A place called Knipe

…And finally, I don’t expect anybody to read this blog post tonight, but I just thought I’d round off the year whilst waiting for Jools Hollands Hootenanny and whilst I’m still reasonably sober – whatever happenned to Andy Stewart?

So me and superdawg bagged our last bag of 2008 today – a Wainwright outlier and Birkett and quite nice limestone hillock at Shap called … Knipescar Common.

I think that’s a rather fine name for a hill. It also has Knipe Moor, Knipe Hall , Knipe Fold and..er… Shap.

Unfortunately, we failed to break through the fog into the lovely warm sunshine which was probably shining a hundred or so feet above us. As it was, it was minus 6 C when I set off and this had decreased to Minus 7 C when I returned to the car a couple of hours later. Both me and the dawg developed frosty decorations in the form of beard icicles (me) and a sort of sugar coating on the eyebrows, ears and tail (the dog)

Despite the fog, we found both tops and a nice permissive path not marked on the map, but running parallel to the crag scarp through the Lowther estate. The ground was frozen quite hard and made climbing up or down steep bits a bit of a lottery since my boots couldn’t get any sort of purchase. I expect there’s a rather fab view of the main Lake District fells from the top, too.

Incidentally, bearing in mind that there was very thick fog and the temperature was around minus six on the motorway, and I was driving much too fast at 70 mph, how come I was constantly passed by people blatterring into the gloom at 80+ mph with no lights on? Eeeeze Crayzeee. Or as Rolf Harris once so succinctly put it “minnneeah minnnnah minnnnnnah minnnnnah” Thought provoking, I’m sure you’ll agree

Anyway that’s it for me for 2008. That was my 127th walk and my 1175th mile this year (last year if you’re reading this next year – or this year if its this year when you’re reading about ..er…last year… or sumfink, innit? I wonder if I can manage 128 walks next year?

Over and out and get the whisky out. Happy New Year and stuff like that anyway…