Wednesday 30 January 2008

An Unexpected Bonus

I was in Ambleside today. Unfortunately, it was for work. I've had  three days there over the last few months and every time it has chucked it down. I suppose that it would be even more frustrating to be amongst mountains but stuck indoors on a perfect day.

Anyway, the bonus was that the course finished earlier than expected. On the way home, I made  a diversion down Windermere so that I could get up Gummer How in what remained of the daylight.

It was still raining and I wasn't really suitably dressed or shod, but the cloud had noticeably lifted and beggars can't be choosers....

I didn't even get as far as the top - I'd promised to be home to take nipper number 3 for his late afternoon pushchair ride/nap - but I enjoyed being out none the less. I got high enough to have a view of Morecambe Bay, Whitbarrow Scar and across the Kent estuary to Arnside Knot, which from there looks like a small hill nestled in amongst much bigger ones. (Which it sort of is - but the bigger hills are quite distant from it.) On reflection, it's probably slightly odd that whenever I walk slightly further from home than usual, it always gives me great satisfaction to look back and see Arnside Knot (from the North) or Warton Crag (from the South) - the little hills that bracket home.

As I neared the road and the car park I could see that the cloud was continuing to lift - the Langdale Pikes were clear, the Coniston Fells were clearing and Caw just had a final cap of cloud that looked like it might lift at any moment.

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