Despite the gloomy prognosis we just about managed to stay one step ahead of the weather. There was plenty of sun and beer in Barrow before the rain came halfway between Windermere and Keswick, pelting down as we crawled through Ambleside, then gradually petering out as we finally reached the campsite. In the evening we climbed Lonscale Fell, walked around Castlerigg Stone Circle, ate jumbo sausage and chips by the banks of Derwentwater, then sat shivering in the car downing cans of Lidl lager while voices on the radio talked depressingly of Sarkozy's victory and Roeder's resignation.
After half an hour's worth of fruitless messing about on the slopes of Gategill Fell - when will I get around to buying an Ordnance Survey map? - it took me exactly fifty-seven minutes to scramble up to the top of Blencathra this morning, via the grassy, sheep-shit covered mounds of Hall's Fell and the slate knife edge of Narrow Ridge, what Wainwright called "positively the finest way to any mountain top in the district". I lunched on short bread fingers and two-day old tap water before descending by way of Gategill and Blease Fell; Derwent and Bassenthwaite south across Threlkeld Common, Skiddaw and wind turbines to the west, home, the Pennines and my brother asleep in the car below away to the east.
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