The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Monday 12 April 2010

Day 20 Postscript

Whilst paused in Ripponden for elevenses this morning (which, unusually, fell before 11 as we had omitted 2nd breakfast) I had to re-read what I'd written last night as I was so tired as I wrote it that I feared that it said no more than "went for a walk past some reservoirs". I'm pleased to see that I managed to string together a few more words than that, but I did miss out a couple of notable points.

If you were to go way back to the post I made last September announcing the route that we intended to take on this walk you'll see that I said that as we touched the Pennine Way at Wessenden Head we would pause for an egg bap and a cup of tea at the snack wagon on the main road there.

Mick positively rushed up the hill once that van came into view, but it proved that our usual tea-room jinx was holding firm. The hatch was closed and we were advised that they'd sold out of everything except cold drinks. They were just packing everything up to leave.

With just a chocolate bar out of our rations with which to console ourselves (I dropped my half on the floor but wasn't going to forego it, so brushed it off and ate it anyway), we continued on our way (where John belatedly noticed that when he'd bought a bottle of pop from the van he'd been underchanged by a fiver).

It was at the snack van that we had our first (but not our last) convergence with our LEJOG route. For the next three and a half miles, into Marsden, we followed the exact same route as we did 2 years ago, except that just outside of Marsden John decided that rather than taking the road we were much better trying to kill our knees with a long flight of steps. It was the sort of flight where you wouldn't want to stumble on the top step if you wanted to make it to the bottom in one piece. It was also deceptive, as from the top you could only see the top two-thirds of the flight; the bottom third, being much steeper than the top part, was hidden from view until we got there. Our knees groaned again!

All else to be said about yesterday is a huge thank you to Phil, Rosa and Megan for the transport, hospitality and use of their facilities (and to Cathy for the use of her room in her absence). We enjoyed being spoiled to such an extent!


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