The iPad generation

When new technology comes along, it's the younger generation that adopt it fastest, right? 

So I knew that when I took my iPad on holiday to our B&B in Lake Como, which would be full of old people, I would be a trendsetter. I imagined the other guests, with their steam-driven laptop computers, gathering around me with astonishment and awe, asking how it worked and being amazed as I stretched maps, took photographs and edited and emailed them on the fly and used the iPad as a satnav, voice-driven word processor and “checked in” with Facebook.

Nor was I disappointed, at least at first.  On the first morning as we arrived at breakfast there was a couple in their 50s or 60s using a Dell.  A Dell.  A laptop was bad enough, but a Dell.  Oh dear, oh dear.

Unostentatiously, I opened the cover of my iPad. In theory I was looking up the weather.  In practice I was putting them in their place. How very twentieth century you are, was the message I portrayed.

Without preening myself too much or being overtly smug, I folded back the iPad cover to make a stand so that I could type. Or press buttons. Or whatever.

Then, to my amazement, the couple at the next table opened their iPads.  One each.  Of the next four days, everyone who produced a computer produced an iPad. The youngest was in their late twenties. Most couple were ten years old than we are.  They probably still are, come to think of it. We are the iPad generation.

What will our children, or our children's children do? When your parents are leading the charge on new technology, what can cool kids do? Retro, I expect.

My prediction for the next big thing wih the younger generation is the abacus.

You read it here first ...

14 Things to Know About the Lake District

1. The sheep are not toilet trained.  Nor are the cows.  
2. But you are expected to be.  Bring a trowel and a roll of loo paper.
3. You are welcome to pop into the Youth Hostels, even though you are no longer a youth.  Here you will find tea and coffee making facilities.  And a loo. 
4. Everyone you meet is friendly.  Really friendly.  The other walkers, the B&B owners, the shopkeepers.  Except for one farmer.
5. The word "boggy" in the guide book can mean anything from a bit of mud to a swamp.  Colleen and I each discovered one of the latter.
6. Don't trust the weather forecast.  Unless it says "changeable".
7. B&Bs are luxurious, mostly.  The best we found was Old Water View, in Patterdale, just south of Ullswater.
8. The Lake District is the wettest part of England.  This summer was the wettest summer for 100 years.  Just as Eskimos have more than 100 words for snow, in the Lake District they have vast numbers of words for water: "beck", "tarn", "gill", "mere" and even, imaginatively, "water".
9. You will sweat.  For the first time in her life, even Colleen sweated.
10. Book a B&B with a bath.  Lying in a hot bath at the end of the day is exquisite.
11. It shouldn't be called the Lake District.  The correct name should be the Bloody Great Mountains with Lots of Bogs District.  Or possibly the Bloody Great Mountains with Lots of Bogs and Some Pretty Streams and Waterfalls District.
12. They have even more words for mountain: "crag", "dodd", "fell", "pike", "knott" and even "head".  Clearly they are trying to tell you something.
13. Even when the rain is beating down, with drops dripping off your nose, your legs ankle deep in bog and your body sweating under the waterproofs, remember this: you will survive.  Like it or not.
14. The mind is a strange thing.  You will look back on the hike with pleasure.

I am in the wrong

I would like to emphasise that it was all my own fault. No-one else can be blamed. I knowingly did what was wrong and got caught out.

We've been so good all week. We've done our best to keep to the official paths, carefully consulting both the map and guide regularly. We scrupulously opened and closed every gate. We dutifully climbed every stile, helping  others if need be with walking poles or other bits and pieces.

And yet ... And yet ...

Today we had a wonderful walk. We set off about nine from The Old Store in Bampton.

As an aside, let me recommend the outstanding tea room at the Old Store House. It is decorated with deft finesse and you feel you are dining in a tiny palace. It is quite unostentatious from the outside and a serendipitous delight for the eye when you enter. We had a lovely breakfast and then headed off south west on our route through Shap to Orton.

Crossing fields in gently rolling countryside, we dodged killer sheep and a somnolent bull. Shap appeared just before midday. Well, it didn't appear, we walked there across five or so miles, but you get the gist.  We would have dropped into the coffee shop, but it had closed down two days earlier. We met Simon, the solo C2C walker and the Australian  group we had met at breakfast. The big activity of the day in Shap was at the bowling club.

Heading out of the village, we crossed the railway line and, not long after, the M6 motorway. With a little sadness Colleen noted that we hadn't seen any red squigs (squirrels), which have been reintroduced to the area after being displaced by grey ones. The countryside consisted of gentle hills and slopes, alternating between moor and farmland. For as far as one could see, there were miles and miles of drystone walls, constructed over decades by hand, consuming unimaginable effort.

It moved to the end of our walk.  We could see our destination ahead, nestling in a valley.  The guide book pointed us to the footpath down a steep hill of about half a mile through a farm and through to the village. We walked down the hill, lush with soft green grass. The farmer was herding his sheep using a quad bike.  At the bottom of the hill was a gate.  Surrounded by a pond of vile-looking mud.

Now I guess that quad bikes and livestock laugh at mud.  Perhaps sheep sneer; they have been saying "Bah" at me all week. But I looked at the quagmire and, especially after such a lovely day, my heart sank. There was no way around it. There was no stile over the wall.

And then I thought, entirely wrongly, "Perhaps we could just climb over the gate". It was a bad idea. I suggested it to Colleen, like the serpent in the garden of Eden, and she succumbed to temptation.

Or she would have.

However as she put her hands on the gate there was a voice the echoed across the valley "GET OFF THAT GATE!"

So she did, to the extent that she was on it.

We were baffled. We didn't want to end up ankle deep in mud so eventually we gave up. We walked half a mile back up the steep hill and walked the long way around by road, dodging articulated farm lorries.

In the pub this evening we ran into our Australian friends. They had walked through the mud to open the gate. The farmer had told them about catching us out.  The previous day he had caught out some other hikers who had been trying to lay some stones through the mud.

Now I know I was in the wrong. 

But I couldn't help wondering if the farmer preferred to spend his days shouting at walkers rather than building a stile  or laying a few stones across the mud.

Steamers, squirrels and sunshine

We stayed last night in a bothy beside a B&B. You don't know what a bothy is, do you? Well, look it up.

A few years ago a new friend invited us for dinner at her house, which was called a "cottage". If the weather at Reading Music Festival had been poor, the crowd could have decamped to this cottage and there would still have been room for the Olympic opening ceremony.

This bothy had the same resemblance to a normal bothy. The main bedroom was luxuriously laid out and had teddy bears to add a certain joie de vivre.  Then there was a mezzanine level and finally a luxurious bathroom.

The owner is a gentle-eyed fellow called Ian.  He has walked the Coast-to-Coast many times and so is a fund of information. Very thoughtful and nothing was too much trouble. This morning, when Colleen and I arrived ten minutes before the dining room opened he said "Never mind.  I am here and can cook."

Sadly, overnight my blister which covers the entire sole of my left foot had become very painful. After a short walk into the village I realized I could not do today's hike. We mentioned this to Ian and he said "Never mind. I can show you a much easier route - and it is actually the original C2C route. Just take a steamer up Ullswater to Pooley Bridge. It is a gentle six mile walk from there."

So we did. The steamer made good time along the eleven mile length of Ullswater and we landed at Pooley Bridge not long after midday.  Then began the walk, with beautiful views back to Ullswater.

Towards the end of our walk, we passed through the hamlet of Butterwick. You would like Butterwick. You can walk through it in about ninety seconds, including the time needed to read the sign inviting one to join the Penrith and District Squirrel Society. There is clearly a bit of a contretemps in the area, with one sign urging car drivers to watch out for red squirrels ("Tek care. Red squigs ont road") and another informing the general public to beware red squirrels. Perhaps they are a rare breed, designed to put fear even into the hearts of the notorious Lake District killer sheep.

At this point, Colleen's feet were about to fall off. We hobbled into Bampton. Unbelievable. Yet another luxurious bathroom en suite. Colleen had the longest bath of our marriage to date.

And the pub is just two minutes down the road.