On exercise

On exercise. Us and the army - so the boom of heavy artillery, the rat-a-tat of machine guns and the crack of rifles accompanied us on our walk up 3 steep hills to Murder Cleugh and back over the tops. (We were on the north of the river and they stayed in their designated area on the south side. The red flag flies when the army at the Otterburn range is out on manoeuvres). It was a beautiful sunny day though there was still a nip in the wind.

We met a young fell runner and later an older man then a young couple, in their 60s I’d guess, who overtook us at a great lick. They were from the south and had a camper van parked at Wedder Leap where we also started our walk. (16,400 steps and 5.75 miles and ascent of 996 feet). The gradient was fine for my knees - no crawling today thankfully, but there was quite a pull on my achilles at the back of my ankle area. This was very uncomfortable when we were on a bit of hard surface but was easier on the soft grassy path until we had the long descent back to Barrowburn.

Today we had the routing done for the stopcock and it was fitted under the bathroom cupboard, he fixed waste pipe ready for the toilet to fit into, set up the place the shower waste will go, levelled off the floor and replaced some damaged boards. He also replaced the plasterboard damaged on one wall when he took the tiles off.

I’m glad we were able to get a good walk to enjoy the sunshine.