Day 59 - 7th June - Middleton

Teesdale Hotel, Middleton

With the prospect of a 21mile walk to Dufton, Nigel and Duncan breakfasted early for s quick getaway. 

I had a really pleasant relaxing day in glorious sunshine. 
During the afternoon I met Dave and Tina .
from Penarth. They've done a lot of walking and between them carry all they need for wild camping though this evening they were going to treat themselves to a night at The Teesdale. They're walking The Pennine Journey- a route that criss crosses the Pennine Way. Dave's a retired policeman and Tina a child minder, both keen rugby fans. During our conversation, they taught me a new expression for someone like me - 'slack packing' - though they insisted it wasn't derogatory, it'll take me some time to rebuild my self image!!!

I'd heard that there was another fellow Welshman in the area walking to John o'Groats who'd been a day or so ahead of me and this evening, I heard an accent I recognised so introduced myself to 
Ieuan from Machynlleth. He's definitely not a slack packer.
It turns out we have a number of mutual friends in Barmouth including Doug the postman that used to deliver to Llanbedr and would often stop by for a chat with mum. We chatted for a long while swapping lines of Welsh poetry and quotes from Dylan Thomas before we were joined by
Charlie Bendall who we found out is researching for a new book on the Geology of the Pennine Way. He'd been out all day taking field measurements and samples. Charlie used to teach Geology at Aberystwyth ( a few miles from Ieuan) and knows Jonathan ....is this world getting smaller or what!?!?

To bed for an early start in the morning.

Comments

  1. Anonymous8 June 2022 at 12:22

    In my experience every geologist in the country knows every other geologist! Pam

    ReplyDelete
  2. TT12 June 2022 at 23:33

    Doug...I remember Doug,one of the friendliest and the epitome of The Jolly Postman!

    ReplyDelete

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