Open Writing

My landlady, Mrs Brown, welcomed me with a pot of tea and homemade cakes and I settled in the lounge to watch the final hour or so of the final Ashes Test match on Sky. I had to drag myself away from the cricket just before six o'clock to tidy myself up before meeting my pals but, whilst I was in the middle of shaving, Mrs Brown pushed the telephone round the bathroom door as there was a call for me. It was Tom letting me know that they had decided to eat at the youth hostel, firstly because it had started to rain, but mostly because it had been more of a struggle up the hill to the youth hostel than he remembered and they didn't want to face it again. I think that meant he didn't want to face it again.

Well, thanks Tom. Not only could I have watched the cricket till close of play, but also I had to eat on my own now, not to mention that I faced an uphill struggle from the Bridge as well. To cap it all, the arrangement was that I would meet them at the hostel next morning, so I would be undertaking the climb up the hill that they were so anxious to avoid this evening!

On my walk back (uphill) to the B&B after my lonely dinner at the Bridge Inn on Thursday night, it was raining and it was still raining on Friday morning. In fact, this was a morning which, even if I had been a gratuitous walker, would have prompted me to stay indoors. As it was, I had to meet my chums and be in Richmond that evening. Mrs Brown provided a fantastic breakfast and I set off early as I had a twenty minute walk to the youth hostel. This entailed walking down the hill to Grinton and then climbing a longer hill to the youth hostel. By the time I reached there, I was already thoroughly wet.

From the youth hostel, the obvious way to rejoin the Coast to Coast route would have been to walk back down the hill to Grinton and cross the Swale over the road bridge. This would have suited me as I could have met the others outside the Bridge Inn and avoided the stiff climb (in the rain) to the hostel, but Tom said he knew another way, which entailed following the road further uphill from the youth hostel before cutting across. He had warned us that this did involve fording the Swale which would necessitate taking off our boots and socks. I had not been at all keen on this idea from the moment it had been raised a few days earlier but, if everyone else thought it was all right, there was no point in arguing.

So, we set off from the hostel in the pouring rain and walked up the road for half a mile or so and then turned left onto the moorland in poor visibility. We seemed to make reasonable progress, although I was a bit surprised when, after about forty minutes, we had seen no sign of the river, and even more surprised when we spotted the youth hostel through the mist no more than fifty yards to our left. We had come round in a complete circle!

'Thank God Andy isn't with us,' said Tom 'he'd give me hell. 'I thought you said you knew the way. We'd have been better off asking the village idiot for directions' he'd be saying. Anyway, I'll have to remember that for next year.' 'What's happening next year,Tom?' 'What am I saying? There won't be a next year.' As the path we were following would bring us out on the road below the youth hostel, we had a lively and democratic discussion about which route we should take, the result of which was that Tom decided that we should carry on and walk through Grinton to rejoin the Coast to Coast route. In Grinton, we strode past the Bridge Inn, over an hour after I had passed it on my way to the youth hostel, and crossed the bridge over the Swale which was a raging torrent after the night's rain.

'Bloody hell, Tom, and you said we were going to ford the river.We'd have been swept away if we'd tried it.'

'Yeah, but look on the bright side, we'd have reached the North Sea a damn sight quicker. Probably this afternoon by the look of that water.'

As we trudged through the rain on our way to Richmond, I was getting wetter and wetter despite the waterproof jacket and waterproof over-trousers. Although we were staying in Richmond that night, we had agreed during our strategy meeting in Reeth that we would walk on beyond Richmond and get the bus back and then, on Saturday morning, we would catch the bus back out to where we finished that day. If we could put in an extra seven miles or so, this would make the next day's walk to Osmotherley more manageable. In reaching this decision, we had not anticipated walking the extra couple of miles circumnavigating the youth hostel (or the pissing rain) and, by late morning, all I wanted to do was to get to the B&B, take off my wet clothes and dry out. Don't forget that I had been pissed on longer than the others. However, we agreed (or, to be completely accurate, Tom said) that we would defer our final decision until we reached Richmond.

My mood was not improved by an incident along the way. Although the walking was easy, the rain had made steep sections treacherous and, as we descended one such stretch, I took a tumble. As I fell, I put out my right arm to stop myself falling, only to knock Paul forward into Tom. Fortunately, they managed to stay on their feet but I went headlong down the path landing slightly on my left side with my left arm out in front of me and almost upside down with my head down the path and my feet up it.

'I can't get up,' I wailed, as the others rushed to me.

'Don't move. Where does it hurt?' Paul asked anxiously.

'I can't get up,' I shouted.

The others were all asking questions at once.

'Do you think you've broken anything?'

'Shall we call Mountain Rescue?'

'Are you in pain?'

'There's nothing wrong with me. I just can't bloody get up.'

Well, I was upside down on a rocky track wearing several layers of clothes, a heavy pair of boots and, to make matters worse, had a heavy pack on my back. I lay floundering around like an upside-down turtle for several moments before my colleagues decided to help me up and we walked on.