355.8 kms: Carlisle-Low Crosby-Bleatarn-Walton-Low Rigg.

You probably don't want to know this but I keep getting rashes. Too late, now you know. I find it disturbing too. And they are on spots that people can see at a casual glance. Today it is on the backs of my calves and around the edges of my socks as well as one arm. I have no idea what is causing it. I don't recall being nettle-bit. I have changed Olay cream/suntan lotion today but if it was that why isn't it everywhere that I put the cream and why is inside the sock line of one foot? I don't think it is sunburn even though it is burning like mad—it isn't uniform and doesn't look particularly like sunburn. Maybe it is heat rash. It was the hottest day today—no wind or breeze at all. I had made a solemn promise to not stop before twenty k's. As you can see I broke the promise. Excuses I gave myself all come courtesy of the Rambling Rose Tearooms in Walton. Dee, one of the proprietors, told me that they did dinners on sunday and monday nights; I read that as nowhere within possible walking distance for my twenty k's does dinner and I am hungry today. Dee told me about a B&B (Low Rigg Farm; www.lowriggfarm.co.uk; their beautiful view attached) six hundred meters away that only had one room filled tonight so far—out of nine; I read that as 'whoo hoo, they have vacancies!' Dee told me that the really hilly bits start soon after Walton; I read that as 'well, your knee is playing up now, what will it be like if you have to go on the really hilly bits!!' So here I am at Low Rigg Farm, just had my lovely dinner at the Rambling Rose (Andy's signature Thai green curry, and mixed fruit crumble with custard). The owners of the other boots at the door of the B&B were also there and invited me to eat with them. They are Belle and Belle's beau—I am really disappointed with my terrible name sense. I try to listen and retain but they fly into spaces of my brain that I can't retrieve them from. Annoyed! 

I am quite enjoying Hadrian's Wall so far. I will enjoy it even more if the predicted cloudy and seventeen degrees happens tomorrow. Bliss!! Give me two days of that and I am sure I will have some sort of a complaint. The enjoyment stems from relative flatness and ease of finding your way on the track. It also comes in the little surprises along the way. I have seen a couple of honesty boxes and self-serve shacks where goodies and drinks are offered at extremely reasonable prices. I stopped for a while on the grass beside the 'Stall on the Wall' and ate a chocolate bar and drank blackcurrant juice. Shortbread biscuits also made their way into my bag courtesy of the stall. Possibly the cow next door gets fed too many stall treats as she was lowing at me with great expectations. City Slicker moment: I missed a sheep in the same field giving birth by possibly only minutes. One baby was up on sturdy-ish legs, the other was still trying hard. Mum was licking them clean. They were so cute. There was a farm that had set up a portaloo. There was a pub in Low Cosby that was possibly the snuggest and cosiest one I have ever seen—thank goodness it wasn't a bleak, dreary day because I wouldn't have left. I was outside instead. I cannot imagine what the drunks on a saturday night must look like when they come out after a session though—they would have matching welts and bruising on foreheads whacked on low beams. There was, of course, the Rambling Rose Tearooms. The village had poached Dee and Andy from their tearooms outside Brampton to come and be the teashop in Walton because the pub has closed down and there is nowhere for the locals and the walkers. The ex-publican still lives there and offered the pub up for sale at two-twenty grand. The Village did a major fundraiser and raised almost the whole amount and then he refused to sell saying the price had gone to three-fifty. Now he spends his spare time hiding the tearoom's sign in the hedge. Odd fellow.

 

There are scales in the bathroom. I did it again. I got on them in the afternoon, after a scone with jam and cream, three cups of tea and a gingerbeer. I have only lost three kilos. Three kilos in three hundred kilometres. It is the new thing I obsess about at night when I am going to sleep—falling over with my rucksack on has had to take a backseat. That is why I made the twenty kilometre pledge. That is why I tried to go faster today (and probably why I ended up with a sore knee). That is why I pledged to only eat meat and vegetables and cakes—so no potatoes, bread, sweets, pasta, rice, soft drink, alcohol, point living. I think what I am giving up is pledging; I am not very good at it. Can I say in my defence that there are not a lot of vegetables on offer. I'm just saying ... easier to get cake ... not an excuse ... but ...

 

Good night to Low Rigg, good night to you.

 

P.S: Today also had a running pheasant. There is nothing in the world funnier than a running pheasant. If John Cleese was a bird he would be a pheasant—physically, not mentally. He would be smarter than an infinity of pheasants I would say. But I cannot stop laughing when I see one. The cows thought I was mad.