July 30, 2022
In Nether Wasdale: washout
I had to go back to the journal to see the last time we were completely rained out. It was in Amiens, the day Susan came up to hand deliver my Pendleton shirt that I’d left behind in Paris. Amiens! that’s seven weeks ago. That’s a pretty amazing spell of fine weather. Well, there was also that one wet day in Canterbury when my bike was in the shop for maintenance; but it’s not quite the same situation. I wouldn’t have biked then anyway.
In any case, today was the first absolute rainout since even farther back than Amiens - back to Montélimar on our way up the Rhone probably, back in late April. In Amiens we at least got out and walked around town for part of the day, but in Wasdale we didn’t even do that. In fact we never even left the building today. And we barely even left our room. Downstairs for breakfast, downstairs for dinner, and I went down for a beer in the afternoon just for a change of scene.
We had plans to get out and take some sort of walk and spent the first half of the day waiting for the promised window when the rain would either cease or reduce to showers for a few hours. At first it looked like we might get out from around 11 to 2; then from 12 to 3; then from 1 to 4; and eventually not at all. In fact it never did really stop raining the entire day.
Which suited both of us well actually. We were overdue for a real rest day anyway and we have a backlog of tasks waiting for that rainy day. A lot of time today went into finally firming up our plans for the middle of our autumn trip through France. We’ve known that we want to spend as much time as weather permits revisiting some of our favorite gorges: the Dordogne, the Lot, and the Tarn. We’ve never sat down together and worked out a detailed itinerary though. We’ve done that now and are starting to look at bookings, but you’ll have to wait for autumn to find out anything more than this.
So, a pretty slow news day. There is one item of note though - we made new friends in the course of our brief forays to the dining hall: Steve and Carol, from a small town in Chester - Cestrians, I think that makes them. The dining hall isn’t a small place, with several different dining areas; but somehow we ended up seated next to each other for both dinners and a breakfast, and they were down having a beer and hiding out from the rain at the same time I was. We enjoyed a series of fine visits, found plenty to talk about and they enriched the stay for us. And I think we convinced them to sell their house and hit the road like we’ve done, but I might have misunderstood. Steve and Carol, if you’re reading this thanks again for reaching out!
And since there should be pictures, here’s the big haul from the day:
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 8 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |