Day 121: Gatehouse of Fleet

Tags

Borgue, Cycling, Dumfries & Galloway, Gatehouse of Fleet, Kirkcudbright, Water of Fleet

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 28

It is with regret that I leave Kirkcudbright.  I’ve only had the chance to scratch the surface of this fascinating little town and will be coming back to spend more time here. It has  a deserved  and long standing reputation as a centre of painting and the visual arts. It is a town of character and beauty and I would like to explore its history and geography and maybe to do a water-colour or two myself.

Any regret is short-lived though. You cross the bridge and are immediately on the coast road. Within a hundred yards I am cycling next to a perfect estuary. The tide is out and the exposed sands have attracted lapwings and redshank. I don’t have binoculars with me but  I can see oyster catchers and sandpipers and hear the occasional  haunting call of the curlew. Even on a brightening afternoon it is a sound to cheer and thrill. At dawn or dusk it is worth a four hundred mile round trip. I’m told there is even a chance of glimpsing an osprey.

This is why we cycle. We go fast enough to be always passing through different landscapes and slow enough to enjoy them. This road would convert many a sceptic. I continue to be lucky with traffic; there is hardly any; and as I pass into Fish House Wood the road is practically on the shoreline. Stopping to picnic on oatcake biscuits, cheddar cheese and apple and   wishing I’d bought that cheap tent in Carlisle. To wake up near these shores with their sounds and sights is one of the pleasures to be treasured from a 1987 cycle up the west coast. I’d love to repeat the experience. The pull of moving on has to be strong to overpower the pull to stay. The road moves away from the coast but remains stunning. You could live here and be happy.

At a place called Borgue there is a small hotel. It has everything you could wish for. The woman who runs it is kindness itself; she even says that, though the room comes with a shower, I would be welcome to use the family bath. The price seems reasonable, location, far from indifferent. But she didn’t take plastic and I only had a few pound coins. She tells me there is a bank machine in Gatehouse of Fleet. It is with the full intention of returning that I cycle off in that direction.

Unfortunately for Borgue, Gatehouse of Fleet is a delight. And I’ve got far too many miles to go forwards on this trip to be able to take too many in the wrong direction. Up here there isn’t a wrong direction (providing you keep off the main road) there’s simply a lack of time.

Of all the wonderfully named towns you pass through in South West Scotland, Gatehouse of Fleet has the best name. It was at one time a toll booth on the staging route from Dumfries to Stranraer and as it stands on a river delightfully named The Water of Fleet, the derivation becomes clear. I’ve ridden the six miles from Borgue almost bolt upright. The views from the road are exceptional and I don’t want to miss a thing. You just know that the views from half way up the surrounding fields will be beyond belief. In the near distance are hills of substance. Beyond them are craggy tops and the promise of the sort of isolation and grandeur that England, crowded as it is, struggles to deliver. Buildings start to appear. Some even have those little round towers that add to the visual but cannot add much to the practical. They are very Scottish though Walt Disney was keen to borrow the design.

My map tells me I either stop here or keep going for at least three more hours. I could manage an hour and a half but that would leave me right among those craggy tops. A wonderful place to feed the spirit in the daytime; a forbidding place to pass the night without a tent.

The girl on reception at The Murray Arms is a very good reason for staying there. She is smart, helpful and bonnie. She even promises me a room with a bath but she can only offer me a room at full double rates and £70 is a little more than I want to pay. I pedal into the main street complete with bunting for a summer fête. There’s a poster advertising the carnival (all the towns in Dumfries and Galloway are having one) with a picture of Anne Robinson on. What have they got her for? I ask myself before realising that it is Isla St Clair looking older than I remember her.

There’s a choice of accommodation. And it all looks good. I’m taken by the small hotel that is keen to point out that it is where Dorothy L Sayers wrote Five Red Herrings. I wonder if the proprietor has read the book. It isn’t altogether kind about the sort of people you may find in these parts. I’m taken by some of the guest houses though I don’t often stay in places where people take too close an interest. In the end I plump for The Bank of Fleet Hotel. It feels like a coaching inn and the landlady is the first person I’ve met in Scotland who actually says “och”. “Och, it’s a double room, but we’ll do you for a single. Oh aye, you’re away over to Ireland are ye? Well we’re exactly 42 miles from Stranraer here, and if you’d have arrived earlier you could have had a room with a bath. You’ll just have to shape yoursel. And onnyway, ma husband’s away to Stranraer the morrow in his truck. Perhaps he could gi ye a lift and put that old bike of yers on the back.”

The room I get is rather good. A big, comfortable double bed and, in the absence of the bath tub I’d hoped for, there is a power shower that would take the grease off a ten year old crankshaft. There are wooden shutters as well as curtains. The only thing that goes against it is that it is directly above the front door. Happily the bar has a little beer garden awning for smokers, so even this location isn’t a problem.

I’ve stopped a little earlier than I’d intended but this allows time for a leisurely circuit of the town before settling down on a bench for an hour or two of Arnold Bennett. I think old Arnold would have enjoyed Gatehouse of Fleet.

Day 120: Food Town Art Town

Tags

Castle Douglas, Cuthbert, Haugh of Urr, Kirkcudbright, Scotland, The Wicker Man

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 27

When an old lady, well wrapped up against July weather in Southern Scotland calls out that “You’re going tae get virra wet”. I’m not sure if she’s being concerned about my welfare or making a biblical incantation against the sins of my younger days “Repent ye, oh sinners, for a great flood will overwhelm you.”

In other months it’s best to have waterproofs when cycling, but in July and August and spuddling along at my pace, the rain is a pleasant feeling. The warm drops spatter. If it’s a light shower, you don’t even get wet. If the rain is prolonged; and today the rain has been pretty steady since breakfast; then you get wet. Once you’re wet you can’t get any wetter and the rain becomes your friend.

There are no flat roads anymore but no hills that can’t be ridden at a steady rhythm. I see a fellow over-laden touring cyclist. We hail each other and as we pass we both think how stupid the other looks. I determine to shed as much load as I can at the next convenient place. I pedal along contemplating the simple oneness with the world. You feel every drop of rain, every buffet of breeze on a bicycle and it makes being alive feel rather good.

The majority of the route from Dumfries to Castle Douglas is along an old military road. I don’t know the history but military roads usually mean supply lines and supply lines either mean a battle or a castle. I’m heading to a place called Castle Douglas. I do some simple figuring. Being an old military road means it’s pretty straight and straight roads usually mean plenty of up and down. But it’s undulation rather than climbing. The fields are green, there’s little traffic and farms protected by a brake of trees are interspersed by occasional whitewashed single storey cottages.

At the interestingly named Haugh of Urr (no idea how the locals pronounce it) a woman in a four wheeled drive car gave proof that wealthier people have a tendency to not think too much about lesser people by stopping suddenly and then, as I’m making rapid manoeuvres to avoid clattering into the back of her, opens the driver’s door without checking and gives me the choice of hitting it or playing chicken with an approaching post bus. The driver of the bus sees what is happening and courteously brakes. Thus, in an instant content turned to panic and then through the bright alertness of a professional driver, the thoughtlessness of a poor driver is put right. If I was still a drinking man, I’d stop for a pint to unwobble myself. The woman seems blissfully unaware that she had nearly killed somebody…twice.

I’m ready to stop by the time I get to Castle Douglas and I’m in for a treat. I pass a sign saying “Welcome to Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway’s Food Town.” I like food. It was a complete surprise and a most welcome one.

The main street is a thoroughfare of good places to eat and good places to buy food. I’m in a dilemma. There is only so much you can stuff down your throat when you started the day with a full fry. I can’t load too much onto my overloaded ark. Do I look for somewhere to stay and enjoy at least three meals here? I’ve only been on the road for three hours and Ireland is beginning to exert a pull on me. I decide that one good meal will have to do and to make sure I find an excuse to return.

Most of the restaurants are closed at lunch time so I opt for a sandwich shop that offers more than I could get at home. I have ham with Swiss cheese, pickle and grain mustard. It goes down nicely with a decent takeaway mug of coffee. As is always the case once I’ve chosen, I immediately see at least seven places that seem to offer better options. There are excellent butchers, delis, bakeries and cafés. The town has an impressive history going back to Roman times, was the seat of the Earls of Douglas and was built as a new town to plan by one of the later members of the family. Tracing its ancient history is relatively easy. What I cannot discover, and I ask quite a few, is how long it has been a food town. I suspect about as long as Ludlow. Though I cannot trace the cause. Until recently a Scottish food town would either be seen as an oxymoron or would be the perfect place to top up of fish suppers and deep fried Mars bars.

I continue to follow route 7 of the cycling network. It adds miles and miles onto my journey but it shows me places that are worth the detour. The weather is now half way between rain and shine. Cycling under a long tunnel of tall trees hung with moss sparkling with raindrops in the glinting sun is worth the effort alone. I’m ready to pedal harder. The hills are a bit steeper and a bit longer, the woods a bit deeper and a bit greener. On some of the tops are little areas of moorland where crows and finches call out and the breeze smells of bracken and heather.

And just as I’m settling in for a long ride I drop down a long hill and enter Kirkcudbright which, not to be outdone by is gastronomic neighbour, announces itself as “The Artist’s Town”.

The town gets its name from being the place where St Cuthbert’s bones were buried after being removed from Lindisfarne. Cuthbert only stayed in the town for seven years but the town still bears his name though the spellings have changed more than the pronunciation. The town is pronounced Kirkoubrie and has been a destination for artists for over a hundred years. In the local Tesco I’m told that The Glasgow Boys are in town. The Glasgow Boys were an art movement in the 1890s but news moves quite slowly in these parts; some of them may have hung around.

I pass a yard where men were carving rather fine blocks of sandstone into cartoon mice and another place where huge logs are being equally Disneyfied. I’m sure there is art of a more dignified nature. I like the place; it’s a genuine inland port and I try to book into a local hotel. I simply cannot get anyone to answer my ringing of the reception bell. It is the town where they filmed much of The Wicker Man; they do things differently here. After five minutes I feel rested enough to continue on my way, and I’m thrilled that I did. The next section is even more beautiful than the last. I’ve enjoyed the hill farms, the dairy meadows, the woodlands and some stretches of moor. The haunting cry of wading birds tells me that I’m now approaching my absolute favourite physical environment; the estuary. Up here on the south west coast of Scotland they have some of the most breath-takingly beautiful estuaries in the world and the Dee Estuary is one of the finest. I ride on into heaven.

Day 119: Queen of the South

Tags

Dumfries, Kirkpatrick's Cycles, Lochmaben, National Cycle Network, River Nith, Scotland

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 26

Breakfast is in the bar of The Crown. It is overseen by an old man who seems to be well versed in over-seeing. And decidedly un-versed in helping. Like many small hotels there is a set way of doing things and an assumption that everyone will know what the set way is without being told. Some people like routines. I am suspicious of them. I have no objection on principle but feel a sadness when the routine is seen as the right way of doing things because it is the way we do things. It stifles creativity and stands in the way of actual thinking, exploring and advancing. It’s limiting effects are as keenly felt in national governments and schools as in small hotels.

There are tables laid out for one, for two and for four. No-one is allowed to eat before 8.30. This isn’t simply a matter of routine; this is to allow the attractive young mother who does absolutely all the work, to provide her husband with his breakfast, get her children to the child-minder’s and man the hotel kitchens. She is one busy woman. She is also pleasant and calm, friendly and accomplished.

I am directed to the table for one. Two road-builders nurse hangovers. One sees the cure in eating, the other in abstinence. The German family have their breakfasts ordered by the father who, in broken English, recites a list of what they would like excluded from their full-Scottish. Through simple mis-understanding, this is exactly what they are served. They eat slowly but without complaint.

I get an extra sausage and my first taste of haggis. I like haggis but wouldn’t put it forward as a national dish. It works well with bacon and eggs though.

My legs have stiffened up over-night and the mile-and-a-half-long-hill out of Lochmaben stretches the fibres nicely. I use it as a warm-up; just find a low gear and go up very slowly. It’s a grey and drizzly day, only a little after nine and I’ve got the whole day ahead of me. I’m on the main Dumfries to Lockerbie road. I’m only four or five miles from that town. The quiet, peaceful towns and villages I have discovered in this area make me contemplate the events of December 1988 when a little Scottish town became the centre of world news and the site of the worst terrorist attack on Great Britain. I say a silent prayer for the victims as I ride through the falling rain.

The upper Eden Valley is a glorious red sandstone. Dumfries is more of a mudstone. It is distinctive, but it is not handsome. It is a town I like though. My size of a town. Big enough to have all you could wish and small enough to have it where you want it to be. I have an issue with the signposting. I’m quite a good navigator, yet nearly miss the entire town centre. A young man puts me right and directs me down a road with a proper cycle shop on it. Kirkpatrick’s is an old fashioned shop run by a man who knows about bicycles. He stocks things a true cyclist needs and not just the fancy designer stuff to make the air-head look good. There is a wonderful old bike in the window and the philosophy of the shop is to give the customer what they actually need; be this parts, a new bike or first class information. The slogan is “At Kirkpatrick Cycles we don’t sell bikes, we simply tell the facts to let you make an informed decision”

I rate the shop highly, buy two tubes and ask the best way to Stranraer. He questions whether I wouldn’t be better off heading up towards Troon and Ardrossan and getting a ferry from there. He says I’ll enjoy the route through the south west highlands. His wife stands away in the background and observes in a tone that brooks little disagreement that “There’s not much to see in Stranraer. Troon’s nicer”.

Marks and Spencer provide me with a packet of their very nice drinking chocolate. They come in individual portions wrapped in silver cigar shaped tubes. Waterstones provides me with a modern map which includes cycle routes. The staff are helpfulness personified. I hand over the muddy brown bank note I was given in change at the bike shop and get a smeary blue one in return.

Outside it is a friendly version of any small town in Britain. Groups of young people impress each other while annoying everyone else. Young mothers with tattoos and cigarettes, old people getting in the way, especially the one with the bicycle, and groups of eastern Europeans looking a little lost. The town centre is nicely laid out and could even be called attractive. After an hour though I feel I might have done all that I need to do and wander westwards. The River Nith is wide and splendid and under-used as a feature of the town. I cross a fine bridge and follow cycle network signs that take me through a park, over another bridge and onto a disused railway. It all points in the direction of Castle Douglas. I had seriously considered following routes up into Ayrshire but this route was so very pleasant that I found myself choosing the Loch Ryan ports almost by distraction. I wanted the rail line to go on and on. Of course it didn’t but it soon became glorious country lanes. This part of Scotland is truly wondrous, and heading in a fast straight line to the ferry isn’t the way to see it. The day remains grey and wet but it’s  lovely. It is the day when I finally fall in love with the National cycle network 7.

There is only so much you can write about the pleasures of cycling. You pedal, you pedal some more. Sometimes you get short of breath, sometimes you recover while free-wheeling down hills. You see a lot of fine countryside, you experience whatever weather is around directly onto you skin and you think a lot of thoughts. Some people cycle to exercise their bodies. I certainly do this. Having done severe damage to knee and ankle joints I need a non-pounding form of exercise. Cycling and swimming work for me. But I find the exercise it offers to the spirit and the brain is what keeps me turning the pedals. I simply think better and more clearly when I am riding a bicycle. The experience is enhanced considerably if I’m riding through lanes as beautiful as these.

Day 118: Breakfast with Robert the Bruce

Tags

Lochmaben, Robert the Bruce, Scotland

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 25

Fixing the puncture was easy enough. Putting the back wheel back on the bicycle with juggernauts thumping past, on the road to Ireland, was another matter. The choice was between risking jutting into the path of the lorries or to actually stand among the gorse. I got some interesting scratch patterns but didn’t die. Another mile of being frightened out of my wits brought a right turn signposted to Dalton and Lochmaben. I didn’t bother working out if they were on the route to the ferry. I was born in Dalton…not this one… but it felt like a friendly, caring hand reaching out.

The world changed when I swapped 75 for 7020. Suddenly the only sounds are birdsong and the whizz of my own tyres. It’s an almost perfect road to ride along and the evening sun makes it the perfect time to ride it. Gentle undulations slowly become hills; the first I’d had to climb in Scotland. I see four cars in the first five miles.

At Dalton I pause, and am consulting out of date maps, when a lady, takes a break from tending a well kept garden and, comes to see if I need any assistance. I told her that in the last forty years I had twice travelled to Dumfries. On both occasions I seen the signs to Dalton and both times had wanted to visit. I told her  that this visit was more to do with avoiding the trunk road.  She is delighted to welcome me to the village. “If you’d have arrived an hour or two ago we could have used you in the village cricket team; we’re were one short. Would you like a cup of tea? I could fill your water bottles up for you while I’m making it. Oh you’re from near Nottingham are you. My husband is driving there tomorrow morning to watch a day of the test match. No it’s no trouble at all. I’ll just call him while I get you a slice of cake.”

The husband emerges, and after appraising that I am no rival to his wife’s favours, leans on his garden wall and asks about my route and how he can be in Nottingham in as many hours as it has taken me days. He seems very keen that I join him in drinking some beer. I tell him that I’ve fallen out of the habit, so he contents himself with telling me which pubs do bed and breakfast between Dalton and Dumfries. He makes a special point of telling me which ones do an excellent pint of bitter just in case I have second thoughts on imbibing.

Once the two of them are together they make a complete picture of the sort of friendly, agreeable, helpful people you want to live in lovely villages like Dalton. Neither was born in the village but both come from nearby towns. Their house is of the one storey whitewashed kind that characterises the county. The garden is a labour of love. They both agree that going to Lochmaben is the way for me and I see no reason to disagree. The tea and cake provide a perfect fillip and the evening sun dips low as I pedal the last few miles of the day.

The place they had particularly recommended is closed but as I ride into Lochmaben the first pub I pass, The Crown, has a b & b sign. A friendly and rather beautiful woman behind the bar signs me in, shows me one of several garden flats around a large lawned beer garden that goes down to one of several lochs in the town. I’m very happy to accept. I make tea while I shower and proudly note the 79 miles I have travelled today; the same as on day one but without the struggle.

Part of the pleasure of a journey like this one is the planning. The sitting at the kitchen table at home with maps and mugs of tea. Everywhere I’d stopped so far is where I’d intended to stop. Lochmaben was different. I hadn’t heard of the place until I saw it on a sign where I wanted to leave the A75. I’d never heard the name spoken until I met the lovely couple in Dalton, and now I was here. I liked the elements of chance that had brought me to this neat historic town. There were another three weeks of the journey ahead of me, and on only one day out of those weeks did I spend the night where I had intended at the start of the day. The rest were where the wind blew me; and that was one of the very best things about the whole adventure.

There is a statue of Robert the Bruce in the centre of town. There are claims that the great liberator was born here. There are several competing claims. Lochmaben strengthens its particular case by pointing out that the town’s Latin motto translates as “From us is born the liberator king”. It’s a dubious reinforcement; the motto was adopted many years afterwards. Bruce’s role in history is well known to Scottish people but is obscure to the English. We know he was victorious at Bannockburn but have no idea where Bannockburn is (Near Stirling), nor who he was fighting (The English). We do, however, know about the spider. We’ve been told it in countless school assemblies in pre-motivational speaking days. Bruce took inspiration from a spider that kept swinging until it crossed the divide to continue its web. We were told simply that “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again.” WC Fields would add “Then give up…there’s no point in making a complete sucker of yourself.”

I like the message and I’m sure it did some of us some good. I certainly prefer it to exhortations to “step up to the plate”, “get into the zone” and “front up”. I ponder on the purpose of motivational language. In the hands of a skilled educationalist it is amazing and life enhancing. It also tends to avoid clichés and speaks to the individual. All too much of what we get comes from lumpen sportsmen who have little to say but insist on saying it anyway.

The town is a popular centre for recreation. On the biggest of the lochs there is sailing and Scotland’s other sporting delight, golf, features with several local courses. I don’t much care for golf but somehow my antipathy is dissolved once I get north of the border. Maybe it’s because Scottish golf courses play alongside the natural beauty of the landscapes they inhabit rather than the habit of English golf courses to force themselves  on the environment.

I buy milk and my first Scotch pie from a local grocer and settle in for a comfortable night’s sleep.

I always feel a bit of a fraud when I stay at a pub or inn. Not drinking and then going to bed and sleep at nine o’clock seems a little anti-social. There is no resentment in my welcome at the breakfast table. “Sit yourself down and help yourself to cereal. You’ll be wanting the full-Scottish and I’ll pop and extra sausage on for you as you’re on your bicycle.”

There are two other parties; two road diggers with severe hangovers and a family of four from Germany. I eat rather more than their combined efforts before being sent on my way to Dumfries.

Related articles

• Robert the Bruce and the Spider (avantistories.wordpress.com)

Day 117: Avoiding the A75

Tags

Annan, Dumfries, Eastriggs, Kirtle Water, National Cycle Network

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 24

The road I’m following is also a national cycle route. With hindsight, I may have been better keeping to this all the way to Dumfries, but, if I had, I would have missed what I saw and I’m not really one to wonder too much about the road not chosen; certainly not with regret.

I’m not sure if the breeze has dropped away to nothing or if my legs are in the best shape of the year. Four days sunshine has done no harm in bronzing them, and there is just a hint of muscle emerging as I shed the first layer of chubbiness. There’s plenty of wobble left in the upper body, but the legs are setting a pretty good example. The road is quiet and good. At first it runs parallel to the A75 but after crossing the delightfully named Kirtle Water the road takes you out into the countryside.

It’s mixed farming all the way with a farmhouse on top of every rise from Gretna to Eastriggs. The flatlands are most welcome and the perfect sunny afternoon makes me want to go as far as I can. There comes  a point in any endurance activity when the keeping going is the simple and perfect pleasure of it. You’ve passed six degrees of tiredness and suddenly you are not only not tired, but you don’t think you’ll feel tired ever again. The pituitary gland produces endorphins and these  give you a feeling of exhilaration and they  hide pain. They make long distance cycling quite an experience. We also produce endorphins while eating spicy food and engaging in sexual activity. I make do with the cycling ones for now.

Eastriggs is a pleasant mixture of bungalows, whitewashed cottages, more substantial stone built houses and the grey municipal semis that caught on in Scotland rather more than south of the border in the 1950s and 60s. It’s almost deserted. I suppose everyone has been called in for their tea.

The road remains quiet between here and Annan but you’re never out of sight of residential housing here. The fields stretch out towards the distant (and out of sight) Firth. The succession of whitewashed barns and farm buildings gives the area a completely different feel from rural Cumbria. I haven’t spoken to a soul since crossing the border; I’ve passed little other than ash and sycamore trees and fields and farms; and yet, it is unmistakably Scotland. And I am undeniably happy.

Annan was another place where I’d thought of making a stop. There was no way I could have planned getting this far when I left Dufton. It’s approaching evening. I’ve left my writing pad in a Carlisle post office and I need a fork to eat my second M & S salad. The first shop I stop at sells both. It also sells me a can of cola to wash down the lunch I didn’t finish in Carlisle. I take an immediate liking to the town. I sit down on a bench to eat my tea but all the shine of the place wears off before I’ve completed my coleslaw.

On the adjacent bench is a young family. Mum and dad can’t be more than 24 (which is about the number of teeth they have between them). They have 5 children under 7 and a single covered torso between them; happily, the mother’s. In refutation of popular myths about the Scottish, there isn’t an ounce of fat on any of the six males. There is very little muscle either. The adult male has a selection of badly drawn and self-applied tattoos. In choosing a tattoo, the art is to choose one that depicts your personality. These are all awful and depict his personality perfectly. Both parents are smoking endless rollies which have a semi-legal smell.

The children are playing rough and tumble games of a sort that are indeed rough. The ability to accept humiliation and to take pain without complaint is not a skill I aspire to myself, but two of the littler fellows are going to become extreme hard cases if they continue to take the punishment their elder siblings are dishing out. The youngest complains to his mother.

“He hit me.” he whimpers, in a manner that still expects some sympathy and even protection.

“Well hit him back.” is all he gets.

“But he told me to f*** off!”

“Well you tell that tw*t to f**k off from me!”

And the elders went back to moaning about the f***ers who had stopped their dole and where the next lot of money was coming from.

I’ve no doubt that there is a family here in need of some urgent attention and help. I wouldn’t rate my own chances in life if I had the upbringing being displayed. I could do nothing. When I’d so much as glanced across I’d been met with looks of menace and hatred. It didn’t show Annan in a favourable light. The two older chaps supporting each other out of the hotel bar across the road did little for my desire to make myself a local tourist statistic. In fact, there was either a fine local celebration or Annan has a strikingly high proportion of serious drunks. This was before six o’clock on a weekday evening and there were at least seven people beyond the acceptable bounds of sobriety.

I find a quiet road out of town and am contemplating where I might spend the night when I find myself on the A75. The rest of my journey to Stranraer/Cairnryan is one long attempt to avoid this road. It is a thundering brute of a road. All the traffic bound to and from Ulster would make this a busy enough road on its own but this is a major route inside Scotland as well. It beats like a thundering pulsing artery from the border to the sea. If you can avoid it you’ll cycle some of the best cycling and sightseeing roads in Great Britain. If you can’t avoid it, and I am forced to pedal it at this point, you’ll improve your map reading and route planning skills before you venture into Dumfries and Galloway again.

With ever larger trucks clattering by the last thing I want is a puncture. I’d only cycled one stretch of main road since leaving home and I punctured then. The odds of puncturing on my second stretch must be huge. The flinty roadstones that have been flung into the tiny ribbon of road, to the left of the kerb line, reduce the odds. I hit one. My body and soul deflate with the tyre. There is literally no where to fix the tube. The verge is one thicket of gorse. I prop the bicycle up in it, release the wheel, climb over a fence into some woodland and fix it there. I don’t care where the next road is going… I’m going to take it!

Day 114: Crossing the Border

Tags

Asda, Carlisle, Dens Park, England, Gretna, Lake District, National Cycle Network, Scotland, Solway Firth, The Old Blacksmith's Shop

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe …. Part 23

There is a splendid bridge over the Eden as you head north out of Carlisle city centre. It will be the last time I see this river and I’ll miss it. I met it on the highest Pennine fells when it trickled from bog to marsh, and have watched it grow through childhood of falls and tumbles to young adulthood in the meadows amidst cattle and dairies. It’s a fully mature river that flows beneath the Eden Bridge. It still has a few meandering miles to go before it joins the Esk and together they form the tip of the Solway Firth. It isn’t a river I’ve heard a great deal about but it is a river to cherish; a river that is almost the perfect model of an English stream.

Once over the bridge my troubles begin. I’ve got previous with the National Cycle Network. Like every other millennium project, this seems to have been designed with greater fervour than thought. It seems either to take you altogether out of your way, or it adds miles onto the simplest journey without adding much to the aesthetic experience. Another habit it has is to take you step by step into the middle of nowhere and then abandon you. And this is what it does before I’ve even left Carlisle.

A lady outside the castle had carefully explained the route to me and it distinctly said Asda, and it clearly said, service road. I amble along some Victorian streets of three storey houses from Carlisle’s days as a major textile town, and then out into country lanes where charms of goldfinch cheer me on my way. My spirits chirrup and chatter with the birds, the meadow flowers are in full bloom on the verges and hedgerows and I suddenly find myself on a series of newly laid out roads without signposts and some without macadam. My twenty five year old map is useless; these roads didn’t exist twenty five weeks ago. I have no compass, no sense of direction; the sun seems to have moved into the north. I lose a little enthusiasm on finding that my first choice leads to a dead end and my second becomes a slip road for a big trunk route. On my third attempt, I come across a group of road builders being advised by a sturdy fellow who turns out to be something of a hero.

I expect to be shouted at for riding on his unmade road. Instead he takes in my plight, points me in the right direction with written instructions (which include the words Asda and service road), and instructs one of his men to drive slowly in front of me, motorcade style, to ensure I get safely out of town. I’m sure a riever or two have had similar escorts in their time on their way into Scotland. I’m proud and thankful, and happily acknowledge the van driver’s salute as he speeds back to his work.

From then on getting to Scotland is a piece of shortbread.

My main interest in Asda is whether or not to buy a £12 tent. The problem is that their £13 sleeping bags have sold out and a night in a tent without, even in summer, in Scotland, is something that may prove a little chilly. I’m also packed to the gunnels. It’s a dilemma though. There isn’t another big town on my route until Dumfries and I suspect that the Queen of the South isn’t as big as I imagine. In the end I save my money, buy a few apples and seek out the service road.

It’s brilliant. A perfectly made road, newly laid and flat and smooth, in the shadow of whatever the M6 is called this far north, with hardly a car on it and a good summer breeze blowing me along like a sail. I wasn’t expecting either such a good road or such power in my legs. For four days I’ve laboured on this bicycle and now I’m flying towards the Scottish border like a man on the run. To my right the thundering wagons and lorries force their way out of England. To my left the vast estuarial plain of the Solway.

I divert west to the pretty village of Rockcliffe and then it’s north again, enjoying the sun, the wind, the fitness and the aptness and the just being thereness of it all. More cattle, more haymaking and a final glimpse of the Eden, though I was unaware of it at the time.

The maps I used were years out of date and I left them behind in the next hotel, google maps suggest that I must have gone into Gretna and Scotland on the M6. I know I didn’t. I passed a large saltaire, and a famous blacksmith’s shop without stopping. I’ve been there before; it’s Scotland of the Arran sweater and shortbread tin variety and that’s for the English. OK, so I am English, but this pedaller started school in Thurso and saw his first professional football on the terraces at Dens Park, Dundee. I’ve also taken a hundred hours to warm up my legs and I’m not stopping for an anvil and a place to marry an underage bride without her father’s permission.

My plan is to get nicely into the auld country and then look for one of those ubiquitous cheap motels; Ibis, Holiday Inn, Premier; and have a proper room for the night. I’m afraid of the A75 but, in finding my route to Annan, I find that what was the main road is now a quiet B road and I can avoid the Stranraer bound beasts for ten happy miles. The south westerly that blew me over the border has abated. It’s early evening and the sun is still high and bright over the fields of barley and wheat. Scotland looks a good deal like the nicer parts of England. I can even see the peaks of the Lake District. I’ve been keeping a healthy distance from them all day and now I can see them from a completely new angle. They’re every bit as impressive from a distance as from up close.

But I’m leaving behind the land of Wordsworth and Coleridge and Ruskin. I’m in Scotland, the land of Robert Burns, and to see her is to love her.

Day 113: Carlisle

Tags

Caesar Salad, Carlisle, Carlisle Cumbria, Cumbria, Derek Batey, Georgia Brown, Hunter Davies, John Coltrane, Lester Young

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe …. Part 22

It was an almost perfect school holiday early afternoon as I wheeled my bicycle into the centre of Carlisle. For the first time on the journey, I’m feeling fit and fresh and enjoying the exertion. I’ve covered the forty miles I’d planned, had a host of hotels and hostels to choose from. But, there were still hours left in the day and strength in my legs. The world was my oyster and Carlisle was the pearl.

The local youth have captured the market cross; the holiday equivalent of seizing the back seat of the bus; it isn’t the most comfortable and no-one else wants it.

They’re practising being grown-ups. These are the ones with some GCSEs in the bag. They mix comfortably with each other; easy in company and loyal to the shared experience of school, exams and now, fashion and a summer holiday stretching out. They are a handsome bunch in jeans and strappy tops. No cigarettes, no lager. Not even cans of energy drink. Just sunshine, friendship and a sense of satisfaction.

Carlisle has a very green centre. The whole of the centre is pedestrianised and has been for long enough for trees to reach a good size. They allow the buildings behind to make their presence felt without displaying the usual parade of plastic signs that make all English towns alike and a little sad. Against a perfect summer’s sky; azure blue with cotton wool clouds floating on midsummer zephyrs; the whole square looks a picture.

The sound is of people. The car has been banished and Carlisle hasn’t troubled itself with thoughts of going back to the tram or the trolley bus. The sounds you hear are people talking. It’s most pleasant until a local busker introduces a grotesque lack of ability to the gathered throngs. The good news is that he’s playing without amplification. As a result he gets a couple of Johnson pounds for keeping an eye on my bicycle. I downright refuse to give money to any busker who has a microphone and speakers. The bad news is that he is playing the saxophone and, even when played badly, and believe me this one was being strangled, the saxophone is a very loud instrument.

I don’t care much for the sax. In the hands of John Coltrane or Lester Young it can reduce me to tears, but on the whole I can manage quite nicely without. This fellow wasn’t far off reducing half the sunny population of the border city to tears.

With some regrets I plump for Marks and Spencer for lunch. I’d like to choose somewhere local but I’m surrounded by the usual retailers and M & S guarantee something tasty and clean. After walking all the way through acres of women’s ware including an accidental diversion into a splendid lingerie department, I come to the opposite doors without locating any food at all. The store continues across the next road and here I find salad bars and sandwiches. It’s late lunch time and the girl with the reduced labelling machine is busy and I buy twice what I otherwise would have done. A big bowl of Caesar Salad and an equally oversized coleslaw and prawn based salad. I add a baguette and return to the square where an elderly man, smart in moleskin trousers and a Vyella shirt and woven tie, makes room for me on his bench.

He’s enjoying the weather, the location and is even making contented small talk with the picnicking cyclist. The tones of jazz standards being massacred brings an occasional wince to his face. Georgia Brown is not so sweet today in north Cumbria.

“As Louis sang; It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” I observe.

“He’d turn in his grave.”

“Is he a regular?”

“Every bloody day this summer. I wouldn’t mind so much if he played modern songs but he plays songs that I like.”

“Maybe he’s deaf.” I suggest.

“I wish I was when he starts to play.”

It’s broken the ice nicely. He’s eating a pastry from Greggs. We chat amiably in the summer sun. He tells me about the city. Occasionally there’s a small falling out over by the cross and two young Carlislites chase each other and when they catch they forget why they were chasing and embrace. It’s quite a tactile town. There’s a lot of gentle touching going on. Is it the sunshine, the skimpy summer clothes or is this a seriously amorous city?

My elderly friend and I are suitably chaste. We’re observers not performers. He tells me where to find the cathedral, the castle and the best way to find quiet back roads towards Gretna and the Scottish border. He doesn’t think of it as a border town. He likes living here but that’s because he’s always lived here. “It does me fine. It’s got all that I need and I like to sit here while the wife does her bit of shopping.”

I leave him and explore the outsides of the squat and dumpy cathedral. Like a village church up on bricks. It’s one of the smallest of all the English cathedral churches. I can’t find anywhere I trust to leave my bicycle, so it’s exteriors only here and at the castle.

Carlisle has one heck of a history. From 1066 to 1603 this was largely about problems between England and Scotland. Either armies passing through to fight battles, put down rebellion or deal with the cross border crime spree that provided whole careers and gave the world the word “Reiver”. Basically border raiders, though nationality meant little if a profitable enterprise was a foot.

Carlisle also has a smattering of local celebrities. Border television was based up here and in the days when broadcasters struggled to fill three channels, this company made a national figure out of Derek Batey; a chubby, ageing, personality free television host who fronted Border’s only nationally networked programme. The 450 episode running Mr and Mrs. Not content in giving the world one contender for most pointless television presenter award; Carlisle went on to give both Richard Madeley and Richard Hammond their big breaks. The city, wisely, allowed them to move on.

Carlisle has produced few modern celebrities, but the ones that they have produced, are of the first order. Melvyn Bragg has probably done more for the arts in Britain in the last fifty years than anyone else. He’s walked the tight rope between serious art and mass audience with dignity and flair. The South Bank Show ran for even longer than Mr and Mrs and left behind slightly more than a catchy theme tune. Mike Figgis had the early sense to leave behind being in Bryan Ferry’s first band and has gone on to become one of Britain’s most successful film makers. You may not enjoy every moment of a Mike Figgis film but you know you’ve been in the cinema. He’s varied his output, producing documentaries, television work and major feature films. I’m quite a fan.

I don’t drink wine anymore but I’ve always had time for Jancis Robinson. She’s from Carlisle and has given a steadying credibility to an often dis-credited job. While television food shows employed a collection of people that made you squirm, to tell you about wine; people who I wouldn’t trust to be able to tell bollinger from brolac; Jancis gave dignity and authority to the role of wine sniffer and gurgler. It’s an easy job for a charlatan and this makes it all the more important to have someone you can trust and our Mrs Robinson has always been that.

Making up an impressive quartet is Hunter Davies; first and best biographer of the Beatles, Punch columnist, predecessor to Mariella Frostrup as Radio 4s voice of books and someone who had actually read most of those he discussed and one of the best sports’ journalists of his generation.

I’ve had a very nice time in Carlisle. I’ve seen a town of surprises and buildings I’d like to explore more fully. I’ve seen a city at ease with itself. There are supposed to be problem areas and even talk of no-go areas but I never saw any of this. It’s got two rivers and a history to shame most English cities. It guards one end of the English Scottish border and unlike Berwick at the other end, Carlisle is 100% English and proud of it.

Day 112: Steam Trains and Squirrels

Tags

Armathwaite, Carlisle, Cumbria, Red squirrel, Siri Hustvedt, Squirrel, Starbucks, Wilkie Collins

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 21

It’s as I’m making my way up the longest and steepest of the morning hills that I get an unfamiliar buzzing tone. It repeats itself several times and announces that for the first time in Cumbria, I’ve got a signal on my phone. It’s not that the county is without coverage, it’s more that Three don’t see the need to put on much of a service. “Sparse population; sod em!”

KirkOswald is an attractive village with an even more attractive shop. Cumbria is gaining a reputation as a place to eat well and the general store has a range of decent snacks on offer as well as good quality coffee. Gone are the days when a village shop is a place to buy sprouting, wrinkled vegetables and tins of Tyne Brand stew the wrong side of its sell-by date. Those shops have simply gone. The ones that have survived haven’t just diversified but have added a layer of quality over what is available in towns. This shop is no Starbucks because it is better than Starbucks. It serves me an excellent coffee in the fine, corrugated cups with lids that make al fresco coffee even nicer. It is the highlight of the village.

I settle on the one bench and watch the world go round. It goes round quite slowly and pleasantly at first. I see three people. A stunningly beautiful girl in her early twenties carrying a storybook. A woman who was either the last word in superciliousness or she had a bad smell up her nose and an arrogant, insensitive twerp who parked his Vauxhall Moriva right in front of me when there was ample parking either side, picked his Sun newspaper and a baguette (the object of his drive) from the front seat. Got out, scratched his privates and waddled off. He had a car, he lived in a delightful village. He had some things going for him. He had some things against him; he was bald, podgy, bore a series of expressions designed (apparently) to enhance his feelings of importance but which had the opposite effect. His wraparound sun glasses may have intended to give him a Bonoesque chic. Maybe they did. It’s not a look you aspire to unless you are rich enough not to care what people think. I took the registration number of his car in case anyone thinks they know the discourteous pillock and may supply it on request. I bet he’s already been recognised by anyone who knows the location. The village is too small for two such men.

The road to Armathwaite was signed as being five miles and was up and down enough to feel every inch of that. It was also rather lovely. The heights gave you views over the green meadows that characterise this section of the Eden Valley. The drops were into verdant woodland where all the road signs featured red squirrels. The first said “Red Squirrel Area”. the second, “Slow Red Squirrels”. (I presumed these were probably older members of the colony). The one that read “Caution Red Squirrels” had me looking out for arboreal rodents armed with acorns and the final sign that said “Danger Red Squirrels” had me quickening my pace and getting out of there.

I saw not a single squirrel and felt a little cheated.

In the shop at Armathwaite I buy a bar of fruit and nut and an isotonic drink. I have no idea if these work at my levels of effort but it was the only drink they had in a closable container. I asked about the route to Carlisle. “Is it a quiet road?”

“Oh yes, quiet enough.”

“Is it hilly?”

“Depends what you mean by hilly.”

“Is it up and down?”

“More up and up, I’d say.”

I sit outside the shop and enjoy the chocolate and most of the drink. The world seems perfect; slow paced and purposeful. It’s rural, it’s beautiful but there were no signs of tourists while I was there… except the lounging cyclist outside the shop.

He was exaggerating the gradient. A few pulls and stretches of the legs and I’m onto a flat long road that runs alongside the famous railway. A friendly fellow leans out of a signal box and tells me to stop if I want a good view of a passing steam train. As good as his word the engine hurried through, pulling several coaches, a couple of minutes later. They were a fine sight in their day. I’m old enough to remember steam trains passing my infant school  and always with a guard who waved. They are an even more splendid sight today, especially on a proper section of track; like the Settle to Carlisle; where they can get up steam and complete a proper journey. I wave my thanks to the signalman and proceed.

I follow a mobile library for a mile or so and stop when it does. Two ladies have been waiting patiently for its arrival. They each have two carrier bags with at least a dozen books in and they answer my enquiry by telling me that I am in Wetheral Pasture. I ask them which would be the best cycle route into the city and they both agree straight away. They give detailed directions and then, finishing each other’s sentences say, “That’s the shortest and the prettiest route”.

I thank them and say I wish we had a mobile library. “Oh, it’s wonderful but it only comes every six weeks so we’ve got to stock up”. They show me some of the books they are bringing back; Wilkie Collins, Siri Hustvedt, Alice Munro. These ladies are proper readers.

It’s mostly neat estates and suburban neatness for the downhill into a city I have never visited. It’s a hot day and the locals are enjoying a festival of flesh. To the outsider it is a mixed treat.

As I close in on the centre I get such local firms as B & Q, Staples and Benson’s Beds. It seems a pity to cycle 150 miles to see the twin trading estate to one in Worksop. These have the big advantage though, of being situated on and around a thoroughfare called Botchergate.

As I get closer still, untidy pizza delivery shops abound. And then, quite suddenly, I’m in the middle of Carlisle and it is lovely.

Day 110: I Met A Traveller

Tags

Blencarn, Dufton, England, Malham, Mankinholes, Norman Fowler, Pennines, Skirwith

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 20

The hostel at Dufton is very attractive, nicely appointed, spotlessly clean and positioned in a perfect location for walkers enjoying the northern fells or cyclists going from north to south or east to west. It should be a near perfect hostel; but it lacks soul. In my day the difference between a good and and bad hostel was only partially to do with buildings and location and greatly to do with the warden or the staff. Hostels beginning with M were a good bet. Marsden, Mankinholes, Malham and Malton were my favourites. All offered a friendly welcome and a good value for money.  Three out of four had fabulous wardens and the other had fabulous assistant wardens and a famous cove. Nothing much has changed

I’ve been quietly writing notes for a couple of hours before the other residents start to emerge. Fortunately I’ve nearly finished, as writing with these people around isn’t easy. Our cyclists are doing Lands End to John O’Groats and they want to tell people this. I’m the only other person up and even though, they have worked out, that I’m not a loquacious fellow, I do have a pulse and they have to tell somebody. One is Scottish and is looking forward to crossing the border later today. The other is English and continuously clears his nasal passages in a rather unpleasant way. They’re university sporting types and seem unaware that blowing snorters down your nose during a game of rugby is one thing but indoors in mixed company is quite another. I decline to give them chance to regale me by fetching my bags and strapping them to my bicycle. It could be considered anti-scocial of me. I prefer to think I helped them avoid being insulted.

The walkers re-emerge, and the one that looks like an ancient Spencer Tracey indeed appears to have passed over during the night. His face is a shade of grey not often associated with a beating heart. The one who looks like Norman Fowler props his father in a chair and then completely ignores him while he, Norman, devours a hearty breakfast. Of the German couple there isn’t a sign but the little bearded fellow is lurking in the garden with a hand rolled cigarette. I’ve taken exactly what I wanted from the hostel; a fine night’s sleep and the use of their kitchen. I don’t want faux wisdom, stale smoke and a nasal blockage. I leave them to their morning routines and pedal into the gentle lanes of North Westmoreland.

There are two sorts of countrymen in England these days. Those who are born to it, understand it, live it and breathe it. These are difficult to get to know, private and distrusting of strangers with notebooks. They are also the real deal and worth spending time with. They don’t dress particularly as countrymen but will often be in a checked shirt and jeans and may even be wearing a boiler suit.

The other sort are to be avoided at all costs. They will be dressed in tweeds, their shoes will be polished brown brogues, they will be walking a black or chocolate brown labrador and they will know absolutely nothing about anything at all. My old workmate Pete had it summed up. “Apart from people who work outdoors; never trust anybody over thirty in a baseball cap and don’t raise your hopes for anyone under thirty in a tweed cap.”

Within two miles of Dufton I’ve passed two of them. Quite separately walking their dogs along roads; something real country men rarely do. These fools have moved into the very heart of all that is beautiful; have taken a cottage out of the family line of several generations; commute forty miles to Kendal or Lancaster or Teesside; wear a cravat to the pub and walk their waddling, overweight dog half a mile and back along a metalled road when there are ten thousand acres of sheer beauty to walk in. And they spend several hundred pounds on thorn proof trousers and shooting jackets in which to do it. I’m reminded of Uncle Mort’s interjection upon seeing a man in a safari suit: “Dunt ‘e luck a pillock Carter?” And they did.

There are high fells towering on my right reminding me that I have quietly crossed the Pennines. Way over to my left are the mountains of Cumberland and the Lake District. Westmoreland appears to be a gigantic plain between the two. Stunningly attractive, a web of tiny lanes, each a delight in itself and each all my  very own for much of the morning. I pass grazing herds and new mown hay and different views of the River Eden and villages; Silverband, Knock, Milburn, Blencarn and Skirwith. I see hardly a soul.

After three days of tired legs and no wind in my chest, I’m getting the first feelings of fitness. The legs whir round, the miles tick away and yellowhammers announce my passing through.

My maps are not a lot of use. I use the landscape and the sun to make most of my navigational decisions and most of them turn out right. I’m heading towards Carlisle by the narrowest, quietest roads I can find. I had originally planned on a detour into Penrith; a town I have never visited, and one with lots of historical and geographical claims; but it doesn’t seem a morning for towns. And, anyway, after Appleby I don’t want another disappointment.

As I’m standing at a junction with map out and bike resting against me a party of half a dozen primary school pupils pedal past in the company of an elderly couple. She stops, in the manner of the friendly, the helpful and the unfit. She’s Scottish and cannot remember if they have travelled through Hunsanby or not. She calls to her partner who has also stopped and is hovering 5o yards away, trying to look irritated. He comes across and takes command of the situation. She’s obviously used to this and puts up no defence. I’m amused by it and am equally happy for him to take us both in hand.

He seems keener to point out my shortcomings than to actually help me on my way. “Oh dear me no.” he repeats at intervals. “You don’t want Hunsanby. You want to go to Winkshill you do.” He gives his wife a significant look and she returns it with a look that assures both of us menfolk that I’ve been saved a huge burden by this observation. “Hunsanby?” he sighs again to make himself yet more aware of mankind’s folly. “Yes you want Winkshill and you’d be better aiming at the B6412.”

My alarms switch on. I don’t mind the silly old buffer wasting ten minutes of everybody’s time; though I am becoming concerned for the party of youngsters they were accompanying. Well, either concerned or jealous. But, I am always wary of a man who knows his road numbers.

I give my thanks and am about to make a getaway when he pointedly adds: “You really ought to be wearing a helmet you know and make sure you don’t miss the level crossing at Lazonby. There isn’t another level crossing like that throughout the border and dales region.”

I thank him graciously and mention my concern for the little troop of young pedallers. He laughs knowingly, shakes his head and says, “Oh no; they’re not with us.”

Lucky sods, I think as I pedal quickly away.

Day 109: A Room of One’s Own

Tags

Cycling, Dufton Youth Hostel, Haworth, Hostel, Marco Pierre White, Mark Twain, vet school, Youth Hostels Association (England & Wales)

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 19

As I lie on the grass outside Dufton Youth Hostel, more adventurers arrive, and we all look shiftily at each other. Two tall, well-muscled and modishly attired young cyclists power up on straight handle-barred road bikes. A father and son on a traditional walking holiday approach from the hills. The son is ten years older than me and the father doesn’t look as though he’ll see out the night. They check in and I don’t see them again until the morning. Either fourteen hours sleep or they slipped across to The Stag early doors and made quite a night of it. An elderly German couple who don’t say anything to anyone else and certainly not to each other, though they seem always on the point of doing so. A  pleasant young woman who’s sweat shirt says vet school  gives off an air of friendly approachableness along with an air of the experienced local. She’s been staying there for four days and is our established resident. We rely on her to help us distinguish a kettle from a pan and a knife from a fork. She is a little young for an actual vet but is most obliging.

Our party is completed by a slight fellow of no great stature. His face is adorned by a beard of sorts and he knows everything. The cyclists are young and inexperienced as well as being desperate to tell someone else what they had already spent all day telling each other. They fall in with our light winged dryad of the beard and they take over the sofas in lounging postures of men who have fortunately fallen among friends.

Half and hour later I hear cyclist one whispering some sort of a secret code to his buddy. I didn’t catch all of it but it gave me the impression they were hatching a plot to get away from the weedy know-all. His Omniscience had by this time attached himself to the German couple who, still seemed about to embark on speech but, couldn’t have got a word in edgeways as they were episodically lectured on the dangers of a common currency, the documentaries of Robert Flaherty and the novels and wisdom of Mark Twain.

The vet school girl made herself a perfect meal for one and looked socially inclined enough to risk a conversation but wise enough to see danger signs in the tiny fellow. She contented herself with making small talk about her ostrich farm with the taciturn older cycling fellow who was using the biggest pan to boil up a whole packet of spaghetti before emptying a full bottle of pesto and a small tub of creme fraiche on top. They sat at different ends of a long dining table and passed an agreeable half hour. Neither said much.

Though I’d worked for the youth hostels for two years, I’d only ever once slept in a shared dormitory. It was an experience I didn’t want to repeat.  First of all there’s the ablutions. Men who take their recreation in outdoor pursuits are noisy washers. They slather faces and necks, torsos and armpits with soapy suds before sluicing it off in an orgy of flying water, face rubbing and making noises with their mouths, that are a cross between blowing raspberries, and how you greet a baby (if you are a person who doesn’t know how to greet a baby). The great wash is followed by the endless parade around the dormitory in enormous underpants, of a style not seen since national service, and then the great re-telling of how they managed to walk, a minimum of thirty five miles, including banks and cliffs of an Alpine scale, and all on a cereal bar and a slab of Kendal mint cake. The endless telling of great walks and epic cycle rides starts at lights out and finally fades away at two in the morning. I was tired and in need of peace. I’ve happily shared a room for thirty years but tonight I wanted some solitude.

I asked if it were possible to have a room to myself. The YHA had made a big thing of this feature of modern hosteling in luring the Johnson pound and getting me to re-join.

“If that wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

But, it seems that it would be too much trouble. “If you book a room I’ll have to charge you for the full room.”

“They had room rates at Haworth.”

“I’m afraid we don’t do single rooms here. If you want a room you’ll have to pay forty pounds. It’s to cover the extra cleaning.”

“I promise I won’t make a mess.”

“We haven’t got the staff to clean extra rooms.”

Once again I was unwilling to point out the weaknesses in his stance. That the extra staff didn’t seem to be a problem if I paid an amount that would get me a room in an hotel. That I was capable and willing to sweep, dust, polish and vacuum any mess that I made.

I paid it. I wanted the peace to sleep, I wanted the freedom to read, or make myself a cup of tea if I couldn’t sleep and I was determined to use up forty pounds of electricity on showers and use of their laundry room. It is the last time I stay in a youth hostel. If I’m going to be charged a hotel rate, I may as well have hotel benefits.

Our leader  later appeared in full chef’s regalia, taking orders for dinner from the cyclists using the language of Marco Pierre White, before serving up something that looked remarkably like the offerings put together with gravy browning and wallpaper paste by the ex warden at Hawes.

The village itself looked lovely. I contented myself with viewing it from a lying down position on the green while becoming more and more absorbed with The Old Wives’ Tale.  I’d been enjoying it but tonight was the night when I came to an understanding of why it is so highly regarded; simply superb characterisation.

The weedy fellow is eyeing me and my book. I feel the benefit of his wisdom approaching and regard forty pounds an undoubted bargain for my own private bolt hole.