Iconic view of Steel Rigg

Today Brian, Debbie and I joined a walk organised by the Northumberland National Park from The Sill. It was 10 miles and took in three of the loughs in the area. (Lough is pronounced loff not loch.)

It was windy all day and showery. This made the walk more challenging. It’s a route I know well, but a longer walk than I’ve done for a long time.

We three all agreed that this was a walk that the leader and backup wanted to get done. There were hardly any stops to show off things in the landscape. I felt under pressure to just keep walking.

That was disappointing. There were orchids in flower at Broomlee Lough, a hay meadow with yellow rattle near Greenlee Farm and lots of alpine butterwort where it was boggy. I told the leader that there would be Jacob sheep and he just said “are they a type of sheep?” And did not point them out to the group. It would have been nice to have brief stops to enjoy all of these.

Both Brian and I took small tumbles but survived.

I lost my waterproof backpack cover. Perhaps if the back marker had walked at the back, he would have seen it blow away! ‘Nuff said.

It is one of my favourite routes and I’m so pleased that I managed it.

Poor Debbie had a message from her son to say that their cat had taken ill. The phone signal cut out so Debbie could not reply. The cat was taken to the vet. Debbie’s daughter rushed to be there too. The cat had to be put to sleep. It was tough for this to happen while we were walking.