Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: angry!, council, cunning plan, satellite dish
…well that’s what I’d like to write! Apparently, (according to my knowing boyfriend, and he should know, he’s had many blogs, has a very addictive personality and is currently addicted to twitter!) I’m going through that difficult phase of blog ownership…addiction! I have to admit I do keep checking the blog stats, and feeling sad when there are no comments except my own : ( …which drove me to thinking I should write something amazing and inspirational to get more traffic and chat (hence the title) but, my knowing man told me confidently that you can’t force such things. This is my attempt to prove him wrong – I guess we’ll find out who was right when I check for comments and visits next (it would be wrong to beg for attention wouldn’t it!?).
In other news, our square is uniting against the council (they never suspected we’d actually speak to each other!). You see we live in a conservation area, and have recently received a letter informing us we must remove our satellite dish. We’re not the only ones to have a dish so we popped round our nice neighbours Barry & Justine to see if they’d received a nasty letter. They had and so have several other residents, so we’ve hatched a cunning plan to fight the bureaucrats! Just to clarify, we’re not heathens, we’re not anti-conservation, it’s just so ironic! You see there are MUCH BIGGER ISSUES in our square than some little satellite dishes, namely a parking catastrophe, hideous 1970’s flats on the other side, rubbish and dumped cars!! Does it sound like taking down a few dishes will suddenly make it an award winning square?! Will we suddenly not notice the cars, rubbish, flats, mud and gravel mess out side our doors!? Ooh it makes me angry! Especially as council tax is going up again and they’ve wasted more money sending out petty letters about satellite dishes! Anyway, back to the cunning plan…I’ve been round to the other dish owners to gather support, Justine is going to write a strongly worded letter, and we’re going to stand up for ourselves. If they seriously want us to take down our dishes, they are going to have to give us something in return!…maybe bins, a decent parking area, taking away dumped cars when we report them, or at the very least some consistency in their approach! Bring on the fight!
Normal walking chatter will return next week!
Mx
Oh dear, oh dear… no walking for us this weekend (don’t think we can count popping to the shops!). Our good friends Dan and Hatti came to visit us this weekend after gliding in Dover (sounded like a lot of fun!). We cooked a lovely dinner (garlic soup to start, duck with pomegranate molasses and healthy chocolate mousse for dessert) and had a nice evening of chat and wine. And that was our downfall really, or more specifically, Sid’s downfall! We’d intended a walk on Sunday around Trottiscliffe and the North Downs, but Sid’s extreme hangover and excessive vomiting put pay to that! So instead me, Dan and Hatti went out for breakfast (yum!).
Guess it goes to show that we wont be able to drink too much on the C2C!! Will try harder next weekend, which will mean subjecting my sister to our walking ways!
M xx
Hooray, hooray I’ve booked all our accommodation! Took a couple of weeks, but I’m so chuffed now it’s done. For anyone interested, or who plans to join us for a day here’s out final itinerary!! : )
(The day refers to when we’ll arrive in that town and hence the night we’ll be staying there)
| Date | Day | Town | B&B |
| 17/08/2008 | Sunday | St Bees | Stone House Farm |
| 18/08/2008 | Monday | Ennerdale Bridge | Low Cock How Farm |
| 19/08/2008 | Tuesday | Rosthwaite | Langstrath |
| 20/08/2008 | Wednesday | Patterdale | Grisedale Lodge |
| 21/08/2008 | Thursday | Shap | Brookfield |
| 22/08/2008 | Friday | Kirkby Stephen | Fletcher House |
| 23/08/2008 | Saturday | Kirkby Stephen | Fletcher House |
| 24/08/2008 | Sunday | Keld | Butt House |
| 25/08/2008 | Monday | Reeth | Wayside |
| 26/08/2008 | Tuesday | Richmond | Willance House |
| 27/08/2008 | Wednesday | Richmond | Willance House |
| 28/08/2008 | Thursday | Ingleby Cross | Park House |
| 29/08/2008 | Friday | ClayBankTop | Maltkiln House |
| 30/08/2008 | Saturday | Glaisdale | Beggars Bridge |
| 31/08/2008 | Sunday | RHB | The Villa |
We’re aiming for a total budget of about £1500. All the accommodation comes in at £897 (for two people sharing twins/double), with baggage transfers probably costing ~£160, we’d be left with ~£30 per day for lunch and dinner…do-able, but I suspect the budget will have to grow a bit with all those pints and big dinners! And then there’s still equipment to buy! I’ve no doubt it’ll be worth it though!
xM
Filed under: Uncategorized
I really want to embed a Flickr Slideshow on here but WordPress won’t let me.
I guess you’ll just have to follow the link for a pictorial run through of our latest walk Ramsgate to Deal!
I will figure out a way to do it.
Filed under: exercise, training, Uncategorized, weather | Tags: hills, Knockholt Pound, mud
As I mentioned previously, this weeks walk (on Saturday) was a 9mile circular starting at Knockholt Pound; we were joined by Tracy and Rob, two of the original “6 friends”.
There were a few tentative moments before hand when the weather nearly put us off, but in the end Saturday itself was a fine day, although the preceding weather did make the walk rather interesting. The walk (details available on walkingworld) started along country lanes through nice scenery, with views of London in the far distance.
It was once we left the tarmac that things became interesting; all the rain of the previous days made many of the paths very muddy and fields often boggy – it was certainly a good test for the boots and my new gaiters! There was much slipping, splashing and sliding, but happily very little moaning – we must be tough! The state of Sid’s trousers at the end definitely confirmed to him that gaiters are a worthwhile investment!
The good views continued, including the impressive home of David Milliband (apparently!). More mud and many stiles later we were approaching the end and a killer hill!…blimey was it tough especially coming at the very end, although Tracy and Rob seemed less puffed, so perhaps they’re much fitter than us. Either way it confirmed that the lake district hills will be challenging and that we need to train more, but where in oh-so-flat Kent?! Any suggestions fellow walkers? We made it back to the cars in good health, with a few extra kilos of mud attached to us. A nice hearty dinner in The Three Horseshoes was just what we needed, then we headed to Bluewater for a film (Charlie Wilson’s War – quite good really). All in all a great day out, and lovely to spend more time with Rob and Tracy!
Next time… Ramsgate to Deal
xM
Filed under: Uncategorized
We’re getting quite excited about the walk now. We’re starting to go head on into booking places and planning the walks. Well, I say we but I really mean Michelle. She’s got a whole list of all the accommodation she’s found on the net and she’s steadily booking places to stay. Selfishly we’ll be keeping it to ourselves for the time being, until we get our accommodation sorted. We can’t go giving away insider secrets now can we! Once we get it all booked though we’ll get it up here for all to see. We’ll also blog about where we’ll be staying so if there is anyone else around at the same time then you can say hi.
Since I was feeling a little left out and useless while Michelle was making all the accommodation enquiries I decided we should get the first map out and have a look at the route. We’ve decided that we’re going to follow the Wainwright route this first time. So the first stretch will be St Bees to Ennerdale Bridge but what a random route Wainwright takes.
First you walk away from where you’re actually going. Apparently that is a common theme with most Wainwright walks. Not sure I like it! Then you walk round the houses to get to where you are going. It says the first stage is about 14 miles but it looks a lot longer. In the back of my mind I just want to get to the next place in as short an amount of time as possible but that’s not really the point. I guess I’ll take Wainwright’s advice and relax and enjoy the walk.
Happy New Year All!!!
Thought I’d update briefly on the walks we’ve done over the festive season…
We spent new year with friends in a lovely set of cottages in Spixworth, Norfolk. Feeling a little sluggish after Christmas excesses, and suspecting we wouldn’t be up to much on new years day, we went for a nice little walk on new years eve with a few friends…a 5.5mile circular route starting at Hainford near the cottages. It was a pretty easy walk (very flat round there) with a few chickens and the added bonus of a great pub at the end (The Chequers)…cheers Dan, Hatti, Clare and Nathan!
Last weekend we walked Deal to Dover (Kent) along the Saxon Shore Way with Sam, about 10miles with detours! It was a nice walk, on a very sunny day and most of it is well signposted, but we did get a little off-track nearing Dover as signs dissapeared and dozens of paths appeared (we were without ordonance survey!). It took us about 3 1/2 hours, which meant we just missed our train so it was a nice long wait at the station, with the most chocolatey of hot chocolates and muffins, for the train back to Deal. Only bad point is arriving in Dover, which is pretty dissapointing as kentish towns go, so would recommend doing it in reverse!
Next week Knockholt pound!
xM
2 friends and the coast to coast walk 