MY ANNUAL WALKING TOUR (2)

I am now back from my annual walking tour, which I have done these past 10 years with some mates from university days. In moving the date from the summer half-term break to the beginning of April, I thought we would be in for cold, wet weather. However, although there was still some snow on the ground and bouts of hail from time to time, there was also a lot of sunshine. My daughter said to me this afternoon over tea and freshly baked (by her) chocolate cake that she thought I had got a tan.

The switch from the Lakes to the Yorkshire Dales worked well. The latter are both lower (max. 700 metres high rather than 1,000) and gentler, which is good for the knees of increasingly decrepit 50-year olds. The landscape also allows for more prosperous sheep farming, to judge by the number of quad bikes and 4x4 vehicles in the area.

We stayed in Keld at the head of Swaledale, the crossroads of two long-distance footpaths; the coast to coast (east-west) and the Pennine Way (north-south). Many of the villages in Swaledale (Thwaite, Muker, Reethe, Keld) have names with Norwegian roots, reflecting their original settlement by Vikings. We Brits tend to lump the Vikings all together, but there were in fact two distinct conquest routes. Danes took and held most of Eastern England, but there was also an influx of Norwegians into Lancashire and Yorkshire from their Irish base at Dublin. Danes and Norwegians didn't get on that well; and when the Nowegians tried to take the regional capital at York, they got stuffed by their fellow Scandinavians and had to beat a hasty retreat.

After a walk around Sedburgh on the Thursday, and a visit to one of the best second-hand bookshops I have been to, we did two long circular walks from Keld, one south up to Great Shunner Fell and one north over Hall Moor. The latter included a fair bit of yomping across moorland kept for grouse shooting. This can be boggy and sad, as Eeyore would say; but there has been very little rain this winter, and it was quite dry. In fact, nearly the whole of England south of Yorkshire is undergoing a drought at the moment, with hosepipe bans in most places. Counties such as Essex, where I stayed when I arrived, are parched, and there is even talk of piping water from Scotland and Wales to the thirsty south east.

Coming down from Hill Moor we stopped off at the Tan Hill Inn, at 528m the highest pub in England. It is stuck out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around it except moors and great views. It was windy but sunny, so we sat outside in the lee of the building and had a late afternoon pint of Black Sheep, the excellent local brew from Masham. It was terrific.

After three days of walking, I spent some time with my Mum, who is still going strong at 86. As usual, she fed me like a foie de gras goose, and gave me a jar of Roses' lime marmalade to take back to Denmark. I had some on my toast this morning, and very good it was too.

The good weather has followed me across the North Sea. I have done my first complete mow of the summer; and this evening I turned over my kitchen garden with a fork against the background of a sun sinking gently over the horizon. I will finish preparation tomorrow after my mother-in-law has visited to inspect the new rose garden, then I'll plant some vegetables over the weekend. All that walking seems to have made me positively agricultural.

Walter Blotscher