A GOOD DAY

With Son Number One well and truly launched on his way to his wedding at the weekend, today just got better still.

Today, Son Number Two (the Marathon des Sables man) started a new job in a very large business down in London after a longish period of uncertainty. It has certainly put a spring in his step and he can start to plan his life once again. He planned Oli's stag weekend with great success and so we all wish him all the best in the new job. He certainly deserves it.

Over the years I have lost a few people who were dear to me to cancer. Phil & Tini are a wonderful couple, whose lives must have been 'on hold' for the last year with Phil's cancer - but to see them together you would never have noticed it. Well, this evening I had an unexpected call. Phil (aka Lord Elpus) rang to let me know that the results are back from hospital and he is 'all clear'. This is amazingly great news which has lifted a colossal weight from His & Miss Whiplash's shoulders. All quite emotional stuff!

A bloody good day.

PAINTBALL GUITAR HERO

Running the gauntlet in a forest, in front of a hundred or so paint-ballers, wearing nothing but a mankini and his helmet (ooh!) and boots, my eldest boy today came of age.

He is to be married in a few weeks time and so this weekend has been abandoned to our pleasures and Oli's discomfiture.

Whilst his fiancee was having unctious oils massaged into her young tender skin in a Health Spa, this afternoon, my little Oli was lying on a carpet having Savlon rubbed into sixty or so circular weals received from the almighty hammering he took from the hundred or so sadistic maniacs with paintball guns.

I noticed that his Best Man, who ran the gauntlet with him, was vey careful to be twenty yards behind the naked guy, and only suffered minor skin blemishes, as every one was firing at Mankini Man.

Currently drinking beer and eating pizza in Don's. The groom is still standing.

WHERNSIDE IDENTITY CRISIS

I suppose the rot set in when Yorkshire started playing cricket with non Yorkshire born players. Standards started sliding inexorably down hill ever since. (I suppose Yorkshire tea is no longer grown on the sunlit slopes above Skipton....)

Today we went for a stroll up a hill with an identity crisis.

For as long as I can recall I have always believed that there were the Yorkshire Three Peaks: Pen-y-Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside.

Well, today your roving correspndent has learned that in fact for quite some time now Yorkshire has been stripped of Whernside. Indeed the new upstart county of Cumbria has gained the summit trig point in a boundary reshuffle many a year ago. Some of the summit remains in North Yorkshire (whatever happened to the good old West Riding?) but the crucial trig point ~ the focus of many a peak bagger's tick-list ~ is now firmly planted in Cumbrian soil.

PW and the Ribblehead Viaduct

How the modern Yorkshireman can live with this shame defies belief. This is worse than metricating the summit heights. This is worse than counting distance in the European kilometer.

This is surely theft on a gigantic scale. To shift millions and millions of tons of rock from one county to another just beggars belief. This is no Elgin Marbles (they can only weigh a few tons or so). This is no Egyptian tomb.

This is a whole mountain they have pinched.

Odd Job and the Potentail Bigamist

So I have still only done two of the Yorkshire Peaks. And one of the Cumbrian ones as well.

THE FROZEN NORTHLANDS

Have you noticed it too?

It generally happens in public houses. Last weekend I was playing pool with Lord Elpus and Obbsy in the 'Bridge' in Upper Beeding - a fine establishment but a stone's throw from the forge that cast (from an original mould) the one and only Good Friend Derek. Okay, so I might have elaborated about the current well -being of the said goat's health but you get the drift. It is a good place to be; Upper Beeding.

Until that is, they call you a 'Northerner'.

Now, Upper Beeding is just a slingshot away from Brighton - the home of the Pink Pound, infamous Massage Parlours and the ruined West Pier. Okay, so you didn't know that the west Pier was ruined - you learn a lot on here, don't you? This is an educational blog - I should get a grant for scribbling this stuff, I really should. But, as I chew on the celery stick of life, Scout's Honour Sir, we were addressed as 'Northerners'! In a pub in Ingerland!

I dread to think how the erstwhile drinkers of the Bridge would address the drinkers in the Helwith Bridge on Saturday then. They must be Positively Polar!

So - One end of the dominion to the other: Last weekend almost on the south coast of good ol' Blighty and this coming weekend in the far frozen north of Ingerland.

By then we shall have thrown away the second test. By then the 'Mericans will be winning the 'Open' and with a good bit of luck, by then, a 'Merican will be beating the Frogs in the Tour de France!

And I will (with a bit of luck and a following wind) have finally conquered the last of the Yorkshire Three Peaks. I am off to stay in luxury once more within the ample grounds of Odd Job Hall, to stay with the Potential Bigamist and Odd Job, in the frozen tundra of the far north.

Thoroughly looking forward to it too. I shall take my blogging type-writer.

EDBURTON

As Gayle would put it, 'the sun is splitting the flags' as we head east (on purpose, this time) and we are currently to be found sat sitting on a well positioned bench over looking the views that were not available to us yesterday.

The church is Edburton but we shall not be visiting it as it is far too far downhill.

Obbsy has just pointed out that Foggy is whittling a piece of wood, Compo is working out the weather forecast and the speed of an African Swallow carrying a coconut on his wristwatch, and Clegg is blogging via his telephone.

Such is the broad church of the modern day rambler.

MORNINGTON CRESCENT (south downs rules)

Bushy Bottom
Thunders Barrow
Skeleton Hovel
Mossy Bottom
Winding Bottom
Hogtrough Bottom
Fulking (16 rules apply here)
Saddlescombe
Cockroost Hill
Perching Hill
Big Bottom(no cross-overs allowed on Sundays)
WickhurstBarns (sorry ~ thats a cheap trick)
Wellcombe Bottom
Ah! Fulking Hill!

UPPER BEEDING

The summit party finally left the pub around four-ish to head out into the hell that was outside. We have been told by Ron, our B&B host, that the views today were top-drawer, especially so from the Fulking Escarpment.

We will take his word for it as we walked in the clouds all day. The walking was delightful on springy sheep nibbled grass. The rain was (mostly) soft and warm to the skin.

Lord Elpus denies all involvement in the morning's directional challenges as he 'was only obeying orders.' He's been hearing those voices again ~ it must be his medication.

So it's off to the pub in a moment to revitalise and refresh the parts that the Doom Bar didn't reach.

GO WEST YOUNG MAN

Supping an old favourite; Sharp's Doom Bar in the Devil's Dyke Pub after a stretch of the legs this morning.

We are currently heading west on the South Down's Way. The party consists of Obbsy, Lord Elpus and myself. We should have brought Miss Whiplash; at least she has a sense of direction. We started in fine form, and strode manfully up the Down unil we reached the top. A quick glance at the map and a check of the compass brought on a scratching of the heads, re-orienting of the maps and quzzical glances at each other.

I stuffed my map back furtively in my pocket and innocently asked Lord E for his decision on the way to go.

Of course it was back the way we had come. We had been manfully striding uphill in the driving rain in an easterly direction for the best part of an hour.

It's good for the soul.

It wouldn't have happened if Miss W had been with us and even if it had we would all have enjoyed the whipping she would have dealt out for the rest of the day.

I'VE ALWAYS PROMISED MYSELF...

...that I wouldn't go near the keyboard after I have been down the pub. 'S'obvious why really, as your thingers and fumbs don't work in the right order and your grey matter comes out with all the outrageous stuff that you always wanted to say but were far tooooo sensible to put into print - well, cyberspace, anyway.

Tonight, 'I has mostly been' a whirling dervish of activity. I have packed the most humunngously huge rucksack for the coming weekend. I have cooked and eaten a wonderful dinner, watched the woefully won Masterchef, finished off Torchwood and been down the lane to see Dave the Chicken and the Farmer in the Axe.

It's all go in this village idyll, you know.

The humungously huge rucksack is in fact the normal job, but filled with delicacies such as binoculars, Boss jeans, bacon sandwiches and good shoes (and a little flask of the good stuff too) as this weekend, Lord Elpus and I are not roughing it. No. Roughing it we are not. In fact it will all be rather civilised as we stroll westwards on the South Downs Way to our B&B and then westwards again until we have had enough, admit defeat and take a cab back to the car.

You do realise that we are only demeaning ourselves like this for Phil's B-in-Law, Hobbsy, (Miss Whiplash's brother) so that he can return home in some sort of ordered, and sanitized state. Not for him the smelly armpit. Oh no. Not for him the rumpled hiking hotel trouser. Not for him the unshaven cheek and tousled greasy mane.

No: David has had enough of all that nonsense; he spent two weeks dragging his smelly carcase across Scotland with Lord Elpus a few years back on the TGO Challenge. Our 'Obbsy has got older and smarter and has persuaded Lord E and I to lean back and smell the roses. To lighten our loads. To go Ultralight.

This ultralight thing is easy with no tent, mattress, sleeping bag, cooker, pots, food.....

More from the front-line with live on the trail blogging tomorrow!

RICHARD BARR: 'JOGLER'

It's a big day today for Richard Barr - He has just set out from John O' Groats to walk to Land's End.

Richard is a retired physicist and has made the trip over here from New Zealand to to do the walk. He is walking in memory of his brother, Gordon, who died from Leukaemia and is hoping to raise money for Leukaemia Research and also the Malghan Institute in New Zealand, which is undertaking research into a vaccine based treatment for CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia)

He is blogging as he goes and has invited walkers to walk with him for the odd day or so to keep his morale up. It's not the standard route, as you can see by clicking HERE

He nipped out to Duncansby Head yesterday and today is off to Dunnet Bay. He hopes to complete the walk in 65 walking days.

He sounds like a bright bloke and writes very entertainingly, so we should all support him. So - nip over to his blog and bookmark it! Go on - You know you want to!

THATCHERS' BRITAIN

Last Friday evening, there was a torrential downpour here in the village for a good hour or so. It rained cats and dogs, no - it was sheep and goats - or perhaps even cows and shire horses. It was pretty impressive as I was looking out from the kitchen as I was cooking supper.

Then were was a strange ticking noise coming from my drinks area in the dining room... Water was dripping from the ceiling onto the wooden floor. A bucket sorted that out. No sign of it upstairs though - strange.

I had the local thatcher round the next morning and we found the source of the problem - there was quite a bit of a slump in the valley junction between the two roofs. So this evening he was round to patch it with a sheet and he made a very tidy job of it too.

So yes, the apostrophe in the title of this post is in the correct place: They can fit me in in Spring of next year; and that's by pushing me up the list as I have a leaky roof. I suppose it's good to hear that one part of our building industry is busy but it does mean I shall have a nice blue patch on my thatch for a little while. Ho hum!