Still at Gargrave

Well, we’ve been really idle these last few days. I finished my preparation for the Great North Run and collected the hire car from Enterprise over at Keighley, then relaxed.

Mags went down with a really bad cold towards the weekend, so I had a solo trip up to South Shields and Newcastle on Sunday. She wasn’t fit to be standing around all day watching a bunch of loonies running 13.1 miles.

And I’m beginning to think I must be one of the loonies, to continue doing these daft things. Apart from my first race of the year at Liverpool in March, I’ve performed considerably below par this season. The GNR was no exception; starting well but I ran out of steam around 10 miles and finally staggered across the line in a time of just under 01:52. That’s nearly 12 minutes longer than my PB for the distance!

Needless to say I was disappointed and frustrated on the way home. As some of my end of term reports used to say – “Must try harder!”

We’d kept the car for another couple of days, to take Mags across to Bentham for an appointment at the surgery. Every year we come back up for her annual check-up, which takes 2 visits. The first is with the Practice Nurse, to take blood etc, then she has a review with the Doc to discuss the results. This year there was some confusion about dates which we’d resolved early in month, or so we’d thought!

On arrival at the surgery she found that both appointments had been cancelled, without notifying us. Then new appointments had to be scheduled, and slots weren’t available till November!

This is the 3rd time they’ve managed to make a cock-up with Mags’ check-ups, we arrived up here 2 years ago to find that they’d put back the appointments by 2 weeks, then earlier this year they failed to set a date for a visit to the Doc.
I was pretty tee’d off, we could have saved a couple of days car rental if they’d let us know.

But instead of losing my temper, I took Meg for a good walk up to Malham Cove.

Approaching Malham Cove along the Tarn.
The vertical limestone face at the back of the Cove

It's a long way up, Dad!
And a long way down...
View from the top.

I felt much better after blowing off steam up the steps to the top.

Malham Village.
This was only my 3rd visit, would you believe. The first was way back when I was around 11, on a field trip from school. We stayed at the Field Centre at Malham Tarn House in bunkrooms, and it was my first sight of what the Dales has to offer.
The second visit was 32 years ago, when a friend and I walked the Pennine Way. The path goes up the side of the cove, and I remember it was hard work with 45lb rucksacks! I spent my 21st birthday a couple of days later at Middleton in Teesdale.

I don’t think it’ll be so long, next time.

Mag’s cold has steadily got better, though she’s still coughing and spluttering occasionally. We going to hang on here in Gargrave till it’s clear. I don’t want to risk a relapse by having her on the tiller as we head up through the locks out of the village.
She’s been on the phone and managed to get the November appointments moved forward to October, so we’re going to stay on the L&L now for the next month. All being well we’ll head off into the country early next week for a few days. There’re some lovely moorings out in the wilds we’ve used before above Greenberfield Locks.

So, like us, the blog won’t be very active for a while. I’ll post if I’ve something to say.

Oh, and a final reminder. The sponsorship webpage I’ve open to raise money for Cancer Research will remain active till December…..

Locks 0, miles 0.