Day 6

 

30th June - Day 6 Kirkby Stephen to Grinton

An early start for the boys today setting out at  6.50am temperature a chilly 4 degrees.

The road was steep to the top of Hartley Quarries with good views of Kirkby Stephen. And then on to Nine Standards as this was the first objective of the day at 2,170 ft this was the last time they will be over 2,000ft on the walk. The Cairns are massive! 

The boys were lucky to see the views as shortly after low level clouds descended and they only just found the path down in time.

 They then travelled through the peat bogs, the bogs entailed them wading shin deep for 2 miles descending…. Energy sapping!

They then headed past some of the waterfalls Keld is famous for, Keld village is officially the half way stage of the walk! From there they then enjoyed walking alongside the River Swale and into Reeth Village and then onto the hostel at Grinton.

 

Feet starting to feel the effects now

115 miles now completed

Tomorrow will be 33 miles but is the flattest part of the walk.

Day 5

29th June - Day 5 Sharp to Kirkby Stephen

Short update today no mobile signal, had to make do with a very short email LOL......

I'm told the hat is the wrong way not for posing but to prevent sunburn LOL.

Photo take on Marc as they departed Smardale.

92 miles completed

Thursday is a 7am start and 25 miles
Now we will find out how their feet can cope with the longer miles each day

Days 3 and 4

27th June - Day 3 Grasmere to Patterdale

Should have been the shortest day but actually turned out to be a long difficult day after they came across a group of girls doing their Duke of Edinburgh award. One of their party had collapsed and neither they nor the boys had any signal on the mobiles. As police officers they have basic first aid skills and were able to put the young girl into recovery and decided it was a severe case of heat stroke and de-hydration along with massive panic attacks. After calming her down and re hydrating her they then had to set about bringing her off the mountain. Eventually once the signal on their mobiles came back they rang her support vehicle and found a place that the van could reach but it was some 3 miles away and took another 3 and a half hours to get her there. Once they had safely handed her over she was rushed to hospital! Once they had actually finished the walk they headed to the nearest pub and were met by a round of applause from people also walking the route who had seen what they had done. So far from the shortest day it ended up with two exhausted hero’s, well that’s what a group of Americans said LOL.

Photo taken at Grisedale Tairn

28th June - Day 4 Patterdale to Sharp

 

The official route was 16 miles today but they added in the extra 3 taking the walk from its 197 miles to the 200 they wanted. Not counting the 1 and a half-mile they took a detour on due to bad navigating Lol.

Today they climbed to he highest point of the walk Kidsty Pike at 2,650feet!

Resting stop for the night was rather aptly The Greyhound Inn, where hopefully there was a bath for them to soak their tired feet in. 5 days to go and both boys are shattered! from now on in they will be stepping up the daily miles to an average of 22 per day but the terrain does now start to flatten out which should make it a bit easier.

68 Miles done!

Day 1 and 2 of the walk

25th June - Day 1 St Bees to Ennerdale


A nice easy start to the walk with a short romp of 14.75 miles!  A good chance to get used to walking with the backpacks and trying out the navigating skills LOL.Weather forecast is cloudy/drizzle and 15 degrees

A time tested tradition marks the start of the walk with a paddle in the sea at St Bees before setting off.

and a photo pointing to the start of the coast to coast walk...


26th June - Ennerdale to Grasmere 24 miles!

From Ennerdale the walk starts to get serious with very difficult terrain and steep declines! Greenup Edge took them up as high as 2,000 where the visibility rapidly deteriorated and the path down couldn’t be found! Eventually they got back on course with another steep climb up to 1,600 ft at High Crag followed by another steep decline down to Grasmere their stopping point for the night!

38 miles completed! 

and not without pain! 

 

Marc's boots despite being broken in are giving him severe discomfort over his ankle he broke a few years ago, luckily they've found a shop and bought him a pair that will sit lower and hopefully make the walk more comfortable as the reality of doing it in 9 days and not the normal 12-14 days is just starting to sink in LOL.

 

and they're off

So Marc and Steve are now on the way to Carisle ready to start the walk tomorrow. A big thank you to Virgin for the complimentary tickets! weather forecast is rain, rain and more rain for the first 3 days! 200 miles in 9 days is going to be hard going.

Papermaze crop

had a lovely day at Papermaze crop and actually started and finished a layout LOl. First time in many months i scrapped something completely original, I think when you don't scrap so much the creativity seems to dry up and I've had so many kits to use I just haven't bothered doing my own thing.

Bought these papers last year to use for Marc and Rachael's wedding and decided they would do for this Lo, photo's are of Vikki and Mathew at Eric's birthday bash, I asked them to smile for a nice photo and they just wouldn't play ball, anyway he who laughs last etc etc so i used them anyway!

Mum and Dad are back from America and Marc and family from France, although Marc sets off again Friday to start the coast to coast walk Saturday and we have some very dear friends arriving Saturday for 5 days so it's all still hectic here LOl.

Oh and the other piece of news is Eric has finally been discharged from hospital. On Monday he went for test, then back Friday to see consultant and results. Apparently he has the profile of an athlete, lord knows how he got his helmet on to ride home! I feel a funny Lo coming on. They still couldn't explain why it happened, just one of those things I guess.

On Wednesday our friend Bim had to let her greyhound go to the bridge. Now Jess adored Eric and stayed with us many times over the last 8 years, so it was decided that Jess should have her finally resting place in our garden, she was after all an honoury member of the Taylor pack and would have run through fire to get to her beloved Eric. Jess was just short of her 13th birthday and had a wonderful life with Bim and far from it being a sad burial it turned out to be a celebration of her life and quite an emtional evening but in a nice way. Sleeptight dear Jess.

Hounds are all well (touching wood).........

Sue x

Super weekend

Dawn and I had a lovely weekend away, weather was iffy but didn't really bother us as we were scrapping LOL. Managed 6 layouts and Dawn a whooping 8.

First up a gorgeous kit from Vanessa at papermaze using papers from My little shoe box.

 This from Bramford crop designed by Janina using papers from Kaisercraft

 This is  made up from leftover scraps, saw something similar whilst blog hopping and just sort threw it together, A few well placed embellishments hides all the joins in the papers LOl

 this is my favourite another one from Vanessa using papers Pink Paisley

 Love the simplicity of this one from Janina Basic grey papers

and this last one also from Janina at Bramford crop, some of which I did digi at home because no way I can sew at the moment LOl.

Hounds all well and happy to see their Mum back home!

Busy weekend

Well that shocked my surgeon when he suggested we wait and give the wrist some more healing time LOL don't think he could quite believe I agreed to it so readily LOL. So back in 6 weeks for x-ray and all being well book next op which will be to take out 1 pin and replace knuckles! of course the op I really want is to repair ruptured tendons but that has to be done last, ho hum guess I had better get used to poking myself and dogs in the eye with my sticky out finger.

Been a busy old weekend, well actually it started Friday what with having to be at hospital for 8.30am, then Marc and Rachael's big move and a few problems from Mother (How can me muuver create havoc when she's on holiday in America) !

Eric had a few hours off from doing lots of bits for Marc and went for a nice bike ride Sunday, whilst I got on and finally finished pots and baskets.

Looking forward to Friday when Dawn and I go off for our yearly weekend away to Norfolk. Lots of scrapping and chilling out time and maybe the odd malteser LOL.

Lucky is still looking really well, paws crossed.

Round Up

Good grief where do the days go!

Mojo has had his stitches out, bit tricky as he shook so bad LOL.

Lucky also visited the vets and he was totally astounded at how well she is since starting the steroids. So the plan is to continue on same dose for two weeks then reduce for two weeks then back to the vets. Lucky is back to being her normal happy bouncy self, still has the horrible fur loss but we think there may be a tiny bit of regrowth coming.Just wish we knew what's behind all the problems!

Ruby has snapped another nail, blow me if not 5 minutes before Eric said her nails are starting to improve just one dodgy one left. Well the one dodgy one snapped, loads of blood and her foot is really sore.

Having spent all of Saturday and Sunday working on the dog mobile, the old Volvo is back in service phew! we are totally lost without it  lord knows how long Eric can keep resurrecting it LOl.

I'm off to the hospital tomorrow and am hoping the surgeon will agree to giving me another month to carry on healing before we start the next lot of operations. The darn pin has moved again and now the knuckle and finger are dislocated but other than that it's starting to feel a bit better.

No scrapping last Friday or tomorrow BUT loads the following weekend as Dawn and I are off on our yearly chill out weekend. A caravan in Caistor where we scrap, chat, eat loads of maltesers and drink earl grey. BLISS!

Not much to share but don't think this has been blogged, Vikki's birthday card. Another hybrid project.

Going to be a busy few days a Marc is moving tomorrow!