One “w” short of a website or what?

Well, “ww” means “weekly walk”; “one” means “the first”, and “Com/3” means that there were three of us.

I must have been mad to agree to it on the first place, but Boggy and I were unfit, and Leggy, though very, very old, knows his way around and goes faster than us. Anyway, it was decided that we needed to do more exercise, especially since Boggy is planning to walk from Keswick to Barrow later in the year. Walking the Cumbrian fells seemed sound practice.

Date: - January 10 2000

Destination: - Nibthwaite - east of Coniston Water

Equipment: - Boots, waterproof coat, hat, gloves, backpack containing a hip flask of brandy, another hip flask of brandy, and a spare pair of socks. Well prepared as usual. Don’t do this at home, kids. I would have taken a map if I’d had one.

On the dot at just before 1.00pm (make that 1.13pm) Boggy picked me up from my house. Shortly after 1.13pm he dropped me off at my house because he had no walking socks, and he needed to borrow some of mine.

Leggy was ready when we got to the shop, (not surprising - he’d been waiting since one o’clock), so off we went, traveling north past Nibthwaite until we arrived at a newly constructed Forestry Commission car park near Crab Haws. We were alone. The rest of the world had more sense. It had started to rain slightly before we left the car park, heading up the hill through the trees, with a vociferous beck (Selside Beck) between us and a dry stone wall on the right.

For a first walk this was a bit arduous for Boggy and me as we watched Leggy bounding away into the distance like a demented Chamonix. Not to be outdone, we dashed after him like a pair of racing snails, taking frequent pauses to ‘admire the view’.

“Have you just ripped your trousers?” said Boggy from behind me.