this to the Kapitan and Cabin Boy I heard the latter mutter something like ‘Nothing new there then.’ I wasn't in the mood for confrontation and so I let it go. Anyway, the bottom line was that it wasn’t until 11 am before I felt well enough to venture out on a walk. It had been raining up until that point and so I didn’t really feel I’d lost anything of the day. I didn’t fancy too strenuous a walk and so contrived a route from our digs in Ambleside that would take me to Skelwith Bridge. I planned to call in at the Chesters café there and have some lunch, before returning to Ambleside over Loughrigg Fell. There were still one or two spots of rain  lingering as I left the house, but these had given  up the ghost by the time I reached the outskirts of Ambleside.

Skelwith Fold

The overnight rain had transformed the River Rothay into a fast flowing torrent. It was pointless playing Pooh sticks on the footbridge across the river, since they would have been out of sight even before I’d managed to turn around. I crossed the River Brathay using the road bridge at Clappersgate and made my way along the B5286 to the junction with Bog Lane. I then picked up a footpath that ran alongside the B5286. Fortunately there waa a stone wall between the road and the footpath and this shielded me from the splash from the cars. It was a pleasant footpath through woodland, but there was no getting away from the fact that a busy road was just next door. Near some houses, I left the road behind and headed off uphill across a field. The sun even tried to break through the winter gloom at this point and it had several more unsuccessful attempts in the next hour or so. The path followed a route along the south side of Skelwith Fold Caravan Park. The complex is quite large, but is surrounded by trees and so you don’t really get a feel for the scale of the place. It dwarfs the adjacent pretty village of Skelwith Fold. I was back on tarmac now and started to make a gradual descent towards Skelwith Bridge.  

By a slight misjudgement, I'd come away on this 3 week holiday with only one pair of underkegs. Even turning them inside out and then back to front wouldn’t suffice for such an extended period and so I’d  decided that I’d have to buy some more. The Cabin Boy said that she was subscribed to Prime on Amazon and so I’d had a look on their website and found a time limited deal on a pack of 3 Danish made underpants for £19.99.  That sounded like a bargain to me and so I got the Cabin Boy to order me some. Doubts were raised after I unpacked them and found them to be made of a very shiny, tight fitting spandex material in a style that Holly Johnson might have worn in his more hedonistic days. The oddest thing was the cut of the clothing. I found that I could pull the front of the underpants up and over my beer belly without any problem and yet the rear only covered at most, only half of the crack of my arse. I thought I might have put them on the wrong way around, but curiously found exactly the same issue when I reversed them. There had been nothing that could be done and so today I was carrying out the sea trials for one of the pairs. Much to my astonishment, I’d found them surprisingly comfortable thus far. The extra support for my beer belly had felt rather comforting. The only problem was that due to the 100% polyester content of the material, they generated quite a static charge and I had to earth myself now and again by touching a stone wall, in order to keep within safe limits. At £19.99 for 3 pairs, one shouldn’t complain though. 

Skelwith Bridge

I crossed over the River Brathay using Skelwith Bridge. There was so  much water coming down the river that it had reached the base of the picnic tables on its bank. I made my way to the Chesters café and joined the queue to be served. A vegan sausage roll and mug of coffee would suffice for my lunch and I carried them to a free table outside.  The other tables were crowded with people. Robins flew around the perimeter of the eating area in the hope of grabbing a few crumbs. Occasionally one would even be brave enough to come and perch on the back of a chair next to me. They didn’t stay long enough for me to take a picture. The vegan sausage roll was frighteningly expensive, but was quite large and filled me up. After lunch, I left the other customers and the Robins to their business and set off on the next stage of my walk. 

Loughrigg

It was a steady climb from Skelwith Bridge up to the caravan park on Little Loughrigg. As per usual, the site looked deserted. Maybe I’ve only ever walked through it when it is out of season. Once I’d left the cabins behind, the crags of the Loughrigg fells came into view and eventually Loughrigg Tarn below them. There was a short stretch along a road and then I headed across fields to make my way around Loughrigg Tarn. I had to leap across a couple of streams due to the amount of water flowing down. On the eastern side of the tarn I took a photo of that classic view across the water to the mountains of the Langdale valley beyond. I followed the path below Ivy Crag that gradually ascended on to Loughrigg Fell. The shy sun had deserted me now and it all looked a bit grey again. It didn’t seem long to get to the highest point of the Loughrigg traverse and then I started making the steady descent back down towards Ambleside. The path offered great views over to the hills of the Fairfield Horseshoe, Red Screes and Wansfell Pike. I followed the track down to the River Rothay and crossed the footbridge into Rothay Park. Areas of the park were still flooded from the recent rain. 

It had been a fairly easy and short walk, but it was long enough to clear my head from yesterday evening’s excesses. The vegan sausage roll and coffee at Chester’s cafe had also helped to ease the hangover somewhat. Apart from having to periodically earth the static charge in my new underkegs, overall I think they’d been a success too.