I trust you are well and haven’t bankrupted yourself in the Black Friday sales or gone mad with pre-Christmas hysteria.
The last-but-one blog!
I have said that before, but as Mark Renton said “This was to be my final hit, but let’s be clear about this. There’s final hits and final hits. What kind was this to be?”
For a messed up junkie, the man was a prophet way ahead of his time!
So, with references clearly stuck in the 90’s and before, what is happening to a man who battles with the uncomfortable bedfellows of tradition and progress?
Well, having been highly inspired by my mate John. I am switching this nonsense from a blog to a kind of vlog (or more likely, haphazard videos).
John makes outstanding Youtube videos of his runs into the hills, I have been considering switching from written bobbins content to video bobbins content for a while now. The main obstacles right now are that I don’t have a camera (bar my crappy, temperamental mobile) and I have zero idea about editing, but never let supposed hurdles spoil an ambitious/audacious daydream 🙂 I love writing this blog, mainly for its cathartic qualities, but I would love to learn/try something new.
If you are interested, please click on the link and subscribe. Being brutally honest I gave up social media about 5 years ago, so this does feel a bit strange, but if you don’t try, you never know. It is not going to be “Look at me-my life is 100% amazing”, more down to earth, if I ever do start taking myself too seriously, please slap me down, immediately. Youtubing? Watch this space!
2023 running wrap-up – A year of two halves.
A brilliant year up to July and then everything seemed to turn to rat$hit soon after. Work to do for next season.
All races are measured on the FEPO scale (I have just made this up).
Fun Epicness Performance Overall
April Guisborough Moors Race
Going back to a race I said I would never go back to (after being disqualified after winning the Boys race in 1988), I swallowed my pride and hoped for the best. More of a trail/road race, I gave it my best and had ny best descent of the year, finishing absolutely empty. Fun – 4 Epicness – 3 Performance – 3 Overall – 3
June Ennerdale Horseshoe fell race
During the glorious heatwave that was the summer, Ennerdale was held on a day where Blighty was more scorchio than Ibiza! A race which has an easy last 6 miles, but it’s the tough 18 miles beforehand that is the problem, as are the cut-offs! A record number of drop-outs (heat) and a finish that was a cross between a war zone and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I drank 4 pints of water before the race, 4 pints during the race and 4 pints after the race, and I was still peeing bright yellow the next morning!
Fun – 3 Epicness – 5 Performance – 3 Overall – 4
July Wasdale Horseshoe fell race
A tough cookie of a race. Runnable first quarter, but a rough last three quarters. Held on the 1st of July, the same day that summer ended and a race which was almost cancelled the day before, due to a storm forecast to roll in midrace. Got sunburnt in the first hour and ended up almost hypothermic in the last hour. Very satisfying to get round, but was completely broken afterwards! (I had fallen coming off Pillar, but was aching everywhere afterwards, so it wasn’t that bad).
Fun – 2 Epicness – 5 Performance – 4 Overall – 5
August Borrowdale fell race
After acclimatising (to the rain) in Kendal for a week beforehand, I felt ready. Unfortunately my clumsiness led to a slip, trip, stumble, sidewards crash into a boulder with my ribs about 2 miles in. It was too early to drop out so I carried on but suffered for the rest of the race and was sidelined for a fortnight afterwards, trying not to cough, laugh, sneeze or tie my left foot shoelaces. This was where the season fell to pieces!
Fun – 2 Epicness – 4 Performance – 2 Overall – 2
October Hodgson Brothers fell relay
A late call-up for the team and one that I couldn’t turn down. Paired up with my Morley mate, Charlie Mac, on the last leg, I tried my best to hand onto Charlie’s coat-tails. He was kind enough not to run me into the ground. I climbed badly and descended even worse. Great to see all the P&B crew, but we didn’t win, nor would we have won with my lame efforts.
Fun – 5 Epicness – 3 Performance – 2 Overall – 4
November Half Trog fell race
Another race, another faceplant! Last minute entry, had run the full trog before, a log time ago. Was doing ok and was even in the top 10 (briefly), but a sly rock caught my left foot and I went down like a sack of spuds, one of those downhill no time to put your hands out, head hits floor, birds flying round afterwards. Then got lost (twice). A day best written off.
Fun – 1 Epicness – 2 Performance – 2 Overall – 1
November Tour of Pendle fell race
The last long race of the year. Covering every inch of Pendle Hill, with the infamous “Geronimo” descent and 3 big climbs in the latter stages. Half an hour of sun, 3 hours of fog, rain and wind. A day where I didn’t get going until the last few miles (it’s a 17 mile race, so that is not good). Had problems with the foot I had fallen on the week prior, which made uphills and downhills tricky. Was fine for the last mile of flat. A curtain closer for 2023.
Fun – 3 Epicness – 3 Performance – 3 Overall – 3
Racing aside, there were other highs with supporting two Bob Graham Rounds and an amazing 3 day trip to Bonny Scotland with my mate John.
I am very, very guilty of self disparagement (and how I wish I could drop this bad habit).
To say that in 2022, I really thought it was game over for all competitive sports, it hasn’t been a bad year. There is an uncomfortable and hard to swallow equation with training and fitness which is basically that
Hard training + not getting injured = improvment.
However, with the inexorable inevitability of aging, this sum is skewed somewhat, so Rejoice, o young man, in thy youth!
Hard training + more hard training = stay at the same level/get injured.
So it becomes,
Hard training + the four letter word (REST) + more hard training = just about stay at the same level.
Which means that it is very hard (but not impossible) to get fitter/faster as one gets older, but one is battling the law of diminishing returns.
BUT, as I tell myself, I’m not just about to pull on a GB vest and in the grand scheme of things, nobody (bar myself) really gives a monkeys, so just enjoy what you do (now) and don’t live in the past 🙂
Next season???
An empty calendar is always a dangerous thing! This year was weird in that it had no specific goal, I was just going from race to race and hanging on by my fingernails.
I generally HAVE to have a plan, or I go off my head. So, the main plan for next year is either The Ramsay Round (audacious) or the Tranter’s Round (ambitious). Aiming for midsummer weekend, time/training will tell.
As a warm-up, I am aiming for Duddon Valley or Ennerdale or… The Isle of Jura race
Lots of work to be done before then. Watch this space.
Raiders round-up
No news is good news, but it is the close season, so they aren’t going down or up or anywhere, just yet!
The future!
This blog will self destruct at midnight on NYE, to be reborn in a phoenix (nights) style reincarnation on my YouTube channel right here:
As a benchmark of the level of videos I might hopefully be making, here is a blast from the past from the dark days of Lockdown. We had to film our Superclunk.com Vlogs (sic) in the tiny gap that was Lina leaving the house to go to the shop and my morning online zoom job starting, which left about a 10 minute one-take-wonder window of opportunity. The youngster was only 6 at the time and was somehow following my lead! Inspired by Morecambe & Wise/Big Night Out style, if nothing else, it was fun, at a bit of a weird time, which lockdown was (and without going into lockdown wars, Arequipa lockdown was nuts!)
This was my favourite 3 minutes of nonsense, which brightened up an otherwise bonkers time.
This was a close second favourite 😉
Will shoehorn in one more blog afore this WordPress account turns into a pumkin/implodes at midnight on the 31st of December.
I trust you are in fine fettle. After the last ramble-on-and-on-a-thon, which was almost as long as our aborted Ramsay Round recce, this blog is a bit more one-shot-espresso than a double Mocha-choca-cino-with-a-99-flake.
RIP Frank.
Halloween, clocks changing and plunging into sudden darkness at 5:30pm means that autumn is here.
Time to change your window display.
Not my favourite season (being colourblind means that all the various tones of leaves are wasted on me), it is marginally better than winter, but roll on spring I say!
The youngster and her school choir were invited to a recording studio with a local York band, here is the end product. Not a band I had heard of, but a catchy little tune 🙂
Bogtrotting.
3 years ago today was my last race in Peru.The Misti Sky Race. A race and mountain I got a bit obsessed about, but sometimes that is only way to approach something that is way bigger than you (and your limits/skillset/cojones size).
I am still on their homepage , reminding me of unfulfilled business/daydreams in Peru…
Back to reality here in Blighty, to mark the occasion, I entered the Wadsworth Half Trog fell race in deepest, darkest Hebden Bridge. The Full Trog is in February and covers 20 miles of sloppy Pennine bogland, the half trog is just a half of the full and therefore weighs in at around 10 miles.
Fell races are abbreviated with a whole lexicon of abbreviations and acronyms. – “N” equals navigation required. – “LK” equals local knowledge (is an advantage)
Obviously I oversaw both of these when I entered on Friday night and was hoping for a clear day.
This was on their social media on Sunday morning: Perfect trog weather get the compass out
Tight lines.
Haven’t been out fishing with the bairn in a long time, not since a red hot day in summer, which now seems about 10 years ago. Been keen to get to the coast, but it was often a case of a) No time b) Crap weather c) Wrong tide times d) All of the above.
So, when all the planets seemed to align with Neptune’s Trident, we did an early morning dash to the East Coast, in the hope of catching something for our tea!
Sea fishing is different to freshwater fishing. It is free! (You need a licence and a permit to fish in most lakes, rivers and canals). You don’t have a clue what you will catch, (the sea is a big place). It is. You get a good feeling how King Cnut (not a typo) felt, as you are constantly battling with the tide, advancing or retreating and most likely getting wet.
Brilliant fun, but generally rather chaotic!
The Nipper always seems to get stuck into some sand art as we wait, but as the waves got wilder we started catching a few.
Final scores were Old man 3 Bairn 2 (last cast wonder by myself).
After a long ride home, stuck behind a truck doing 30mph all the way, I (badly) filleted our catch and we complemented it with a bag of chips from the amazing Kirkgate Chippy, (I am not sponsored by them, but I wish I was! 😁)
Musical interlude…
In the late 80’s, when I was busy working at Little Chef and doing my best at completely screwing up my A-levels (unintentionally, I so wish I had passed them), there seemed to brilliant bands playing in Leeds every week; at the old Poly, the Uni and the Duchess. It was a time when I naively thought all these good bands would last forever and gigs would always cost a fiver! One of the best concerts I had the good fortune to witness was The Cramps. Lux Interior and Poison Ivy, the king and queen of the weird, mixing up punk, rockabilly and B-movies into something quite, quite unique. Crazy times and happy days!
Raider’s round-up.
The close season means a well deserved rest on the old nerves and regrouping for the new seaspn (which will hopefully be better/less stressful than last season!)
Video killed the radio star?
A seed was planted on the recent Scotland trip (see video below).
It was an absolutely brilliant outing, filmed expertly by my mate John Like and subscribe to his awesome channel HERE
Although I do take photos (on my crappy phone, which is sooooo tempreramental in the wet or cold), video does seem to capture the occasion just that little bit better.
When we drove to Mongolia in 2012, one of my main objectives was to make a short film about it, for posterity. I took some advice off the Climbing film making genius that is Al Lee (see his fine work HERE) and he told me that the problem is (in climbing films) that the film gets in the way of the climbing which gets in the way of the film!
In other words, the amazing end product you see on YouTube is not just a case of point-shoot-ready, it has actually required a lot of graft (during and after film making) before the film maker presses “PUBLISH”.
This I found out only too well on the road to Ulan Battar, when we were overarmed with a 35mm camera, a GoPro, a Kodak Sport camera and 2 phones, ending up with loads and LOADS of footage, which takes forever to mangle into some kind of watchable film. (Plus the fact that I have never, ever edited a second of video footage and owe an unpayable debt to my mate, Matthew P, for editing weeks of junk to get a very satisfactory end product here 🙂
The quality of cameras available nowadays is amazing. GoPros were a real gamechanger: High quality footage, simple to use, bombproof and best of all, not a million quid. Action cameras mean that with some effort, it it possible for people outside National Geographic cab make high quality films, (with a lot of work, and a bit of magic/luck!)
However, as I said earlier, I have zilchio (post production) editing experience, which is where YouTube comes in, thank you tutorials!
The offshoot of all of this waffle is that I am thinking about switching this minestrone swirl of words, also known as a blog, into some kind of video format. It would have to be skimmed down and might be a bit rough and ready, but rather than spend 3-4hrs typing, I could spend that time editing and hopefully producing some kind of interesting content.
Why? For fame or fortune? I am not a massive fan of social media, so am I a hypocrite for now posting videos? Tricky one. Tiktokanory? Not really my thing to be honest. Just wanting to show a wee bit of the great outdoors, but definitely NOT in a “My perfect life is amazing-hashtag-look-at-me” kind of way, because it’s not. (Never ever used a hashtag and I am not about to start now!)
The biggest drive for me is to learn a new skill; making videos and editing. I am starting from scratch, so please bear with me.
I would be curious to hear any thoughts on this, if you have any 🙂 As always, watch this space…
I am (told and I agree that I am) stuck in the 1970’s. However, I almost wish I had been born in the 60’s, as just 3 years before I was born, THIS was happening!
Egremont Crab Fair, home of gurning and Speed Pipe Smoking!
Hoping to squeeze in one more wrap-up of 2023, before the blog turns into a pumpkin and self destructs at the chime of midnight on New Year’s Eve, to be reborn as some kind of YouTube channel.
Here is the latest wrap-up of gubbins that is the blog that is my jumbled up life! WARNING: The second half of this blog is a bit hillrunning heavy, if in doubt please just scroll down to the video at the end 🙂
It had been a bit of a quiet time since the last blog, ergo, no blogs. I bashed in my ribs at Borrowdale, which although not a showstopper, was enough to put a BIG spanner in the works for the remainder of summer. I couldn’t really do much at all for 2 weeks, then started training (pitifully lightly) but not enough to make a difference, so put all races on ice.
I did however get a late call up to the mighty P&B team for the Ian Hodgson Relays in Patterdale, a 4 leg-2 person relay, in which my old Morley mate Charlie and I ran the anchor leg from Hartsop over Hart Crag and St. Sunday Crag before plummetting down to Patterdale. Lack of fitness on my part, a very short distance (7 miles is the shortest fell race I have run in a long time) and a distinct lack of balls on my part (fortunately coupled with Charlie’s patience, as he was flying) left us mid-league at the end. It was however AWESOME to catch up with some old faces and meet some new ones. Some people flit from club to club to club, but Charlie and I both agreed that we were both P&B forever 🙂
Tight lines.
Just one fishing trip for the bairn and I of late. A boat trip off Whitby. Spent a lot of time sailing around and not a lot of time fishing, but caught enough for tea for 2 nights 🙂
New wheels!
After watching summer turn into autumn, back to summer, to autumn and then fade into darkness…
A series of events of coincidence, fate or maybe just sheer magic led me to Kettering to buy a second hand eBay bargain Cyclocross bike for a knockdown price.
In the not-so-great Fire-sale of 2021, I got rid of all my bikes, and the only wheels I had nowadays are those on my commuting bike, which I am borrowing on loan, so the birthday money and ebay sales fund was just enough to cover it.
A possible return to the (very back of the) muddy CX grid potentially beckons. Watch this space…
Carry on Camping!
Managed one last summer weekend trip away with the bairn. Just before the August Bank Holiday deluge.
Raiders round-up
As far as the men’s team goes, it was (as ever) a gradual nervous breakdown over the course of the season. After being in the promtion play-offs last year, 12 months on we had a desperate fight to survive the drop, and (as always) it went to the wire, to the last game, where Newcastle and Keighley went down and the poor old Flatcappers, Featherstone Rovers, were somehow denied promotion as Toulouse got it together to go up. Barrow men finished 4th bottom and survived relegation, just.
MEANWHILE, in the Ladies team, it was a very different story. An all-Cumbrian (Furness, Westmorland and Cumberland, but mainly Furness) side beat Leigh Leopards to get promoted to the Superleague!!! Always in top form, wining the last 6 games on the bounce.
Onwards and upwards for both teams next season!
“Up the road….”
As a young lad growing up in Cumbria (was Westmorland and now is Westmorland once again, but we won’t go there), this tune is one that sticks in my mind forever (followed by “This is Border Television, broadcasting to Cumbria, South west Scotland, the Isle of Man and North and west Northumberland, from the Caldbeck, Selkirk and associated transmitters of the independent broadcasting authority“, but you had to be there!
Anyway, as a result of being brought up on news of sheep rustling in Dumfries, Moffat and Peebles, I feel (and maybe other Cumbrians also feel) some kind of affinity with our geographically close Caledonian neighbours.
I have travelled round the World a fair bit, but my favourite place on this whole planet is the Scottish Highlands, I would move there in a hearbeat. I love Cumbria and the Lakeland fells, but the Scottish Munros (tops over 3000ft) are next level!
Round, round get around, I get around.
A “round” is a long distance fellrunning challenge. Not a race, not marked and a route which can be done anytime you fancy (although a winter round is a different proposition). The main objective of a round is to get round within 24 hours, even if it is 23:59:59
Bit of history. The Big 3. The Bob Graham Round (England, Lake District) First run in 1932 by Keswick Hotelier, Bob Graham, running in a pyjama top and sustained by boiled eggs. Traversing 42 fells, starting and finishing at Keswick Moot Hall taking in 66 miles (106 km) with 26,900 feet (8,200 m) of ascent. I did mine in 2009, it was an obsession, but it had to be, it was a grand day out!
The Paddy Buckley Round (Wales, Snowdonia) Cooked up by Paddy Buckley, but first run by Wendy Dodds in 1983. A round of 47 summits, 61 miles (100km-ish) 28000ft (8534ft) of uphill, another stiff day out.
The Ramsay Round (Scotland, Western Highland) The Tranter’s Round (devised by Phillip Tranter, a benefit of these rounds being that if you are the pioneer, you can name it after yourself) used to be the Scottish 24 hour challenge, taking in the Mamores, the Grey Corries, the Aonachs, Carn Mor Dearg and Ben Nevis. At 37 miles (59km) with 17717ft (5400m) of climbing, it’s a bloody long day out.
THEN the formidable Charlie Ramsay extended this to 58 miles (93km) with 28500ft (7500m) of climbing, by adding on a group of additional munros around Loch Trieg, which has more ascent than climbing Mount Everest from sea level!
(More about this chap later on…)
All of which leads to the latest obsession.
A possible 2024 Ramsay Round attempt???
I mentioned the idea to my mate John, who is a top bloke to spend time in the hills with and an outstanding Youtuber. He really knows his onions and also makes top class videos HERE.
The seed of an idea quickly sprouted into a plan, which quickly became reality. “Let’s go and have a look at it”.
So we did!
A loose plan of driving up to Fort William on the Monday, staying overnight in the Youth Hostel (conveniently the start and finish of the route), 3 days/2 nights in the field, doss down in Youth Hostel then drive home. Simple.
Doing what is nowadays known as “Fastpacking” (carrying all your kit and moving as fast as possible, but realistically not as fast as you would if you weren’t carrying a 10kg brick on your back!)
In essence, moving as fast as possible in the hills whilst being self contained with only the basic essentials. Simplicity.
Or so it sounded, then I tried packing enough in my ancient, diddy 27 litre racesack and skimmed down everything
Bare bones kit included: Tent-Sleeping bag-Sleeping mat-Stove-gas-Pan-Cup-Headtorch-spare clothes-first aid-enough food for 3 days on the hoof.
It was a squash and a squeeze, but in the end I had to scale everything right back to the lightiest/skimpiest I had, especially my sleeping bag and tent. In its day the Rab “Top” bag was a revolutionary concept in its day for all weight-freaks, racing snakes and outright masochists. It would not be out of place at a Rocky Horror Show.
It weighs about the same as a bag of chips as it is basically half a sleeping bag. Its design means that you cannot move at all whilst sleeping as the mesh base lets any heat you may have in there, fly right out…
Coupled with a tiny tent that would make a good crisp packet, I wasn’t in for a cosy night, but sometimes needs must!
Powered by Tailwind drink, Active Root Gel, malt loaf and a bagful of sugary carbs, I hoped it would be enough.
The round can be roughly split into 3 sections: 1) Glen Nevis YH over the Mamores to Loch Eilde Mor 2) Loch Eilde Mor round the tops of Loch Trieg to the Lairig Leagach. 3) Lairig Leagach over the Grey Corries, The Aonachs, CMD and Big Ben Nevis down to the YH.
This was just an exploratory recce, “having a look”, so the whole route was ambitious, especially with our loads and the time of year. A bit of a suck-it-and-see/play-it-by-ear approach.
So, after a great drive up in clear conditions, at 7am on Tuesday morning, after kipping in the red hot furnace that is the YH, we were ready for the off with the sun yet to rise (this is October we’re talking about and this is Scotland!)
Day I
Early doors-ish, heading up the Glen Nevis road in the half-light, looking for the secret fence crossing, which would lead us onto the forest track and then a kamikaze (abandoned) attempt to cut through the blown down forest beating a hasty retreat to the forest track, breaching the cloud inversion and up, up onto the ridge.
Heaven!
Munros as far as the eyes could see, including the mighty Ben Nevis uncapped with cloud, but capped with a dusting of snow. We started ticking off the unpronounceable Gaelic name summits.
Mullach Nan Coirean-Stob Ban (one of two)-Sgurr a Mhaim-Sgurr An Lubhair-Am Bodach-Stob Coire A Chairn-An Gearanach, including “The Devil’s Ridge!”
A gorgeous morning had given way to a brooding, grey and an increasingly gusty afternoon. The Mamores ridge includes 2 out-and-backs, the second of which we decided to drop off to find somewhere to camp, as time was ticking.
A noise that had been with us all day was the sound of rutting stags (what a great band name that would be!) We seemed to be in a valley surrounded by them, nature taking its course!
A Wayfayrer’s Veggie Curry disappeared down my gullet way too quickly and by 6:15pm, it was lights out/sundown for a l-o-n-g, cold (and generally sleepless) night, kept awake by the calls of randy deer!
Day II
Alarm set for 5:45am, which was ambitious and still absolutely pitch black but with the distinct possibility of rupturing my bladder, I got up and started the faff-a-thon which is breaking camp.
We hadn’t quite finished the Mamores, so therefore had to rethink our ideas. The Loch Trieg loop would be ambitious tagged on to the last few Mamores, and indeed, when we finally got on the ridge, the wind had other ideas for us.
(In reality the full route over 3 days would have meant 3 superlong days if the conditions had been favourable. As we had cut our first day short, we had to rejig our plans).
Although we had been following the mountain forecast very closely up to our departure, we were unaware that Storm “Babet” was brewing…
After summiting Na Gruagaichean (glad I am typing that and not tripping over the pronunication) the winds beat us down to the lonely valley along Loch Eilde Mor, but the winds still not letting up nor easing down.
“She’s not goona let us out”
Another route reassessment led us to head for the Meanach bothy. A “bothy” is a stone shelter, free to use and open to all, some more basic than others, but a good place to hide from foul weather. Meanach is a great two room bothy. After a brew, we headed north for the Lairig Leagach bothy, sacking off the Loch Trieg munros for another day. Even in the valley bottom, the swirling crosswinds and gusts made for an entertaining passage!
The only downside of a bothy is that you never know whether it will be full, (you can’t book and there is no way to check), so we plugged on, hoping there would be space as by now the wind was reaching crazy strength and there was little or no shelter to pitch our tents.
It was empty (other hillgoers must have seen the forecast) and we listened to the wind trying its utmost to rip the roof clean off all night, along with rutting stags (in between gusts).
In bed by 6:30pm for 10 hours in bed, but in reality a fitful few hours of shuteye before dawn, when at times the storm sounded to be dying down, but in fact it was merely building up!
Day III
The home straight, not!
The original plan had been to do the Grey Corries, The Aonachs and then Carn Mor Dearg arete, leading up to the high ground of Ben Nevis and down, down, down to the tropical climes of Glen Nevis Youth Hostel.
Heading up Stob Ban, the wind was howling in and also abruptly gusting. Now, if wind is (unidirectionally and constantly) strong, you can kind of brace yourself and adjust how you move, but sudden gusts are real sucker punches. The wind got wilder and wilder the higher we got, almost feeling like someone was angry with us for even being there! About 50ft from the top, the wind was pinning us down, preventing upwards or downwards movement. The main danger was not getting to the top, but getting off the top. We faced a very exposed ridge, at least where we were, we were being pushed into the slope. So, by sign language (for it was impossible to hear each other’s voices) we agreed to contour round to hopefully get out of the wind, which took time, but in actual fact was just as exposed. Pursuing the rest of the Grey Corries would have been suicide, so we decided to drop down. As we contoured further round, the relentless wind pursued us. I was about 10ft in front of John when I heard the rustle of his jacket. I turned around and a monstrous gust caught me off guard, taking me off my feet and dumping me several feet away, very, very fortunately not on a big pile of Quartzite! I had got my stick handle wedged under my bottom rib and ripped my jacket, but apart from a painful attack of cramp in my calf, I was unscathed. Definitely time to get down to lower levels.
(Not many photos taken during this time!)
We plotted a route to lose some height and try to get out of the wind, but it took time and even in the valley bottom, it was still blowing a proper hooly, thankfully a tailwind now though. We passed a young couple in full gear with BIG rucksacks heading up the valley, I wondered if their friendship would still be intact by the end of the day?!
Apart from the rutting calls of stags and ferocious gusts of wind, all was quiet in the pathless valley. A sheet of rain was racing up to meet us but with the wind behind us we made good progress hitting the path and then dribs and drabs of bedraggled daytrippers around Steall Falls and below. All downhill now, onto the road, past a group of shouting workmen wrestling with fallen trees, (the trees were winning) and eventually back to what would be the finish line on a round, Glen Nevis Youth Hostel.
I absolutely LOVE being out in the hills, in any weather, but it was good to get a warm shower, despite having to wipe a ton of Lochaber mud off the shower room floor (twice, after dropping my clown shoes on the way out too!)
Food for thought. – There are less summits but much, much longer climbs on this round (than the BGR). – Despite poring over maps for weeks and months, the (real life) scale still caught me out. Humbled is a word that sums it up, (as is spanked!)
I take my hat off to anyone who has had a crack at the Ramsay Round and as for a winter round, those folk are beyond Superhuman!
It was an awesome trip. It opened my eyes and upped my psyche levels 100pts+
There was a lot of talk about this chap whilst we were out on the hills, The Monarch of the Glen, Finlay Wild. 12 times Ben Nevis race winner and Ramsay Round record holder (along with a shedload of other records). A man of inspiration!
Next step, a potential second exploratory recce in the spring? The question of going supported or unsupported? The logistics are complicated. It is a long way to Fort Bill. The weather can change at the drop of a hat. The racing calendar is pretty full throughout May and June. Prior to May is a risk as winter lingers on in the north. After June is midges galore season! So, watch this space
I trust you are in fine form. Two blogs within a week! What is happening? Some kind of record. Off work, free morning, thought I’d scribble a short one!
The big recent focus was the Borrowdale Fell Race. Not the longest, nor the hardest race in the calendar, but long enough and hard enough to keep you on your toes and with a rich 49 year long history in which local legend Billy Bland still holds the record 2:34:38 (back in 1981), which I personally couldn’t do in a taxi. Billy Bland won it 9 times, Simon Booth 11 times and Ricky Lightfoot 8 times. It is a race locals want to win and local Brennan Townshend has won the last 2, so watch this space!
17 miles including 6500 feet of ascent (27km, 2000m, in new money), starting and finishing at Rosthwaite, visiting Bessyboot, Esk Hause, Scafell Pike, Styhead stretcher box, Great Gable, Honister Pass, Dale Head and down to the finish. Shorter than Ennerdale (heatwave, goosed), less climbing than Wasdale (completely destroyed) but during a period when everything seemed tpo be coming together nicely. I was really looking forward to it.
I last ran it in 2002 on my 30th birthday, when I was given number 30.
Last Thursday I was 51 and (without prompting) I was given number 51, what are the chances?!
There used to be an infamously good party afterwards called the Borrowdale Bash, held in a marquee in the finish field, but alas it is no more. Last time I ran it, I set off at world record pace and blew up really early on, crawling round and then drowning myself in beer at the Bash, making a teeny-tiny walk up to (very) nearby Watendlath Tarn the next day feel like the north face of K2. The good old days!
The forecast (the Met Office sticking a wet finger in the air) was a mixed bag for the day. Wet, windy, clag, not too hot/cold, the ambiguous pattern of this not-so-tropical British summer so far.
Carbotastic!
Race day
Superkeen, I was up and off and parked up before 9am and chewed the fat with my old Morley mate Charlie, who also runs for Pudsey & Bramley, who I hadn’t seen in 10yrs+ He had a plan to take it “steady” until Great Gable then go for it. My plan was to hang on to Charlie until Great Gable, then hang on until the finish! Training had been good, I had no major injuries and had my racing head on.
And they’re OFF!
I personally hate big races, especially the start. If everyone was in the exact position/order where they would finish, it wouldn’t be a problem, but that would be dull. Some poor sod fell over in the middle of the scrum, on the road, about 5 seconds after the start. There is always a lot of jostling and with a big bottleneck very close to the start people were keen to get going.
There are generally 5 different types of terrain to deal with in fell races:
Road:Very little of this, maybe a bit at the start/finish, but generally rare. Made of tarmac, this is smooth and hard. Not good to fall on.
Grass: Green stuff, normally plenty of this. Can be soft, hard, grippy or slippy. If you are going to fall, try to fall on this stuff.
“Technical”: Normally rocky and demanding full attention, rock hopping from boulder to boulder. Do NOT fall here. (Photo taken on this route, but not in the race. You can just see the queue of punters on top of Scafell Pike). If wet/icy, spiciness levels go up by 100 points.
Mixed: A combo of rock and grass. This is tricky terrain as it is always at a stage in the race when one is cream-crackered. You need to pick your feet up as otherwise it WILL trip you up. If you do have to fall here, try to avoid the rocks.
“Lakeland gravel”: Normally found at the start (when you are giddy and just want to get going), or at the end, (when your legs don’t work). When I say gravel, I mean bowling bowl sized rocks, normally round (like you’d find in a fast flowing river) and slippier than ice covered in vaseline if even slightly wet. Potential for tripping/stubbing your toe is HUGE, especially if you don’t pick your feet up. If you fall here, you’re going to have problems.
If you are good, you can float and fly across any of the abpve. If you are a clumsy oaf, like me, falls are just par for the course, it is where/how you fall that determines your destiny!
Borrowdale has a long along-the-valley start before a steep climb to Bessyboot, with a lot of contouring and good or bottomless bog until Esk Hause where it gets technical, an insane scree-surfing descent to the Corridor Route, mixed running to Styhead, then labouriously placed steps (thank you volunteers for what must have been back breaking graft) up Great Gable, then mixed/technical going all the way to Dale Head and then some slate (slippery if it has rained in the last week with zero friction) to the valley and then Lakeland gravel to the finish. Piece of cake!
Falls happen when you least expect them. If you expected it, you would be ready and put your arms out. If you are quick witted, with your very next step (opposite leg) you can save things, but if your next step doesn’t expect it
(You’re)
So, I was trotting along, chatting to Charlie and John and just settling into the race when at about 2 miles in, a guy in front suddenly stopped, then I suddenly tripped with my right foot and my left foot then suddenly slid sideways and I fell with all my weight onto a boulder with my ribs.
You always do that “Nothing’s happenedhere, move along” jumping up movement, but I had gne down with a bump, winded myself and shouted out like a baby, so it was noticed!
But, it was only 2 miles in and way too early to bale, I hadn’t banged my head, so kept on going, just gradually getting stiffer and stiffer in my upper body, to the point where I was probably running lopsided to compensate.
The drop off from Scafell Pike is ridiculously steep, loose and good fun, you just have to get your centre of gravity low and let go, but then a lass in front of the pack I was in suddenly stopped and my centre of gravity was too high and I had one of those heart stopping moments when you think “Sugar! I am going head first here” and then you recover it, phew!
I lost Charlie here and he powered on, my legs felt great and full of running, but my top half just wasn’t working.
Great Gable was very familiar, as I had been up it 3 times in teh last 4 weeks and race photographer, Steve Wilson was placed well to catch runners in various states of suffering.
Off Gable, I took a crap line (too far right) but it was clagged in by then and then to Honister I went to far left and then off Dale Head, too far right. “Lines” are what you learn in recces/previous races. Races often don’t just follow paths and aren’t marked in any way. In addition GPS devices are not allowed, so there is a certain skill to it, but top runners do sometimes make monumental cock-ups, ending up in the wrong valleys, so it happens to the best of us!
Down to the finish in the rain and into the village hall for endless cups of tea and cheese and jam sarnies (surprisingly delicious) and a post race dissection chinwag with other runners, then the prize giving (of which I was not part of!)
I took a rambling route back home, stopping in several laybys for a cuppa and a groan. It turned into a glorious evening, the start of summer part II even?
To nicely summarise the above mumbo-jumbo in a brilliantly made 13 minute video, here is the LAKELAND TRAIL RUNNER. (My very awkward running style can be contribute (and hopefully not attributed) to my earlier tumble, I hope!
Getting home late, I went to bed and experienced a new level of pain getting into bed and of course, needing the toilet (again) 30 seconds later, getting out of bed was equally as painful!
Was no better first thing Sunday, so went to Kendal Hospital for an X-ray and as I arrived an hour before it opened, I was first in the queue. The NHS get a lot of flak, but every single person I saw was amazing. Verdict: Nothing broken, suck it up you big baby!
Raider’s round-up
I try to watch my beloved rugby team whenever I can and as I was close, went down to Craven Park, breaking my neck to get in the ground before 2pm for the pie voucher (“No, we don’t do them anymore”).
Playing against an in-form London Broncos side, with an injury/suspension depleted side, we got off to a bad start and never got going ending up in a 26:6 defeat.
On the plus side, the sun shone. On the minus side, I forgot where I had parked, in my pre-match pie chase, so spent 30 minutes wandering around Barrow.
It will now take a miracle not to be demoted
Leaving Las Kendal…
I had planned more running, a few Wainwrights and an exploratory look at the”Abraham’s Tea Round” route, but as walking and breathing were difficult, I headed home, leaving my hometown in an amazing cloud inversion, conditions which always happen when there is nowhere to stop to take a photo and parking on the side of the A6 was a bit risky!
Tight lines!
Had a very steady days fishing at nearby Highfield pond, nothing of note apart from catching this slippery fellow!
30 years ago, eels were ten-a-penny, nowadays they are quite rare. I had forgotten whant slimy buggers they are as they wrap themselves around your arm and cover you in stinky mucus!
Got a few other tiddlers, plus this bream, gorgeous sunny day 🙂
And finally
I love this guy! He talks a lot of sense. The world is mad and whilst mad is not always bad, social media has a lot to answer to…
Until the next time amigos 🙂
Cheers Johnny
p.s. Got back to a lovely £100 parking fine for overstaying my welcome in Morrison’s. Let’s be careful out there…
I hope you are in fine fettle. This blog comes to you live, from Kendal, Cumbria (well, Westmorland actually, but I am still not acknowledging that minor administrative fact).
A mini-break t’Lakes, don’t mind if I do. Like everywhere in Blighty the last two months, since summer finished in June, it has pretty much p!$$ed it down every day, but summer in Europe this year seems to be either hotter than the sun on fire, or just torrential rain. It is what it is as they say.
Using up all my hard earned jollies at work, we had a mini 2-day break to Wasdale last month and have generally saved a fortune on suncream.
So here is a wrap-up of events in what I call my blog. Apologies if it is a bit photo heavy this time
Dave Angel, Eco Warrior.
If you do one thing today (apart from read my mumbo-jumbo) start using ECOSIA. (It like the word for Scotland in Spanish, but minus the S).
Think of it as an environmental Google that plants trees whilst you search for stuff on the internet. I have (not personally) planted 6 trees this month. They are carbon friendly not for profit, it helps the planet and is FREE. It is as good as Google in my eyes. Don’t believe me? Watch THIS
Highest mountain, deepest lake, biggest liar…
Wasdale is an amazing place with Scafell Pike (England’s highest mountain standing at 978m/3210ft above bath water), Wast Water (79m/258ft below bath water) and an an annual competition to find the World’s Biggest Liar!
Competitors have 5 minutes to tell the tallest of tall tales, without script nor props. Naturally, politicians and lawyers are barred from entering.
Along with Cumberland-Westmorland wrestling, Egremont Crab Fair and gurning, it is a big part of Cumbrian history!
Having stayed at the Achille Ratti hut for the Wasdale race, I was keen to take the girls there and we managed to pick those 2 dry-ish days in July 🙂
Back in the mists of time, when I was around the age of the Nipper, my mate Chris and his Grandad invited me to climb Great Gable and despite growing up in the Lakes I had not really done much in the Lakes, so on a day when it did not stop raining, we dragged ourselves up to the top of Great Gable and it was BRILLIANT.
Repeating history, we all set off to climb Great Gable, which although not the highest (898m/2949ft) peak is definitely one of the finest looking. The kind of mountain (shape) a kid would draw if you asked them to draw a mountain.
The one in the middle“Are you shearing? No, get your own!“
So, with sarnies and flask, we set off on a big day out. I love running up and down mountains, but occasionally it is good to just slow things down and get to admire the views a bit more.
On top of the World!
What are the chances? Bumped into my mate John (Lakeland Trail Runner) on the top, he was doing a recce of the Borrowdale course. Check out his awesome videos HERE.
We hotfooted it down to catch the ice cream shop open with 5 minutes to spare and saw the biggest dog we have ever seen, a Bernese Mountain Dog crossed with a poodle (“Bernapoo”?) called Blue.
Then the Nipper wanted to paddle in the lake where we got chatting to a lass all about the mad world of wild swimming.
A top 2-day trip.
Too much junk! We took less stuff to Mongolia.
Pannus mihi panis.
Kendal, the Auld Grey Town, which was listed as within Yorkshire in the 1086 Domesday Book, then Lancashire up to 1226 and now lies happily in Cumbria (Westmorland).
Famous for its Mint Cake, its Snuff (tobacco that goes up your nose, not the movies) factory and a castle which once was the home of Kathryn Parr, last wife of Henry VIII. It always feels ace to come “home” and whilst I never actually lived in Kendal, I was born here in the auld grey town and spent a lot of my youth here, living just downstream on the River Kent, so it does feel like coming home. I had no massive plans, bar some training and a race (Borrowdale, tomorrow). The weather was wetter than an otter’s pocket coming across from Yorkshire and stayed that way for a run around Borrowdale on Monday.
Then dried up a touch for a round of the Kentmere Horseshoe on Tuesday.
The temptation was to just go out and do long days in the fells, but that would not help for Saturday so I have had to rein back a bit, so I did a bit of wandering around town (and wrote this blog!)
“Cloth is my bread”A field absolutely chocker with rabbits!Summer?Cumberland sausage, birthday tea treat 🙂
Meet-ups/trying to stop being a hermit
It has taken me forever to get out of bloody lockdown mode. Although it seems like a lifetime ago now, the habits of the pandemic are still hard to shift (for me at least). Even when it was officially declared “over” by the W.H.O, I would do anything to get out of going out, (work is work, you have to go there!)
In the last month I have seen my Britanico teaching friend , Debs, down from Scotland, my i-to-i mate Dave, in Market Rasen, had a great run on my birthday with my old CELTA amigo, Neil, then met up with the man who first introduced me to the world of mountaineering and also fellrunning, Ray. There was also my mate Pete’s annual BBQ, which was awesome as ever. We are social creatures as humans, but there are times (like this week and rignt now), when I do just prefer not to go out at all, but when you do, it’s always worth the effort:-)
Tight lines!
We have had a couple of fishing outings, plus the Nipper’s first ever match. We recently found a great little pond outside Leeds where the youngster caught this beauty.
Same spot, five minutes later!Scalm Park match, always feels like fishing in someone’s garden!
Planning a boat trip for a birthday treat this month too 🙂
Raiders round-up.
It has not been a halcyon season.
Cresta, ever the Stoic.
Apart from the pre-season friendlies, we have not played much good rugby. 13 defeats, 6 wins and one draw puts us in the bottom 4, BUT if you discount Newcastle, 6 points covers the bottom 6 teams with 6 games to go, so it is all to play for. We did beat Bradford Northern on Monday (away), so we might be turning a corner. Hoping to go and see the Shipbuilders put one up the London Broncos on Sunday, Fingers crossed.
And finally…
I have lived in noisy places, but remember, there is alwys someone worse off
Here is the latest hotch-potch of nonsense which is my life in the form of a blog. Perhaps the fastest successive blog this year? Taking advantage of a day off work (whilst completely ignoring my list of “jobs”). This somehow used to be a weekly blog, which was probably down to craziness levels in Peru. Not quite as much happening nowadays, but all good.
‘Ello John, got a new motor! Check out this old Austin beauty.
New addition!
Ruby, a diddy Shetland Pony foal was born last week 🙂 Mother and filly are doing well.
Scott’s BIG day out.
In the previous blog, I mentioned Scott. I met Scott in May, after the Calderdale Way Relay when we were both running back to the start after leg 1, and conversation (as always) got round to future plans/aspirations. Scott mentioned that he was aiming for a July Bob Graham Round, at the time I was just starting to get back to some kind of training, so I agreed to help if I was fit.
Remember that runners are one of 4 types: i – Injured ii – Coming back from injury iii – About to be injured iv – Combination of all three above.
So, 11am on Saturday 1st of July saw me (with too many fitness question marks to mention) at the familiar lay-by that is Dunmail Raise, on the A591, between Grasmere and Thirlmere at the start of leg 3, with Richard (who I had run the same leg with 2 weeks earlier), an amazing support team. Sinhead and Christine did an amazing job.
Support runners are there to carry food, drink, kit and help with navigation, finding the right lines, and forcefeeding/encouraging/bullying/cajoling/convincing the BGR attempter into thinking that continuing is a good idea!
(Solo and/or unsupported rounds have been done in the past, but that it definitely a big step up in the madness stakes!)
If you ever see people at the summit of Dunmail Raise squinting up the slopes of Seat Sandal, chances are they are supporting a Bob Graham Round!
The main man Scott arrived, after having been been battered over legs 1 and 2 by high winds, torrential rain and clag. The recent heatwave was over.
By sheer chance, a friend I used to work with at Leeds Climbing Wall and a fellow member of Pudsey & Bramley, Jake, appeared (unplanned) and agreed to run with us and help with support and navigation. (BIG thank you to Jake for use of his photos).
We set off up the steep-as-ever Steel Fell, 20 minutes up on schedule, but were blown about by some of the strongest, gustiest winds I’ve felt in a while. (After not feeling more than a gentle breeze in Peru in all the time I was there, a less windy place I have never been to).
The now familiar Steel Fell-Calf Crag-Sgt Man-High Raise-Thunacar Knott-Harrison Stickle-Pike o’ Stickle-Rossett Pike (groan)-Bowfell-Esk Pike-Great End-Broad Crag-Ill Crag-Scafell Pike (deep breath)-Lord’s Rake leading to Scafell and a vertical scree run down to the NT car park at the top end of Wastwater route was done whereupon Scott, 2 new support runners and Jake (who carried on to the end) stormed up the even-steeper Yewbarrow for a shedload more summits into the night and into more crappy weather. (Whilst us supporters were fed with pies and pasties. and a bottle of local beer for all supporters, after their leg).
Sunshine on a rainy day?
I couldn’t stay for the finale as I had to get home, so I reversed my 6am route back to Taddy, home by midnight, but was transfixed by “dotwatching”, the live tracker that Scott was wearing to show where he was. Leg 4 done and into the night proper on leg 5.
He only bloody did it! Sub 24 hours and a very worthy member of the Bob Graham Round club.
Well done Scott 🙂
Richard’s turn next!
For me personally, it was the best day I’ve had on the fells, with like minded people (ie, nutters) since my own BGR in 2009 🙂
Wasdale Horseshoe Fell Race
If you Google “Wasdale fell race route” this is what you get:
“Deepest lake, highest mountain, biggest liar and hardest fell race – that’s Wasdale. Wordsworth once said that every fellrunner should do Wasdale at least once, or something like that!”
I had run Wasdale once before in 2000, but only remember a very small field (35 runners and only 25 finishers) and attrocious weather for the second half. I was younger, fitter and dafter back then.
The thing that originally drew me to fellrunning was the simplicity and complete lack of BS. You don’t need any fancy kit (despite what the manufacturers say), a pair of shoes that will keep you upright, some kit to keep you warm if the weather turns bad, some kind of sugary food to keep you moving and something to carry your gubbins in. You pay your entry fee, get a number, run/crawl/walk/fall round a route then at the end you get a cup of tea in a throwaway cup and a piece of flapjack. No t-shirt you’ll never wear again, no medal that will go into a box and no hype, brilliant!
23 years on, my head was a bit full of BGR leg 3 routes and Ennerdale maps, to really focus on this route, which was to bite my ar$e to be honest.
The luxury of a day off on Friday allowed a morning of unparalleled faffing, before a long ride up the A1-A66-diddy road-A595 and 5hrs later, I was at sunny Wasdale. The Saturday forecast was somewhere between biblical and catastrophic, which felt hard to believe given how pleasantly benign it was on the Friday evening. Even dawn brought in a warm and breezy morning, but the organisers were wary of thunder and lightning (marshalls are stuck on the summit checkpoints) and the plan B was for the race to be shortened at Pillar, which we would not know until arriving at a checkpoint with no marshalls.
Walshes or Sillymans? Walshes won the day!
The race goes straight up a haul onto the Screes, first checkpoint at Whin Rigg, dropping steeply through the bracken (check for ticks) down to Greendale (CP2) via the valley floor. Somewhere along the way I pulled my groing, which didn’t help me much then the endless slog up horsefly ridden Seatallan (CP3), up to which point it was sweatier than (enter your own superlative/comparative) and then dropping down into the clag around the Pots of Ashness, sloshingly skirting around Scoat Fell and up onto Pillar, I was 1/3 of a trio here, sharing the lead/nav with a NE bloke and a Calder Valley lass who was super determined to get to Great Gable, getting out of the valley and onto the col the winds really picked up on the way round Kirk Fell (CP4), I took a fall here, (it is a fell race after all). A downhill face plant that happensed quicker than you could swear).
This was followed by a brutal (will try not to overuse this word) climb up Great Gable (CP5) which is the final cut-off point. Back to race description:
“This is where the race really starts – it’s hands on knees work, not even Jebby will be running up this one. Gable is the last checkpoint with a time limit. If you can’t make it this far in 4.5hrs you are not fast enough to continue. Do not argue with the marshals here!!!”
With the clock ticking, nobody was talking going up Great Gable. To be timed out here would mean a long slog back down into the valley and a DNF status. To get to the top of GG (the first mountain I ever climbed as a youngster) with 10 minutes to spare was a massive relief, but there is still a long way to go, down to Styhead and up to Esk Hause (CP6) and then along the rocky ridge to the ceiling of England at Scafell Pike (CP7). The weather took a real downward turn here and the temperature dropped as quickly as the heavens opened. Compared to the usual weekend crowds, only 2 very hardy marshalls were atop Scafell Pike, as we dropped into the gloomy mist for Lingmell, eyes straining for other runners and hoping to drop below the storm and clag. It got cold, I was cold, I remember the legendary runner, Nicky Spinks once said “If you think about doing something 3 times, do it” so if that refers to food, drink or putting on some more/warmer kit, do it! (Fellrunning Association race rules enforce runners to carry a waterproof jacket, waterproof trousers, hat, gloves, map, compass, whistle and emergency food, in my case a slab of Kendal Mint Cake, only to be broken into in dire circumstances). Common sense was shouting at me to stop and put my cagoule on, but the thought of just keeping moving and getting to the finish was winning the battle.
A runner (from Ashbourne) asked which club I was with. My brain/nose and mumbling was feeling the cold here.
When I replied “Pudsey & Bramley“, he thought I said “Putney & Bromley“, which must be a London branch of my Leeds club!
Over the World’s steepest stile (CP8, see winner, Finlay Wild, below) and down Lingmell Nose to the finish.
The incredibly steep, convex slope gets even steeper here and a Geordie bloke called Craig (one of the trio from earlier) urged us to “leg it to get under 6.5 hours”, which we all did, just, before retreating to my car, with blowers on full heat, trying to ward off hypothermia, which was lessening the effects of a sexy sunburnt “vest tan” from earlier in the day.
(Finlay Wild had had a dip in a stream, collected his trophy and driven back up to Scotland by this point!)
I resisted the bathing urge and sheltered from the thunder and lightning, which really was directly overhead by this point.
20 minutes slower than 2000, but a lot has happened since then
After shivering my way back to the climbing hut in the car and a hot shower, I was semi-human again, and after a brilliant ARCC BBQ, retired to my pit early, unable to sleep due to some heavy duty pains in my knees, feet, ankles, shoulder and everywhere else in between.
Awesome race, brilliant weekend, followed by a few days of inactivity and possibly the Borrowdale race, or the Tea Round (or both, or neither) in August. Watch this space…
Whereas Ennerdale seemed very special (in a heatstroke/dehydration induced way) as it was my first Lakes race in years, Wasdale feeled very satisfying to actually get around and beat the cut-offs.
The race was fantastically summarised by my mate John (@lakelandtrailrunner @johns_fells for all you Instapeople) in this excellent video below. This guy is awesome 🙂
Second from bottom in the league and with our main playmaker, Jarrod Sammut, banned for 5 matches. (Alleged aggressive language/body language during Halfix match). It is going to a testing run-in now.
Be more like Steve.
There is a grainy photo on a frame on a set of drawers to my right, with my 2 brothers, myself and the late, great Steve Irwin. I went to Australia Zoo in January 2005, a year before his premature, tragic death and was overwhelmed by the man’s passion for the planet. (I am definitely not a zoo fan, but this place was very, very different).
Steve was a complete one-off, you won’t find many people more genuine.
RIP an incredible man.
And finally (not like these!)
At the other extreme of the social spectrum. I ask yer!
Here is the latest claptrap compilation that is my life, the Ladfromtad.com blog.
Taken a day off work, so rather than going fishing or trying to sort out my shed, I thought I would maximise my £36 investment in WordPress and write something.
Now, warning, this blog is a bit running-centric and I know that running is boring, look at me, I’ve run all my life and I am the most boring person I know! So, I will keep it brief. It is just that I have been putting so much of my time/effort into running, now that I can run again, that there is not much time for anything else.
A few things have been appartaining since the last wrap-up.
The Nipper (and I) went on a Fishing course, where she wasn’t been advised by someone who had fished a long time ago and wasn’t very good at it back then, so we both learned a lot, thanks to the Get Fishing team, Dave (LDSA) and Kippax Pond.
Summer is here, what’s not to like about that (apart from nettles, sunburn and hay fever).
So, here goes.
For a man who thought that his running/racing days were over this time last year, it has been a bit like being released from prison, (without the poll tax exemption, bent screws or cavity searches!) Running is a fickle game though, injuries are way more common than purple patches and fitness is hard gained/easily lost. It is a very difficult balancing act indeed!
Ennerdale Horseshoe
My first “proper” fell race since my comeback. I had run Guisborough Moors, but most races in the Lakes are a step-up, mainly due to ascents and terrain. Ennerdale Horseshoe is not actually a horseshoe, it is an out and back, which means if you bail or miss the cut-off times, you’ve got a long way to get back as Green Gable is about 10 miles from the start.
“HOTTER THAN IBIZA” screamed the headlines.
Water was everyone’s worry. Water is dead weight, 1 litre of water weighs 1 kilo, but due to there having been no rain for weeks, most water points (streams and becks) were empty. Fortunately some marshalls (and some very kind spectators) had a bit of water.
Now I had run this race twice before. Once in 2001, again in 2011. Both times I had been fit and had no worries about getting the trip.
This time I was full of doubts and getting around was my only goal.
Things started well. Great Borne, Red Pike, good line round Haystacks, Green Gable, feeling brilliant round Great Gable (thankful for a bit of shade, it was bloody hot) and thinking “THIS is what I have been missing!”
Over Kirk Fell, down the gully, passed a bloke who was chucking his guts up and onto Pillar and Haycock. In races you use a “dibber”, a piece of very important plastic which goes in the checkpoint box, bleeps and records your time (at that point). It is a safety measure and has replaced the old “bread tag” system where you frisbeed a bread tag at a marshall on some windy summit and they threaded it onto a wire, thence giving positions at various points on the course. Courses have checkpoints which you must visit. If you miss one, you are disqualified. Five minutes after passing the summit of Haycock, I had a thought. Had I “dibbed”?
After a bit of “Of course I must have” dithering, I went back and dibbed again (I had dibbed the first time I found out later), that is when the wheels started to fall off and I started going backwards.
Heat, the dreaded “bonk” (when your body runs out of fuel) and dehydration all conspired against me, but I got around and finished. The catering team (Scouts) had made huge amounts of food, but I just couldn’t stomach the sausage roll that the Scout Mistress was trying to force on me, I wasn’t making much sense.
I had supped 2 litres of water before the race, 2 litres during and 3 litres afterwards and I was still dehydrated.
Two separate crashes (not me) made it a long detour ride home, including reversing back down a one way track for longer than my gearbox/clutch liked.
Runningwise, a grand day out 🙂 Brilliant to see some old friends, after a long Peruvian sojourn and time away from the fells.
As a perfect summary, check out my mate John’s video HERE
The Bob Graham Round is a fellrunning challenge. A simple circuit of mountain tops first run in 1932 by a Keswick Hotelier called Bob Graham, who ran round in a pyjama top, sustained by boiled eggs. There are 42 summits over 66-72 miles with 27000ft of ascent and it has to be done in under 24 hours. I did mine in 2009 (Club member No.1508) with my mate Glen. It is a tough day/night out. The deal is that once you have done it, you agree to help other people on their round. To do a BGR involves a LOT of training, recces, eating on your feet and a big slice of good luck with the weather.
This bit gets confusing, so I will use names here.
Scott: A runner I met whilst running back to the start after the Calderdale Way Relay. Doing his Bob Graham Round on 1st of July.
Richard: A mate of Scott’s, who I met after the Ennerdale Race, but when everyone was a bit heat-monged to be coherent.
Abby: Another runner, doing her BGR on the 17th of June. Richard had volunteered to help her via a FB group and I offered via Richard, the morning after Ennerdale. (However, 20 minutes after agreeing, I took a crashing fall on the rock strewn terrain that stretches for at least 10 feet down by Tad river. Grass for 3 miles in either direction and I tripped over an invisible tree root. Daydreaming about the the day before before I hit the deck hard, smashing my head, elbow, hip, knee and twisting my metalwork ankle. I limped home, body and pride battered. It was touch and go whether I could run, but when one of her team dropped out,I felt morally obliged).
So, I got up at 3am and drove to Keswick to meet Richard, then we drove to Dunmail Raise, where we would run to Wasdale then later get a lift back to Keswick where I would pick my car up and give Richard a lift back to Dunmail, then drive home. Complicated logisics? You bet.
So, meeting up with Richard (who I had met once) and Abby and team (who I had never met) was a big departure from my not-wanting-to-meet-anyone post pandemic malaise, and it was bloody brilliant!
Leg 3 is tricky in the mist and clag, but fairly straightforward if it is clear (famous last words). It is all about the “lines”. There are paths between some peaks, but it is the best lines that keep you on schedule.
All went well apart from a slightly dubious line on Bowfell. There must have been 100+ hikers on top of Scafell Pike, the highest peak in England, in stark contrast to the 4 people on Scafell, it’s lower neighbour, only 46ft lower and England’s second highest, but sadly neglected mountain top. Lord’s Rake was as loose as ever and the scree run down to Wasdale was l-o-n-g and hot. It was a fantastic day out on the fells.
Sadly Abby started slipping behind schedule but gallantly carried on to get round in 26 hours. She will be back!
Running Out Of Time Relay!
In a brief nutshell I joined the Green Runners, as their ideas (pillars) struck a chord with me:
1) How YOU Move
2) How YOU Kit-up
3) How YOU Eat
4) How YOU Speak Out
As I previously said, I am not a tree hugging vegan hippy, but who knows, one day I might be!
Through the Green Runners I heard about the RUNNING OUT OF TIME RELAY.
A national relay snaking from the top of Ben Nevis, up the road in Bonny Scotland, to Big Ben, down the Old Smoke.
I signed up for 3 stages, 2 of which I did a recce of and one I didn’t, which came back to bite my ar$e! Leg 1: Copmanthorpe school – Bilbrough Three Hares pub Leg 2: Bilbrough Three Hares pub – Tadcaster Costa coffee Leg 3: Tadcaster Costa Coffee – Aberford Arabian Horse pub
The incredible summer gave way to one morning of monsoon rain as I waited for my bus (pillar 1: use public transport).
I was invited into the school where a very enthusiastic hallful of school kids asked and answered questions from the support team (3 Cumbrians, what are the chances of getting 4 Cumbrians together, outside of Cumbrian?!)
Radio York were there to capture the occasion and to a roar of applause, Graeme from York ran in with the baton and to the biggest cheer I have ever heard, I was off, into the torrential rain, soaked to the skin by the time I left the school grounds and down a country lane, where a rocket powered DPD van almost cut my relay short and simultaneously obscured the ever-so-slight, but very important road junction I should have taken. Splashing blindly onwards, I did sense I was off route but the magical power of the Pudsey and Bramley vest and its calming “Don’t fret, it’ll come good” mantra took me 3 miles off course, meaning that the generous time schedule (which was running exactly to time after 10 days) became a race to get to Taddy in time, to pick up another runner.
I raced down quiet country roads, past the Three Hares pub (shut) to Tadcaster, running through town with a golden baton!
Picking up Emma at Costa we waded on through the rain to Hazlewood Castle for the off road death-by-nettles section (which luckily I did know). Why do these stinging buggers sting more when wet? Who knows?
Onwards to Aberford, bang on time, then jogging back to Tad, when the rain eventually eased and I went home with very red legs, but a feeling of “job done” and 20 miles in the bank.
The 4th pillar is SPEAKING OUT and here was my bit on the telly. (The questions I was asked were not the questions I had in my head, hence the pained expression!)
Remember, don’t burn your trash, don’t take private jets, don’t buy single use plastic stuff and don’t fill your drawers with brand new clobber when your old gear can still be used/fixed/flogged on 🙂
The bumbag is 35 years old and still going strong 🙂
BGR part II
Scott (who I met at CWR) is doing for his BGR this weekend and has been training harder than Kilian Jornet and Jack Kuenzle put together.
I am on leg 3 with Richard. Bring it on 🙂
Wasdale!
Ennerdale was optimistic, Wasdale is shorter but has more climbing than Ennerdale. Ennerdale was just passed my current physical limits!
A week on Saturday I will be dragging myself round Brackenclose-Whin Rigg-Seatallan-Pillar-Great Gable-Esk Hause-Scafell Pike-Lingmell Nose-Brackenclose, with a fair bit of up and down in between.
I ran Wasdale once, but it was 20 years ago. Getting round is my ambitious aim!
Raider’s round-up.
If I had pulled my finger out and scribbled this nonsense before Sunday, I could have enthused about stringing 3-wins-in-a-row together and how we were safe from the drop, so we will casually ignore yesterday’s defeat and stay positive!
Consistency has been a problem (which is also evident in some Superleague teams, even Hull won at the weekend!) Injuries and the other usual excuses are also playing a part in the case of the Shipbuilders. It seems ironic that last season, after going up a league, with zero expectations and just a hope of staying up resulted in getting into the play-offs for promotion to this season, where we had expectations and have been dire. Similar to York’s current plight.
Just hoping that Newcastle and Swinton both continue to be rubbish and we might just be safe!
And finally…
“Who’s yer man?” This ancient mystery is finally unravelled…
Until the next time amigos! (If/when I have recovered from the daft idea of trying to relive my youth in the form of trying to run races I last ran 20 years ago!)
Here is the latest haphazard round-up that is tumultous life and trascribed as this blog.
I
Been a busy old bee. Just about settled into the new gaff. Started a new job, (two jobs in fact). Limping along with the Run365 challenge and even done my first UK fell race in 13 years (and my first race since Misti Sky Race in 2019). So, it has been a pretty positive time and I have no major grouses nor beefs, which must be a first in the history of this blog in its various grumbling guises (noise, traffic, neighbours, red tape, etc…)
The Nipper has been away with Brownies!
We got fishing, once, to the seaside, beside the sea, and caught our tea.
Spring sprung (finally) and the lambs arrived.
I even got up t’Lakes for a day last week. Lucky you if you are in the Lakes right now. West is best this week. I lived there until I was 14 and cannot remember a whole week without rain! (My obsession with the weather never fades).
So, without further adieu, here is the Ladfromtad.com blog…
TAXI!
Since my last scribblings I have started a new job at work, two jobs in fact and bloody good numbers they are too, which is just as well as I will be working at the British Library until my late 70’s, (I wish I was joking!)
Part of my job is Despatch/Delivery, which highlights to me all the mistakes I am making in my sideline number; the one way rampage to madness and bankruptcy that I call selling on eBay, which is just about to be knocked on the head (again, honest!) Despatch/delivery do it properly, without the Blue Peter, last minute chaos that is my ebay operations. I am working with a cool team and a decent gaffer, amd the other half of the job is also ace; driving folk around in the BL car, (we are not a taxi service, before you start booking trips to Torquay, Thurso or Teesside Airport).
It is cool as I get to drive round, and I like driving, and to talk to people, and I like talking, and this is work, and I even get paid for it!
It is not all rainbows, unicorns and Milk Tray though. The roads are full of tosspots, idiots and self-entitled ar$eholes (mainly in Range Rovers with personalised plates), but that is the same for everyone. (Disclaimer: Not all RR drivers are ar$e$. If you put some RR drivers in a Mini Metro they would still be ar$es and once, a RR actually let me out at a junction!) A deer, doe a deer, a female deer ran in front of me last week and I had to toot at a partridge (not a euphemism) another day, so it’s a bit like being on safari (*so goody) down the A59 York road, dodging animals and speed traps. In other motoring news, the Jazz has gone (hoorah) and Red Rum passed its MOT (double hurrah).
*Have I reached an all time reference low here?
Green Runners.
I am not about to become a tree hugger, start quoting Greta Thunderbird or spout from a recycled cardboard soap box, but this is something that has been brewing in my mind for some time.
We have all known about climate change for a long time. The scientists warned us, we largely ignored it, the world is burning (as were a lot of BBQs this weekend) and we should really do as much as we can to reduce our carbon footprint/impact on the environment, if we give a $h!t that is. Recycle, reduce, reuse is just a bare minimum. Just to start thinking about NOT buying that banana wrapped in a single use plastic bag (not a euphemism) is a start. It is not hard and if we ALL do something, it might make a difference. I am taking part in the RUNNING OUT OF TIME relay, from Ben Nevis to Big Ben next month. Anyone can join in, run, walk or cycle a stage.
Carry the baton in Britain’s biggest sporting celebration of climate action and nature!
Join the Running Out of Time Relay and help pass the baton from Ben Nevis to Big Ben.
There are 366 stages along the 2,661km route so, whether you’re a walker, wheeler, runner or cyclist, there’s a stage for everyone!
If you run/jog/walk and you give a toss about the environment, pay your £2.50, make your pledge and join the GREEN RUNNERS. A running community making changes for a fitter planet 🙂
(It is slightly ironic and indeed hypocritical that my new job is a driving job, but we are getting an electric car soon!)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly…
(Me, not the surroundings). I will be honest, a year ago I really thought that my running days were over. Long Covid, whatever tit is in its broad medical umbrella term, had buggered up my lungs and ticker, meaning I could no longer do what I loved doing, namely exercise. We all have our own coping mechanisms for dealing with the white noise headache called life, and running was mine, even though my knackered old body is wearing down, I still like to do my bit.
One of my GPs (not a sporting type, unless the Eat-all-you-can-buffet becomes an Olympic event) told me last March that after C19, I would be at Couch-to-5k fitness level. He was right. Every scrap of training I had done in the previous 30-odd years (some odder than others) had gone, disappeared. It took me a long, long time to accept it, but anything I had done/run, had to be forgotten about and reset.
I set myself a goal this year to run every day, as I really thought that racing wasn’t going to happen, but slowly, slowly, I got fitter and then ran on the hills a bit, then stretched the long run a bit, then entered a race!
The good.
The Guisborough Moors race was a race I last ran as a junior in 1987. I beat Will Styan (who I think was English Champion at the time, although he was obviously not having a good run on the day, but his dad Andy STILL holds the Langdale Horseshoe record from 1977). Anyway, I won the race and was immediately dragged before the Steward’s, as I had “cheated”. Apparently I had cut a corner after the leading group had been misdirected by a marshall (also knocking 10 minutes off the record!) I was disqualified and placed last, and after absolutely burying myself as a youth! I vowed never to return…
Let bygones be bygones as they say, and I rocked up after 36 years abstaining, swallowed my pride, paid my £6 and ran around, catching up with my old LAMM partner, Barry.
I gave it my absolute all on the descent and couldn’t walk for a few days.
A good start! Chuffed to bits to be back in the racing fold, albeit more toward the back of the field, than the front. It was a start.
The bad.
I received a late call-up to the team for the auspicious Calderdale Way Relay. A 6 stage, 50 mile relay up hill and down valley in deepest darkest West Yorkshire. I was paired with Colin on leg 1. Relays are quite unique, as all kinds of cock-ups can occur, as it is difficult to know exactly what time your handover will arrive, it is not a 400m track! I have seen other teams absolutely beasting themselves on legs to arrive to an absentee handover, (as happened to the first ladies team this year). A logistical headache, but a great day out. Last time I ran was 2001, when it was in December. Now it is held in May and the sun shone.
Had a bad day at the office, never got going, felt shot before the start and suffered the old enemy stomach problems 😦
Got round by hanging on to Colin’s coat-tails, then jogged back to the start. A good 22 mile round trip, but a decidedly disappointing below par performance.
The ugly.
Pride always comes before a fall. So I thought I was fit enough to enter a longer race. The Lakeland Classics races are Borrowdale, Buttermere, Duddon Valley, Ennerdale, Langdale, Three Shires and Wasdale. All of which I have run, bar Buttermere. I love the Ennerdale valley, it is for me, one of the best and last unspoilt Lakeland valleys and (if you don’t get crushed by the high speed logging lorries) a great place without the trappings of cafes, glamping pods, gear shops and crowds. The Ennerdale Horseshoe is just short of 23 miles with 7513ft of up and down. I entered this in advance, and also entered Wasdale (21 miles with 9000ft+ of climbing) for good measure.
A “recce” is an outing prior to the race, to suss out the course. I had run it in 2001 and 2012, but couldn’t remember much. Fell races are not marked, so if the clag is down, you have to be able to find your way around the course, all of which have their own “lines”. A recce is a good excuse to get lost and/or make a complete balls of the route, plus a chance to try out food/gear and not leave everything to the big day. A bit like a rehearsal, where if it goes wrong, it is not as much of a drama than if it goes wrong on race day. I was up at 4am, away by 5, A1-A66-A5086, a red hot day, followed by a navigational boo-boo and a seeming unability to coordinate my feet over the tops. It was shambolic. I had 2 litres of fluids on me and had hoped to top up in a stream, but all the streams were dry and at halfway, as it was taking me so long I decided to bail at Green Gable.
However, Ennerdale Horseshoe is not an actual horseshoe and Green Gable is about 11 miles from the start, so it was a bit of a trudge back down the valley, through the forest and along the lake to the car.
6hrs after setting off, burnt to a crisp and drier than a dead dingo’s ding-a-ling in a desert, I got back to the start. Basically my fitness had been found out. The Lakes is a different kettle of fishfingers and demands some respect (and some proper training). Bananas, gels, hopes, dreams, aspirations, nostalgia and having listened to Finlay Wild’s podcast is not enough! Will I get round on race day, within the cut-offs? It is great to have the confidence to know you can do something, but it makes it more of an adventure if you don’t know you can. Watch this space…
Legend!
If I haven’t bored you into a running induced coma, if you like podcasts (check me out, listening to a podcast), this is absolutely bloody brilliant!
Raiders round-up.
They say you’re only as good as your last game result, which makes Barrow absolutely brilliant as they trounced Whitehaven 32:16 at in a local derby, played in York!
We can just forget all the other shockers and the possible threat of demotion, whilst we enjoy the moment of this result and the sunshine 🙂
SuperLeeds 😦
What can one say?
Déjà vu?
We’ll be back.
And finally
I harp on about my running, but apart from a few brief glimpses of victory, in a few tinpot races, I was always (and now aspire to be) an also-ran. I do it because I enjoy it, which is a good enough reason for me.
My Dad however, was a proper runner. He ran short but ridiculously hard and steep fell races, like Grasmere, Ambleside and Kilnsey Crag. I tried running Grasmere one year and I had to walk downstairs backwards for a week!
On May Day in 1970 (& 1971) my Dad (Reuben Parsons) got up to milk 100 cows, rode his motorbike 100 miles, ran the Gawthorpe to Ossett Coal Carrying Championship race, ran for a mile with a hundredweight (50.8kg in new money) of coal, rode 100 miles home, milked 100 cows, then went to bed!
This video is a glimpse into the past…
Poor old Gordon!
Hasta la proxima amigos 🙂
p.s. Go Mountain Goats (Finlay Wild’s podcast) is well worth a listen if you like all things mountainous!
Here is the latest hotch-potch of gubbins that is my self-imposed ridiculously overcomplicated life, which started life being scribbled on my laptop on the 10:02 from York to Stevenage, imitating (and failing at being) a jet-setting highflier city type, bit tricky when you look like a hobo and didn’t book a seat with a table, resulting in 2 hours of contorted typing torture, oh to be 5’2” or smaller. Backward facing seat always gives a different perspective, let the train take the strain…
House move No#44 was (and still is) the bedlam that was to be expected and just to up the stress levels to 11, I decided to embark on an accidental buying-&-selling of cars scheme, plus selling my life (and what was left of my soul) on the idiot-&-general-fruitcake magnet that is eBay. I also applied for another job where I work and continue with my run365 venture. On top of all this, we had to get the new gaff ready for the young ‘un’s birthday party, which was basically moving everything out of sight and out of mind, a bit like my shed, but more of that later. So, all in all, things have been a tad busy.
So, in no particular order here is my cathartic purging of this month’s sins, mishaps and cock-ups!
(Started on an Inter-City 125 and finished on the last day of my 2 week working holiday, in the new gaff).
Cumbria(n) forever!
This is not an April Fool’s joke, I wish it was. As of midnight on 31/03/23 the county of Cumbria was abolished, to be replaced by the old counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness. A regional council cost-cutting exercise sneaked in under the carpet and forced through during lockdown. I was born in Kendal, Westmorland, but when I was 2 years old, Westmorland became Cumbria, so all of my life I have considered myself and identified as a Cumbrian. No amount of whining, whinging or wailing will change it, but can one imagine this happening in neighbouring Yorkshire or Lancashire? There would be riots!
Trying to fins a positive note, there may be a resurgence of Cumberland Westmorland Wrestling, or an increase in sausage sales or an expanding readership of the Gazette, but overall it was a sad day.
I would like to end this sorry chapter with an ode penned by a Cumbrian friend, Neil:
Cum-bri-a, my Lord. Cum-bri-a, Cum-bri-a, my Lord. Cum-bri-a, Oh, Lord, Cum-bri-aaaa!
Cumbrian ‘til I die.
Moving on.
When we fled Arequipa and Peruland in September 2020 we really had no concrete plan and for a man who used to plan everything (fuelled by OCD) this was not easy. My phone feeds me constant reminders of 1 year ago, 2 years ago, (which is generally photos of junk I was putting on eBay at the time), etc, and just now I am reliving the not-so-heady days of early 2021 AQP lockdown, when (the not yet disgraced at the time) President Vizcarra) announced rules pandemic rules of “One person allowed out of the house only to go to the shop/chemist/doctor/hospital, with the only shops being open being supermarkets and “bodegas” and an extra special men allowed out of Monday/Wednesday/Friday, ladies allowed out Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. Nobody allowed out Sunday and a curfew from 8pm-6am” Zoom was my lifeline (as that was my job/life for 6mths and still is on a Sunday night with my mates at 7pm). So anyroad, we jumped ship and came back by a contrived route to Blighty via Government approved taxi and 3 flights back to Taddy and to the beautiful hideaway that is the caravan. It was meant to be a stop-gap but got stretched and stretched until now.
Caravans are ace, it’s my 4th stint in a caravan as a home, but if you are not a one-knife-one-fork-one-spoon minimalist, it quickly becomes unmanageable.
That. Is where the shed came in!
In 2013, during a(nother) house move, I had the brilliant foresight to put up a shed* as temporary storage for, yet another rushed house move. “Stuff it all in and sort it later” became my motto. Circumstances forced several other rushed house moves and then when we jetted off back to Peru in 2014 I secretly hoped the Shed Fairies would sort through all the tat, leaving all the good stuff neat and tidy and organised.
(* As a general rule, I won’t pay someone else to do a job I can do myself. Retrospective apologies to both my brother, James and my Dad, for the 2 sheds I have put up, both of which were a complete nightmare and with hindsight, I would have happily splashed the cash to someone who does it for a living who could do it in 1/4 of the time!)
I am generally pretty good at giving stuff up &/or cutting it out completely (chocolate, beer, coffee), normally for no reason other than personal stubbornness, but my one major weakness is buying crap on the internet. At first it was just an excuse for not going out shopping during the pandemic (“Stay at home”), but after a 7yr sojourn in the non-internet-nor-mail-order land of Peru, where I struggled to buy anything my size, the temptation was too great once back on Amazon soil. Reformed gamblers are always looking for “Value” and the internet is a bountiful place of value and bright lights, where anything is just a maximum of 3 clicks away. It is just too easy. Buy it/try it/return it/flog it. I spent weeks and weeks “sorting out” the shed, making space for more and more junk and more and more hobbies; camping, climbing, cycling, fishing, fishkeeping, motorbikes… When “the guilt” would kick in and I would have a clear-out blitz, basically to get some more pocket money. This became a pattern, and a bloody hard pattern to break.
As all our old house stuff was at the back of the hangar/shed, it was a massive effort to empty the shed, something that demanded dry weather and something that I have never actually managed yet, so we bought new stuff for the caravan, which in turn became fuller and fuller. I was kidding myself basically. So, eventually (now) it all needed to be sorted out and either sold on, given away, recycled or burned. With burning being the only fast option, (but my dad hates fires and as it is his land, not really an option!) eBay attracts the biggest audience, but with the highest percentage of tyrekickers/timewasters/freaks, some of whom are decent (normal) people, the rest who are just after something for nothing, with Mr. eBay sat back rubbing his hands when not sat in his undies counting the money pouring in! Selling fees go up and up and margins get tighter and tighter. A friend of mine who was a full time eBay seller, recently gave it up as it has just become harder and harder to make a buck. “Good natured recycling” is what another mate of mine calls it, which is a better way to look at it. Even in these cost of living crisis times, it remains hard to sometimes even give stuff away, but it feels rewarding if you can sell something to someone who will appreciate it and maybe just about cover your P&P time/costs! It is not a way to make money when one is skint. (I only eBay when I am skint, which I have now realised is basically all the time, but believe me, I would kick it all well into touch in a heartbeat…)
After photographing and listing an item, you then get the questions; “How big is it? (see description)” “What colour is it? (see photos)” “What is your “best” price? (see starting price and if that is 99p, hope for your life that more than one person is interested)” “Will you post it? (COLLECTION ONLY PLEASE generally means a big fat NO, as it is to big/fragile/awkward to take to the Post Office)”
Then you get the ghost bidders, people who raise their hand, nod their head, scratch their nose, wink, then slope off into the background when the Gavel does down. So you have to relist it, when “watchers” (more often voyeurs than interested bidders) will assume there is something wrong with the item and send you a “Will you take a shilling for it with free delivery to China?” message. Then the pantomime starts again.
IF you do get a sale, you either have a demented “Blue Peter on speed meets Challenge Anneka” frenzy to catch the Post Office after work, or arrange a rendezvous. I have met some really interesting, brilliant, genuine, lovely people but as many hardened “punters” who say the item was a “no-show”, then you start the Lost Item procedure, I could go on, but you get the general picture.
I have had a geezer from Essex coming up to buy a pushbike, a Cornish fisherman (defying all lockdown rules) to collect an imitation “Gibson Flying V”, and most recent a Missionary in Ghana, sending a courier from Birmingham, to pick up a keyboard going to a church in Accra and many more, but very soon I would like to put it to bed. He says, typing this on a laptop on a train, facing backwards, on the way to Stevenage, to buy a car, which brings me nicely on to the next topic.
IBUYANYCAR.COM
I had a Honda XR125 Trials bike in Peru, I absolutely LOVED that bike, it took me to places I would never have seen, but when a big school bill suddenly reared its ugly head and the realisation that I had probably used up nearly all of my 9 lives in the Lima traffic, it had to go. Bloody ‘ell, you think eBay is bad! There is a kind of second hand market in Peru, in its relative infancy. Mercadolibre.com and the like. Online notice boards really, not a platform as such, with zero protection. I did sell a bass guitar on there, what a ballache process that was, but buying and selling vehicles is a whole new level of pain that is!
Any vehicle; car, motorbike, mototaxi, llama or other, if being sold by someone married, needs to have both parties present and in agreement for a sale. A morning of inconvenience at best, but if one party disagrees or cannot go to the “Notaria”, forget it. Every piece of paper/documentation in triplicate, (how I miss Latin American red tape) and then to “Banco de la Nacion”.
In Blighty you just have to hand over the green bit of the V5 and Voila, it’s your’s!
Too easy?
In January 2022, after selling my penultimate crown jewel, my beloved red Honda C90 SuperClunk, (the last crown jewel is my double bass, which I have carted round houses/flats/caravans/shed since 1989), I bought what was meant to be a long term project and investment which was our Nissan Elgrand campervan.
It was a beast! 3.3Litre V6 Automatic, which did about 10mpg, on a good day. So, a conversion to Bi-Fuel, with a LPG conversion was the answer I thought, a tankful of gas for 80p a litre would make motoring practically free, but LPG became harder and harder to find and it still only did the same MPG. With high insurance and £300+ tax, it had to go too, which it did, to the first viewers (after filtering out the usual tyrekickers), had I sold myself short? One never knows, but the second hand vehicle market had definitely become a seller’s domain. I started looking around at cheap runarounds; Ford Fusions (£30 tax), Fiat Pandas, and the Honda Jazz, with its patented “flat boot”.
I quickly became blinded by the GOV.UK MOT checking site. Pretty much everything in my budget was either: a) A future MOT failing money pit. b) A complete rust bucket. c) A combination of A & B.
We all make mistakes in life, it is how we learn (in theory), but this particular car deal was one to forget.
Now I was only after a cheap runaround and you don’t buy a Honda Jazz to race around the bus station car park on a Saturday night. Extreme steadiness personified and with a generally “mature” driving population cross section.
I did my 10 point check and had seen a few red flags/bargaining tools, but when it came to that awkward moment of bartering/haggling, something I did every day in Peru with hard-nosed emotionless efficiency, the vendor refused to budge. It was an onsight purchase, I could have (should have) walked away. There were “several” others interested, said the guy. Lina was silent and the Nipper was uncharacteristically (scrabble bonanza that one) ungiddy. A voice came out of my mouth “Ok, I’ll take it”.
What the handbagkettlepartridge was I thinking?!
I spent the rest of the day in a kind of mourning, sulking, what have I done, low mood. Even washing my new acquisition didn’t endear it to me, there was no spark (well there was a spark, it is actually quite a good starter, but there was no passion or lurve for the new set of wheels).
THEN, another car model I had trawled eBay and Auto Trader for weeks and weeks for popped up as a “search alert” (dangerous things them, don’t be sucked in).
A K11 Nissan Micra, 2002, full service history, 21000 miles, undersealed, not a fleck of rust and not one MOT failure.
I was basically checking out the bridesmaids on my wedding day! The ink on the V5 had barely dried and I was eyeing up other motors!
I moped about and overthought it completely. There is only one picture hung up in the new flat and that is one of Lina and myself sat on the bonnet of the Silver Streak on my 40th birhtday, in the Gobi Desert. (“You are both smiling” says the Nipper! Not much of that these days).
Nostalgia is a very, very dangerous thing.
I did the sums (when I say I did the sums, the books were already cooked, it was really just a case of justifying it to myself and the convincing Lina that it was a potentially brilliant investment), Then I got in touch with the Vendor, John from Letchworth…
Cutting a long story short, my “value” addled brain justified a way of buying the Micra offset against selling the Jazz, backed up by a small buffer of junk sales on eBay.
So I bought a one way ticket to Stevenage and met the nicest North London couple you could ever meet, John and Anita, in a car park next to the station, had a good chinwag, checked the oil, did a few donuts round the car park and then drove it home. John even filled the tank before I left, what a guy!
So “Red Rum” now sits outside my kitchen window and makes me smile when I look at him 😊
Anyone want to buy a Honda Jazz???
Smells a bit fishy…
I have always been interested in fishkeeping (now there is an admission by a Honda Jazz owner, zero rock and roll points this blog!) As a kid, I had a small tank full of tropical fish, with very little idea of what I was doing, I had massive problems with algae and most of the poor little fellas ended up being buried in the garden. Then as a young man, I was given a big tank and swatted up on it more and was quite good at it, until I came home from work one day and heard a “drip-drip-drip” which was the sign of a hairline crack and which pre-empted a trip to the pet shop with all my fish stock (not soup) in a bucket. Then, during Lockdown in the caravan, I thought it was something that the Nipper and I could get into, so we bought a small aquarium, set it up and it was generally a success.
Now, tropical fish are not like goldfish, you can’t just scoop them up and plop them in a bowl of tap water, so moving a community of fish is a bit tricky. You need to set up a second tank and let it “cycle” which takes 1-2 weeks.
So, back in August, for my birthday I bought a HUGE tank off eBay from David in Normanton and kept it undercover for the big move, (as indeed we originally thought we were moving last summer, but it never happened).
Now my memory is bad, but I don’t remember it weighing as much as it did when I bought it, but then we only had to move it 3 yards from David’s garage to the van. There is a base which also weighs a ton and both units are a 70” cube, which holds about 1240 gallons of water!
My brother Danny is way stronger than me, but we both struggled to lift this new tank from the trailer to my door, then the shock-horror-realisation that it was about half an inch to wide to get through the door, and even if we did, to then get it up a flight of stairs and into the lounge, without dropping it, would be at very best, ambitious.
A plan B was quickly cooked up. I had to look for another tank.
Facebook marketplace is an unruly, unregulated version of eBay, but it has its uses and it turned up a tank in York, which I could collect that night!
Lina was not quite as onboard/enthusiastic about the idea as the Nipper and me, so she stayed at home unpacking boxes whilst we borrowed her car and trotted off to try and find the most hidden/impossible to find address in York. Now I am not judging the guy, but it was immediately evident that him and his mate had been having a smoke, and not just Benson & Hedges. They kindly put the tank in the car and after parting with some hard-earned we drove home, with Valentina asking me “What is that smell?”, as the car reeked of weed.
All was going smoothly until I tried the tricky manoeuvre of getting into our yard with its extremely tight right hand bend, and on an inky black night, as those of you who have scraped cars will know, if it goes wrong, reversing out of the problem usually makes it worse. I had never scraped a car in my life until then. It did not go down too well.
After getting the tank and cabinet upstairs successfully, it then proceeded to smell out the lounge with its stink of skunk. After a fortnight, the old boys from the old tank, were rehoused in the new tank and seem quite relaxed (possibly helped by the smell of weed. The old tank was sold on to a bloke who had bought it for his 5 year old son, so another cycle continues!
Meanwhile, no fishing outings this month, but hopefully will put that right soon.
Raiders round-up.
Not much sunshine at Craven Park yet this season 😦
No quite the out-of-the-blocks blinding start of last season, more of a “paced” approach. Trouncing everyone (including Wigan) in the pre-season friendlies, then…
One solitary win, a draw and 5 defeats. Away at Ally-fax today, a win would be a bonus! Not panicking yet, but work to do.
New job?
Next time…
And finally
Last January, I caught Covid 19, (I might have mentioned this previously) which flourished into the not-so-delightful condition known generally as Long Covid, around about the time when everyone was sick to the hind teeth with lockdowns, facemasks, social distancing and the general pain in the ar$e rules, regulations and restrictions of the pandemic.
It came and it stayed, making me not really ill but a long way off feeling well. I had big problems sleeping, breathing and regulating my heart rate, and any ideas of exercise were out of the window, as C19 was a condition that it was not possible to push through, as it kicked back twice as hard. I have already moaned about this at length, so the hopeful epitaph to this sorry episode is that I have found an inhaler that works, maybe coinciding with waiting for 14mths and it now seems to have gone. Hurrah!
On Thursday, I achieved one of my dreams that was simply to get back out into the hills, for the first time since the El Misti Race in 2019. Something that I seriously thought I might never do again.
It was a very steady (slow) outing, the weather was typical Peak District (rain, wind, mist) and I got lost, but it felt bloody great 😊
The Mickleden Straddle, in the High Peak was my first ever fell race as a senior and also a few years later, my first ever DNF, where my self imposed “vest only” declaration in early February was a trifle foolish! Not an especially hard or technical race, it had a bit of everything including a few miles of tricky navigation, where naturally I got lost on Thursday. Did see an amazing toad though, which paced me for a while until it got away…
It was an important run for me as it finally buried the ghosts of my unfulfilled dreams of AQP, plus hopefully the last of bloody C19 and also that blot in the formbook DNF in 2003!
If my legs fall off tomorrow, I will be content that I did make it back onto the fells again, if only once!
Nicky Spinks is a person who inspires, motivates and amazes me in equal doses. An incredible person.
I met her in 2018 at a talk with another great Fellrunning legend, Joss Naylor.
THIS VIDEO is what makes me want to put on my trainers and get cold, wet and muddy!
That’s all for now folks.
Stay cool. Johnny, Lina, and Valentina
p.s. If you do have time and want to see another truly inspirational video, watch THIS!
Hope this finds you in tiptop form and finest fettle. Had a day off work and had planned to escape to the coast to try and catch our tea, but Hurricane Charlie decided to visit, so I thought I would scribble a quick blog instead.
January survived, a month which always seems like it lasts about 6 weeks (financially) and an absolute eternity (climatically), surely the worst of the winter has passed us??? (Probably not, but I live in hope).
A lot and not a lot has happened since the last wrap-up. Christmas and New Year done and packed away for another year.
Great to see ‘Are Kid James and family from NZ, first time in 8yrs.
The Nipper produced this map! Looks like an adventure, with plenty of excuses for getting lost 🙂
New year, new start, 12 grapes, 12 resolutions and all that. 2023 is definitely going to be a year of change and house move #44 is imminent.
So, here is the latest Ladfromtad.com round-up.
Healthy, wealthy and wise?
Not sure about the above?
I would be happy with the first one, but unfortunately fate/long covid dealt me a bit of a duff hand, and now a year on after catching the Coronavirus bug, I am no better and to be honest, none the wiser what exactly is going on?
I am still under the Pulmonologist, who has prescribed me a(nother) new inhaler, but not until I have done my 3 week fast (no inhaler!) It is tough going. I have this little tube called a Peak Flow Meter, which I blow in every morning and night (AM results are pitifully feeble), then write it down on a graph and the Doctor will see me again in June (which is quite soon, in NHS timescales).
The GP told me “That I should be grateful I survived (Covid)” which I am, but which was basically another way of saying “Stop crying Nancy”. I would like to see them do their job, on 3hrs sleep a night, on my salary 🙂 I know I shouldn’t be so sensitive, but their comments irked me, (I went back to work absolutely seething!) Yes, I am grateful I survived. I am grateful for a lot of things, but it is like going to the Quack’s with earache to be told, “Well, think yourself lucky you’ve got 2 ears sonny!”
I am not ill-ill, just way, way, way below par, perhaps firing on one of four cylinders. There are people a lot worse off than me. It is just frustrating as I don’t know if it will ever get better? If I knew it wouldn’t, I would accept the fact and move on.
Luckily I can do a bit of exercise, jogging or cycling to work is about my limit, but I am grateful for that. Breathing, especially at night, is my nemesis. (Writing this at 2am is a sign of my zombie style sleeping). I am told it’s not asthma nor COPD, but what is it? As with most things covid related, it is inconclusive. Time will tell, maybe.
At the Bank of Tad, needs must/hard times have necessitated selling most of my Crown Jewels, the van and my CX bike are up for grabs if you know anyone?
If you are interested in either, please drop me a line at: ladfromtad:gmail.com 🙂
Daydreams and aspirations.
A man with OCD, who has run all their life, always needs a goal, a target, an objective, something to obsess over, but after a year of this malaise, I have had to accept that a triple Bob Graham Round or winning the UTMB are not likely to happen anytime soon.
So, I have ditched all notions of quality or quantity, and inspired by my mate Ross, I am aiming to run every day this year, for at least 20mins. Most days I can fit it in as a commute, sometimes it is trickier, but it is definitely doable, (he says 1/12 of the way in), as long as my knees don’t implode along the way. It is glorified jogging/power walking, but healthwise, I can manage it. I measure my pulse and don’t push it.
Like most habits (good or bad), it is just a case of making something routine.
New goals, new goalposts.
The 365-shuffle is on.
News blackout
Continuing my self-imposed media proscription has been good (for my head) but part of me thinks that a balance would be a better thing. (Balance and moderation, 2 things I have always struggled with). A lot is happening now in Peru, but I only hear snippets.
Politicians the world over and only interested in looking after themselves and lining their fat, greedy pockets (with a few limited exceptions).
Facile perhaps, but in the short time when I worked at Suma Wholefoods (a food cooperative where there are no gaffers, no hierarchy, everyone earns equal wages and has equal say), although things take a little longer, things do get done. I am not saying we should completely rearrange society, but sometimes the so-called powers-that-be are just bending us all over and laughing in our faces (figuratively, unless they are contortionists, or just very supple!)
Let it go…
How often do the actions of somebody else hack you off (or worse)? Probably every single day; someone’s flip comment, a radgy work colleague, a Hitleresque boss, or some Jerkass driver.
Just this morning, I was driving down the street, a narrow residential street, I paused to let a bus come the other way, then a bloke (who I know, but who maybe didn’t or maybe did know it was me) flew past at about 50mph, I beeped, he gave me the w@ñker hand signal and flew off, doing the same to all in his all-important way.
I stewed on this for an hour and thought, what am I doing?
I am not turning into a Buddhist, a tree hugger nor a Happy Clapper, but this phrase makes sense:
“You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” ~Buddha
Darn right 😉 Take a chill pill (and hopefully see the tosspot pulled by the Busies, just down the road!)
Big move
Time to move on…
When we fled Peru during the Pandemic, we were fortunate to be able to stay in my parent’s caravan, it is a top spot and always feels like you are on holiday! Winter is a bit trickier and if you are not a one-spoon-one pair of undies-one shoe minimalist, storage soon gangs up on you, but the location is amazing and we will be sad to leave. However, now it’s time to move on into the big wide world. House move #44 is beckoning. It is my shed that is giving me nightmares.
Tight lines!
The Nipper and I have both been fishing for about 9mths now, myself after a 30yr break and the young ‘un, starting from scratch. We both fancied something new this year, so decided to head east (or maybe one day west) to the seaside, beside the sea.
Without boring you with the details, sea fishing is different to freshwater fishing in that: – It is free! (Nobody owns the sea and if they do, they don’t charge you to fish in it). – You can eat the fish (freshwater fish, apart from trout and salmon, all go back in, you wouldn’t want to eat them anyway as they apparently taste like muddy flavoured cotton wool full of pins). Catching your supper is a huge bonus. – You never really quite know what you are going to catch!
So, you can generally do what you like, but you have to dance to the time of the tide.
We’ve had 2 trips so far, both to Hornsea (of Hornsea Pottery fame, long gone now). To say it is January we have been spawny with the weather both times. First time the bairn caught a handful of flatfish, a weird looking Rockling and a load of Whiting. I caught a cod. Next time, after being chased off the shore by the incoming tide, we retreated King Canute style to the promenade, only to spend the afternoon getting drenched by waves, but catching a decent sized flounder for tea. It was a decent size, before I tried to have my first attempt at filleting a fish, which meant we had enough left to make half a small fish finger. We both agreed it was delicious, but by that time we were both starving! Watch this space…
Raider’s round-up
It is very easy to get giddy with a few favourable pre-season friendly results, but bloody ‘ell, what results they were!
52:24 win against North Wales Crusaders. An abandonment due to failing floodlights whilst beating local Jam Eaters Workington Town.
And…
a 26:14 win against 75-time Superleague champions WIGAN WARRIORS. Trouncing the blooming Pie Eaters.
Let’s hope it is a sign of good things to come this season 😉
And finally
Possibly, tenuously based on a true story (Bristol Zoo), this is well worth a watch.
Enjoy 🙂
“This is my car park…”
Hasta la proxima, baby! More nonsense coming your way soon…
Cheers Johnny & the ladies x
P.S. If you are looking for a class film to watch at the flicks, get yersen to see EMPIRE OF LIGHT (Trailer in the title!)
get the compass out 
