Blakey Ridge to Sleights – not on the buses – but maybe on the trains

I hate you Butler. A bit of an obscure reference for under 60s. Anyway, I’ll let it pass.

Today it rained. Not only rained but persistently. It just makes it hard to get decent photos when all you can see is the inside of a cloud. Great breakfast, latish start (9am) and I’m away, with my rucksack contained in a cheap, plastic poncho bound by garden twine. And my boots still holding together with superglue. New kit? No need. Up-cycling, hillwalking, freewheeling, Bob Dylan. How did you get here? You got a lot of nerve, sing Positively 4th Street for me.

This standing stone appeared out of the mists (of time) and seemed mysterious. But the inscription below the cross of the Cross gave away its age. MM. A youngster.

This was a 15 mile walk today and the first 9 miles were over the Moors in the rain and cloud and wind. I was wet, and wanted to sit by a fire drinking hot chocolate. But when you’re Miles from Nowhere, thanks Cat, all you can do is walk. When the cloud lessened temporarily there wasn’t much to see anyway.

Oh look, a dead rabbit, said the old bloke desperate for photographic material. Or could it be an alien species?

Dropping down into the Esk valley I was so wet that I didn’t want to take my gloves off to take photos. When my hands are wet I can’t get them back on. Glaisdale was shut, but there was a covered entrance to the local pub and it gimme me shelter (thanks Mick/Keith) to get my kit in better shape, re-tie the twine and dry out for ten minutes or so. In the valleys it isn’t cold but it’s the rain that gets your clothes and kit.

It was a decent but damp walk down to Egmont, then on to Grosmont.

And what great timing had I? The steam train was in the village as I walked towards the station.

Even more magnificent, it set off.

Anyone who lived during the 50s and 60s would be hard hearted not to shed a tear and feel that lump in their throat at the passing by of this beautiful, evocative, historic yet present, representative of British greatness. Engineering greatness. Romantic greatness. I’m not jingoistic but I love a lot of what this great country has produced.

Including steak and ale pie and sticky toffee pudding, which I ate at the Inn that I was staying at tonight. To die for. But don’t believe the old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Just saying.

Night night.