I went over to England to go to the British Cardiac Society meeting.  There are multiple reasons for this, but primariIy it is a good general cardiac education meeting to keep me up to date, and it is held in Manchester, which is both easily accessible, and in the north of England.  This was to be a very short visit to the UK, for tedious reasons to do with hospital administration, but managed to have many of my core group of friends come to see me at the house in Cark owned by Mark and John.

   It is safe to say that we had an excellent extended weekend in the Lake District. John and I drove up to Cark from Manchester.  The first person to arrive after us was Dave Thomas, my longest-standing friend, as we have known each other since schooldays.  Our  first day walking was a relatively easy walk up Tom Gill to Tarn Hows.     

The next day [Friday] we decided to do a walk which I have never done, despite it being a walk “local” to my old stamping ground – we walked from the Walna Scar Road up Brown Pike and Buck Pike to Dow Crag, then over to The Old Man of Coniston.  Heaven knows how many times I have stood on the top of the Old Man, but I had never been up Dow Crag before, and never walked this path before.

It was a long walk, and an excellent test of my balance (still not quite back to normal after my bike accident) and my stamina (definitely not so good after two months “rest”).

That evening most of the remaining party arrived: Steve and Christine drove over from Sheffield, David and Amaryllis caught the train over from Leeds (they had been visiting their daughter Isobel, an “old” friend of ours – about contemporary with Nick and Andrew).

The next day [Saturday] was another “new” walk for me: almost unbelievably I had never climbed Pike of Blisco, which is a peak right in the middle of the Lakes – at the end of Crinkle Crags, up from Great Langdale. 

I am not sure why we/I had never climbed Pike of Blisco before, because it is a really good walk to do, with great views from the top. A great walk, but we were very tired by the end

Charlotte and Andrew arrived that evening, and the party of ten was complete (fortunately Steve and Christine had arranged to sleep in a nearby cottage – Mark and John’s house has a maximum of two double beds and three singles, although in every other way it was perfect for the big group).

The following day [Sunday] we were restricted to flat walking by a number of factors, not least being my left knee, which becomes painful after repeated impacts, such as descending Pike of Blisco (!) so we did a couple of relatively gentle and local walks. 

The first was around the coastal margin of the Cartmel Peninsula, and then after lunch we walked up Ellerside to gain a lovely view over the whole peninsula [View over the Cartmel Peninsula 2 small.jpg copy].  The evening meal, cooked by Charlotte and myself was a meal reminiscent of the original Woodgate Weekends – entirely vegetarian, a little see-what-works, but delicious in the end.  A vegetable roast, and what started off to be a vegetable-and goat’s cheese pasta meal, but ended up as pasta without pasta, because I had prepared too many potatoes.  There you go.

I am pleased, in a way, to say that on occasions we were restricted in what we could do by lack of motor transport.  Several people made use of the fact that Mark and John’s house is 50m from Cark and Cartmel railway station.  So the next day [Monday] we caught the train from Cark to Silverdale station for our walk, which started off going through the bird reserve at Leighton Moss, then through Leighton Hall grounds.

The next day [Tuesday] was slightly sad in that people had to leave eventually and by today everyone bar the Coulshed brothers had gone.