Cumbria, land of the sausage

There was an Archdeacon who said:
'May I take off my gaiters in bed?'
But the Bishop said: 'No
Wherever you go
You must wear them until you are dead.'

Gaiter country, here in the Lake District, by which I do mean leg protectors not crocodilians. My love and I have been striding across fell and vale, beaten by winds and confounded by teh odd slippery rock, squelching over boggy peat and sheepshit. Very invigorating, rewarded with large plates of delicious simple food and ugs of steaming hot chocolate. I think we used the word 'lovely' in excess of one thousand times, to describe just about everything. Scafell Pike is not lovely, it is rather awesome in its jagged uncompromising mass poking up into the sky. It may be a mere one thousand metres in height but having clambered all the way up it it felt like a great deal more - the unobstructed vistas afforded from the top gave a sense of scraping the sky, as we were bathed in blinding sunshine and shoved by a bitter gale. I would have considered ourselves intrepid were it not for the thick streams of tourists of all ages (plus their dogs) covering the mountainsides. Some were magnificently equipped, clad in stiff jerkins of bright orange fabric, sturdy boots, telescopic walking sticks in each hand, tubes running to their mouths from space-age backpacks (presumably providing blackcurrant squash, or tea, rather than oxygen) eyes shielded from the near stratospheric glare by aerodynamic-looking shades. A few others though seemed to manage it in trainers, shorts, fleece and a sunhat.