...nothing but footprints

Sometimes when I have a week's leave from work it just isn't feasible to spend a full week away from home.  When that happens we like to start and end the week with a weekend break, which is just what we did in October, starting with a couple of days in the Dales and the Howgills and ending the week with a return to the Lake District.  This time our base was the town of Cockermouth, which placed us just a short drive away from Crummock Water from where we intended to set out on a climb of Grasmoor. It was a dull and blustery Friday morning as we drove out to Keswick where we spent an enjoyable day around the shops, followed by a pleasant evening in Cockermouth - home to Jenning's Brewery and one of my all-time favourite beers, Snecklifter. Unfortunately, the weather didn't improve much overnight and the forecast for the rest of the weekend was a bit grim.  The need to book accommodation before the availability of a weather forecast with any kind of accuracy is a prob

After completing a most enjoyable walk around the Norber Erratics and Maughton Scar, just north of Austwick in the Yorkshire Dales (see earlier blog), we travelled to an inn, just five miles to the south of the town of Sedbergh.  Our base for the rest of the weekend was the charming and slightly quirky "Head at Middleton" - a pub with lovely, well equipped rooms (ours even had its own little kitchen), delicious food and quite possibly the worst selection of beer in any pub I've ever visited.  The best beer on offer was Guinness, which was poured into a glass from a can and then somehow fizzed up with a device on the bar.  For the first time in ages we ordered wine with our evening meal. The Howgill Fells nestle snugly between the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales and whilst mostly contained within the western boundary of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, they are actually geographically situated within the modern day county of Cumbria.  I'd wanted to walk in the