Are we there yet? Nov. 20, 2006

Hitch-hiking…I will do it again next spring. Just for the sake of it, just to keep the art alive.

From memory, lifts in 2006 included :

from the foot of the Struggle to The Kirkstone Pass Inn a Hawkshead builder in his dusty van wanting to climb Red Screes in the dusk realizing winter was behind us; from the top of Kirkstone to home a Cumbrian Tourist Board boss driving home from Bowness to Lazonby; again from the top of Kirkstone to home Jimmy & Robyn Brown having dropped off Holly & Jessica with grandma at the half-way house that is Bowness; from Bridgend towards Ambleside Mike Blarey new recruit at Brathay and also of the Mountain Rescue Team hence the gear in the back and the dazzling control panel; from outside Chapel House coming back from Tarn Hows Chris Brantwood restauranteur once had an argument with going to look at his new property at the foot of Hawkshead Hill; from Hawkshead to Ambleside Phil with his missus who used to work with my Nisha when at Penrith; along Ullswater Max from Glenridding who ‘loves going to gigs with his grown-up sons who live with their mother’; couple returning to Newcastle; Natalie from Ambleside café’s tall fella in his little red car to the foot of the Struggle before he turned round; John North ex bike rep up from the relative south of Rosendale to ride his bike avoiding the icy Struggle; father of Cathy Tuck who wrote a “phallic book” on the nature of the countryside and appeared on the Terry Wogan show only to be quizzed about the phallic nature of Big Ben; two guys with a plant in the back returning in convoy with their waives where have they got to for heavens sake to the North-East; John North back to ride his bike again; Consett couple over for the day full of the joys of Spring; Kevin of Kevin’s Taxis his feet swollen from his return flight home from Portugal; James and Marle up from Liverpool to stay at Mum & Dad’s Glenridding Hotel; Natalie having dropped off Fi at the football in her own small car; Maggie & daughter Sarah escaping their homely log cabin at Clappersgate for the afternoon heading over Kirkstone to see what lay beyond; Graham Parsons “only going so far as Dockray”; “Jake’s Dad” … “going past the football”?!; solitary climber from Stratford on the eve of his birthday heading too late to Rheged to catch the last Everest film showing; Cherry on her way back to Little Salkeld having climbed Haystacks with her mate from Cockermouth; Dick a Parish Councillor from Nenthead preparing for a Saturday night in and talking about the local lad from Alston whose quest for love is being made into a tv documentary; Helen temporarily living at Melmerby knew someone she thought knew me; Fred and Sandra who “haven’t stopped to give anyone a lift for 12 years not since that nice lad in America” but liked the camera and the umbrella; Ruth who came to Alston more than 20 years before armed with an English Degree from Kent University; Sandra erstwhile Alston newsagent helping out at the shop in Whitfield on account of an illness; café couple returned to being a builder and an electrician; Euan on his way to Aira Force to go walking; Chris Bird amateur cameraman and walker originally from Birmingham driving around the lake to Howtown to go on a short walk rather than a long one since his wife had changed her mind umpteen times about coming and had delayed him in the process; Steve returning from Lancashire from his stepmother’s 60th going via his house at Watermillock on his way to his doctor’s job in Edinburgh; two posh Lincolnshire schoolkids driving much too fast coming over the hill to attend a late summer camp; two Asian lads coming the other way looking for “England’s Highest Peak” having conquered Scotland’s the night before again driving much too fast; Drew from Ambleside’s Mountain Shop in his camper van ambling up the Struggle to stop and take in the scene his girlfriend being a photographer back in America; Chris back from climbing in the Langdales heading home to Langwathby way; from Glenridding to A66 with a couple of triatheletes doing a reccie on the course they will face tomorrow; Alan Rice returning to Nottingham from his Old Boys reunion at St.Bees where he attended after the War; Paddy doctor at Carlisle hospital returning to Carlisle from Derwentwater to go get his wife to return to Ullswater’s Side Farm to go camping; Mary from Workington in a long wedding? dress heading to Gretna and Gretna Green.