Football football football

and hiking - a load o' men walking about on a hill

and camping - a load a men sittin in tents

and drinkin - a load o' men sittin in a pub

Eight Borders Hills at Hermitage Water

As I was saying to the Foreign Secretary in bed this morning - “I’m a bit stiff today, due to all those Scottish contours”". It’s your turn to make the cornflakes by the way”

Due to not being able to sleep, I set off to Scotland outrageously early- early for me anyway – and passing the drawer with the dog leads in , noticing the lack of a dog gazing hopefully at the drawer whikst wagging his tail (sniff….) and pointed the knipemobile up through Tynedale and past Kielder to the extremely lovely and soothingly quiet  little dale containing Hermitage Water. And, after parking badly on some juncus, I marched purposefully up the road and across a soggy moor to the top of Geordies Hill.

Geordie’s Hill, 464m for those who like this sort of thing, is a Sub-HuMP. that is to say that it’s not quite a HuMP, having only 90 metres of re-ascent.

From here a grassy and ever-so-wet ridge presents itself and , with a fence to guide the walker who’s breakfast has worn off already, a number of tops are fairly easily bagged, although the going underfoot is variously tussocky , heathery and soggy.

Thus Tamond Heights 450m comes and goes, followed closely by Mid Hill 436m and then the more shapely ridge of Unthank Pikes leading to Pike Fell at 499m and a proper HuMP.

Here, the drizzle and mizzle had stopped and the cloud slowly lifted in the strong but cold breeze and an early lunch was had hiding in a peat hag.

After this, there’s a big drop to Ludsgill Sware – a pass or bealach  joining the Tarras with Hermitage – and a bit of a heave up on to Scawd Bank – a Donald Dewey at 547 metres. Rough going leads to Wetherhorn Hill, another Donald Dewey at 522 metres and a lovely , sunny spot behind it’s big, sheltering cairn for another lunch. Wetherhorn looks nothing like a sheep’s horn, but , being off the main ridge and a bit isolated, it has fabulous views across a beautiful green jumble of hills.

More rough stuff followed and a contouring traverse to an estate road brought a bit of relief before yet more deep heather and failing legs to the top of Din Fell at 529 metres and yet another Donald Dewey.

Finally, I did the long tail of Ewe Hill 471 metres and furnished with lovely, soft bilberries on which to have a bit of a nap, just out of the nithering wind and just hot enough to burn. Ewe Hill needs to be visited in August with a basket or a bag in which to put all your bilberries. Its a fine view from the top as well, so…..

I came down to a steep track leading to Twislehope where a huge pack of hounds announced my arrival at a vast number of decibels. Anybody considering sneaking up on Twislehope should be advised to forget it… they’re still howling now, I should think.

The knipemobile was still where I left it.

I did twelve and a half miles with just about 3000 feet of up. This was quite hard going for somebody who’s been a bit lazy recently and, also considering that I didn’t have my usual tow up the hills (all you needed to do was mentions wabbits or pussycats).

Incidentally – a great big thanks to all who commented nicely on the previous post – the Life and Times of Bruno the Superdawg – not many scraggy old mongrels get so much attention when they go – and a specially BIG thanks to Ben D who bunged some spondoolies into the virgin money giving account in memory of Bruno. Its all a great comfort. And I do need another dog , now….

Here’s a map.

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The Life and Times of Bruno The Superdawg

This post has taken me a few days…..

Bruno’s parentage is probably unknown. He arrived here at Pietowers as a hillwalking replacement for my old dog Jenny who had been banned from hills by the vet, having refused to climb White Meldon near Peebles, due, probably to a chest pain. She was subsequently diagnosed as having angina and so, I had to have another dog.

So, on a visit to a local pet rescue centre where they let you choose a dog after taking one for a short walk, he was the first to be watching me closely and, apparently listening to what I said, and he was wagging his tail at me so hard I thought he might take off. So he was an easy choice. According to the vet he was a “Collie Cross” He had a much richer genetic make-up than that, though – a bit of everything, in fact. One individual recognised him as a “Cumbrian Dingo”.

I say that his parentage was “probably” unknown because the rescue centre I got him from had “lost” his file and, when we took him to the vet for his initial check up, the vet had seen this underweight, underdeveloped young dog before, several times. The vet declared that we “might have trouble” with this one and advised us on distraction techniques.

As it happened, there were no problems at all. He was a bit mischievous, and obviously driven by food when he discovered how to open the fridge and that it was full of delights. On the first occasion he only ate the bacon. On the second, he scoffed the bacon, marge, cheese, some ham and half a carrot. We put a child lock on the fridge.

Anything eatable left unattended  would disappear and this included several mars bars, a plate of egg and chips, some very posh nougat intended for a TGO challenge and a few doggy mouthfulls of St Bruno tobacco. This lead to his second visit to the vet when I found him staggering around the room vomiting with his eyes rolling in his head.

His first walk was in the company of Jenny, and our other dog Tammy on 3rd February 2002. It was obvious from the start that this dog had a fear of being left behind and never wandered far away, always having an eye out for where I was and what I was doing. I never had to train him at recall and he was good at returning on command until the last few months of his life when he seemed to start ignoring me. I suspect that his eyesight wasn’t so good at this point.

His first fellwalk was on 19 February 2002 and we went up the Green Trod. During this walk, everything was new to him and slightly scary – he hated the wobblyness of Wynch bridge, threatened the stone sheep, threatened a hay bale, fell in the very cold Blea Beck, threatened the River Tees and developed a real fear of water. He also ate several pounds of sheep shit and during this walk and, I noticed, didn’t pee till he got back to the knipetowers garden some eight or nine hours after setting off. He wouldn’t drink water out of the beck either and he didn’t seem to recognise it as the same stuff that was in his water bowl. All of this was subsequently resolved on walks with Rothman’s Walking Club, particularly a walk across the sands at Lindisfarne where his fear of being left behind was stronger than his fear of crossing the deep and wide leads of salty water. It was during these walks that he also developed his friendly attitude to walkers in car parks, since he assumed that these people, all armed with tasty titbits , would be going on a walk with me and, therefore, had to be got “on side”.

It was on a walk during February 2002 – on Sighty Crag, that I learned a new trick – that was to guard my lunchbox well. I lost my ginger bun within seconds of opening the box. Maybe this was what the vet was talking about. He also clearly blamed me personally for the cold and squally closely packed hail showers blatting up the Solway Firth to give us a bit of a thrashing.

Bruno soon learned that peeing out on the hills was acceptable and that it was possible to quench your thirst in a beck or a puddle and that snow meant fun and he was quite quickly having a whale of a time on the hills – early walks took in Roan Fell at Langholm, Stainton Pike and Fleetwith Pike/Haystacks.

We also learned that Bruno’s determination to please had a pay-off in that all we needed to do to counteract any naughtiness was to look disappointed and say “Oh Bruno, what have you done..” and he would take himself on to the doormat and hang his head in shame. In fact, if he’s done something naughty which you hadn’t yet discovered, he would already be there on the mat, looking guilty. This was a clever strategy in that it was so funny that it was impossible to be really annoyed. Usually, he’d just scoffed something that he shouldn’t have done, or emptied the waste bin in the kitchen.

Bruno had a set of teeth that could easily break an arm or crush a hand should he ever be so inclined, so it’s lucky that he retained a fairly rosy view of humanity in general and assumed that everybody was full of good intent. This didn’t apply to any dog who was bigger than himself and here, he was always determined to get his revenge in first. This could be a problem on our local regular wander up the Deerness Valley Way – a very popular doggy walking route.

Bruno had one really useful skill. Using his nose, he could retrace his steps for mile after mile – to the point where, if I followed him, I would be able to spot my own bootprints. Presunalbly he was following his own scent. He could also follow obscure and intermittent paths in the thickest of weather. I used this skill several times and, on one occasion, as a back-up when I turned up at Greg’s Hut for a climb up Cross fell without a map.

Jenny died but Tammy soldiered on for a long time and she used to ambush Bruno at teatime. She would hover over her meal, not touching it, whilst Bruno wolfed down his in a few seconds. After he’d finished, he would turn his attentions to Tammy’s food dish, at which point she would attack him quite viciously. We developed a system of holding back some of Bruno’s kibble biscuits and, when he’s finished, we engaged him with a game of chucking the things down the hallway for him to hunt. To his final days, this was his favourite game and, in the end, it was the only way to get him to eat anything. When he finally couldn’t be arsed with it, it was a clear signal that it was time to go.

Bruno’s last walks were on Druridge Bay with Mick from Northumberland with his arty leg and three mini-dogletts and, finally, at Bollihope where the three or four miles down by the beck to Cowboy pass (aka the Forgotten Quarry) were more than enough for him.

Bruno’s decline and death on 30 May this year are well documented in this blog, so I’m not going back into this painful stuff.

At the moment, I’m waiting for his ashes to come back and the plan is to take these to a meadow in Halifax (yes, I know this sounds unlikely!) and use his ashes and the ashes of at least six other pets that we’ve collected over the years to start off a small copse of oak trees in one corner. We think that the meadow might be protected somewhat from development due to the fact that it’s been managed for sixty or more years – and probably more than that in the same traditional way as other meadows in the North of England – and seems to have similar arrays of wild flowers to meadows in Swaledale, Teesdale and Weardale.

My affection for this mongrel pooch should be obvious to anybody reading, not just this blog post, but the whole of the blog. There is a silent and empty space here at knipetowers and at some point, probably in late summer, I’ll be getting another dog. I just hope that the new one will be able to drive.

Through The Past Wetly from Shildon National Railway Museum (near the Co-Op)

And so, following all the recent excitements, it was back to guided walks.

This one was proposed by one of the walkers who, if her name wasn’t Kathy, would be anonymous. It appeared initially in the Grauniad newspaper and after I’d finished with it, it wasn’t exactly the same…

I did the reccy on the Saturday and we walked yesterday (Wednesday) when, despite the terrible weather forecast and, indeed, the terrible weather, there was sixteen of us including me and the stewards Eric and Neville. I have no idea what gets into these peeps to turn out on such a drippy day.

The reccy went reasonably well and, it was noted, that once over the border with Darlington Borough Council, the footpath signs either disappeared or had suffered fatal damage, many of the paths were outrageously overgrown, there were locked gates, wobbly stiles and generally, it was tough going.

This was partly due to the crops and the deep and wet grass which made progress quite a bit like walking through  deep,wet snow. But we remained defiant and cheerful (I was cheerful anyway…) and we were let into the little church at Bolam so we could have our lunch break out of the driechness. There had been a plan for coffee and scones at the church, but this couldn’t be organised in time, so we had our own stuff. It was good to get out of the rain, though.

After this we battered on regardless until all difficulties had, through sheer determination and stoicism, and an extra mars bar or two, been overcome.

The walk’s theme was the historic 1825 railway system, an old extension to the Darlington-Stockton line using static steam engines to winch the trains over the hills, horses, and gravity. More histeric..er historics lay on the line of Dere Street, the strategic roman road from York to Edinburgh (one of our longer established rights of way…) and the unmarked site of a roman marching camp and then back by devious  and very damp (occasionally flooded) means via the outer suburbs of Heighington, the noisy traffic-blasted Redworth and  various Granges and Mills.

It were right damp.

Twelve and a half miles and here’s a map for anybody daft enough to try it (although many of these paths do need pedestrian traffic quite badly)

Click logo to donate!!

Loadsa Work for Charriddee

A quick update on the charity stuff before I return dogless to the hills:
May saw a big increase on the amount of dosh going to Mind, mainly due to the Cafe Akto activities. But there was also a small bunch of donations separate from cafe Akto and these were more than generous.
Additionally, Dawn donated a PHD jacket and this was sold on the walkersforum site for £70
Another £368 was added to the total, making the current amount of spondoolies  £743.75. This isn’t the amount in the virgin money giving account because there’s been donations outside that account.
So, thanks to all the cafe akto donators plus Andrew, Kate and Brenda and Andrew (different Andrew, I suspect!) who also bunged money into the virgin money giving account.
A spreadsheet and bar chart appears below, plus a Smashie and Nicey Christmas video as a special treat to everybody who’s been good through May and those who’ve been naughty aren’t allowed to watch.

Nov 2013	£50.00	£50.00
Dec 2013	£37.50	£87.50
Jan 2014	£138.75	£226.25
Feb 2014	£25.00	£251.25
Mar 2014	£106.25	£357.50
apr 2014	£17.50	£375.00
may 2014	£368.75	£743.75