Wild Rambling

My friend Helen Venus has a group of walkers based in Haltwhistle this week. (That's her at the extreme right of the picture.) Her company is called Wild Rambling. Today I joined the group for a circular walk from Steel Rigg via Hadrian's Wall Trail to Housesteads, then north of the Wall by Broomlee Lough to Greenlee Lough and back. I reckon this was about 10 miles.

The ups and downs at the beginning caught some people by surprise. Fortunately the land is very dry so the boggy bits were only mildly boggy. (If you are not used to our bogs, they were boggy!!) We were very lucky with the weather and Helen made sure we arrived at the bird hide just as hail belted down for 15 mins.

Tonight I ate with them in the Centre of Britain - lovely food, just too much of it. Then I showed some slides of the area. Only one person fell fast asleep and when she started muttering as well as snoring we thought we had to wake her!

I'm very pleased about a number of things today:
first, Mum was well enough to be left - improving slowly day by day. We both want to thank everyone for their kind comments and concern over the last few days.
secondly, she saw a hedgehog eating the food we've been putting out in the evenings
thirdly, Arth behaved himself and I managed the walk with no difficulty

The image shows the group underneath that famous tree.