dogs / hiking / railway / running Lake District, August 2018 by Stephen27 August 20189 April 2020 Ready for Ford parkrun, in Ulverston Me with Lottie. Lucy didn’t run so looked after the dogs while I ran round, trying not to overdo it as my hamstrings were twinging again After parkrun, we took the dogs for a walk on the beach Later still, I took Lottie for a walk while the rest stayed at home From Torver we walked up towards Goat’s Water, lying between Dow Crag (left) and Coniston Old Man (right) Looking back along our line of ascent, with Coniston Water visible in two sections Torver Bridge on the Walna Scar Road, with Brown Pike and Buck Pike behind Continuing towards Dow Crag I briefly contemplated going further than Goat’s Water, but with my hamstrings still troubling me, this was a good objective Dow Crag Returning past the disused quarries Next day, while Lucy is off at a dog show, on a wet day I decided to take the train for an outing, beginning with a walk to Foxfield station From Foxfield I went to Lancaster and then the plan was to go via Oxenholme to Windermere, catch the steamer to Lakeside, and then the steam train to Haverthwaite where Lucy would pick me up. Unfortunately the train was a few minutes late getting to Oxenholme, and Northern, in their wisdom, had decided to send the nearly empty branch line train on its way, leaving the platform full of passengers now having to wait nearly two hours for the next train. It is the only train on the line, so delaying it a few minutes would have been the sensible thing to do, wouldn’t have delayed any other trains, and it would still have arrived less than ten minutes late and so with no penalty. So with no chance to get the steamer, I continued on to Penrith, then back to Lancaster and to Grange. Here’s the view from Grange station platform Farewell to modern trains for today, and Lucy picked me up from here instead. A pleasant enough outing, but very frustrating to have my plan foiled. Next day, we took the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway to Lakeside and then the steamer to Bowness, the reverse of what I’d planned to do the previous day. Nice to do, but in practice rather unsatisfying as it just rubbed in yesterday’s failure, and just going there, getting an ice cream and coming back, was somehow less pleasing than the one-way plan as part of a journey from A to B. It was important to choose the right place to sit to avoid the water cascading down off the roof canopy. At Bowness – I don’t think there was much demand for the rowing boats on this chilly and damp day