Today I needed to crack on with some work. Being a digital nomad is great, but sometimes you do have to just sit down and plough through work to actually get anywhere. This is fine when everyone is at work day to day, they aren’t there to interrupt or distract. But working for yourself means that unlike them, you can’t just leave the phones and emails at work for a week while you go on holiday. Today I had to get some key things done and needed reliable internet to do this – something the campsite was seriously lacking.
We headed into town and I parked myself in Wetherspoons with a pint of tea and Kayto snuffling around my feet and got to work. This gave Aimi and Scott time to go off shopping. Aimi had been complaining about her boots for a while and with more walking planned, this seemed like a good time to get a decent pair. It was glorious sitting out on the terrace working. The morning had brought fantastic sunshine and clear skies. I keep having to remind myself that not everyone can do this and I should remember to enjoy it. Sure, I was earning more in a Proper Job©, but I wasn’t as happy or fulfilled as I am doing this.
We then made a short drive along the valley walls of Derwent Water to the start of our planned walk. Cheating slightly, I made sure we parked quite high up the valley so there wouldn’t be so much climbing to do. I mean, I tried, but it was still a steep trek up to the first peak on the route we had chosen.
From Ashness Bridge we aimed straight up to High Seat and then followed the ridge down over Bleaberry Fell overlooking Keswick. From here there was a steep drop which afforded us a great view of the town. This landed us at the top of CatGill and from there we followed the contours back to the van being careful not to descend too far.
It was a great round trip and, after the rain we had had, surprisingly sunny and warm. We managed to follow a distinct path to the top of the hill, but coming back down towards Keswick, it was not. We might have been walking around in circles for hours and not even known it. In amongst the hillocks on top of the boggy marshy hill there were no features. Not even the sky had features, it was completely blue and cloudless. Walking up and over scrubby mounds and down into squishy divets was all we could do for about 40 mins.
If Aimi’s new boots had leaked, I would have taken great pride in returning them as muddy and dirty as possible saying “We tested them and found them lacking, I’d like a full refund please!”
It was a glorious day and cemented my skills as walk-planner. Turns out it’s not so difficult to read contours and way-points and plan a roughly correct length walk for my ability / endurance level. This evening however we took a differently big risk and let Aimi prepare dinner…
We are still all alive so it didnt go badly.