thought.photos

occasional snapshots of thought

Posts by David Watson

A Return to the Hills: Part 2

Posted on 21st November 2020

So far, so good. My week in the Lakes had started very well and I’d bagged eleven of the seventeen tops on my list in just three days. You might think I’d be confident in completing the final six with three walking days left, but I wasn’t. Some were in far-flung locations, Black Combe and Muncaster Fell were each a trip in their own right, and others like Little Stand would require (or merited) a day walk. Added to the geographic complexity was my fitness, or lack of it. Ordinarily I’d have five walking days and then a rest day but I was going to have to walk at least six days straight to get this done. As it turned out, I walked seven…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Landscape

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A Return to the Hills: Part 1

Posted on 5th October 2020

I had pretty much given up hope of visiting the Lake District in 2020. Lockdown had been frustrating and since restrictions were eased, finding accommodation in one of the most popular “staycation” destinations in the UK turned out to be almost impossible – almost. I had planned to return in April, with the aim of completing the Fellranger Fells. YHA accommodation had been booked back in December and I’d planned the walks that would take me to the remaining tops I needed to complete the challenge I’d set myself 5 years ago – to complete both the Wainwright and Fellranger fells, 235 in all. With the Wainwrights completed in July last year, and a few of the additional Fellrangers already in the bag, I…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Landscape

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Walking from home

Posted on 25th May 2020

The last time I journeyed more than a few miles from home is now almost two months in the past. On the 19th March, I pulled in to London Waterloo on my usually rammed commuter train. Just six of us stepped onto the platform. That was the point at which I realised I probably shouldn’t even be there. I travelled on to Greenwich and had my meeting. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to grab a spare webcam and a few other necessities. I watered my lovely ferns and went straight home. That was it, and the last eight weeks have been a strange mix of anxiety and comfort.

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Categories: Landscape, Life/Personal

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Loose Ends and Rainbows

Posted on 16th November 2019

So I’d completed the Wainwrights and you might think that would be that. However, despite a final tick in the 214th box, it didn’t really feel like a completion. I didn’t have a complete photographic record of all the summits, and since this challenge had become mildly obsessive, that bugged me. During my early walks I wasn’t particularly focussed on photographing summits because I didn’t even know that I might be attempting a completion. And then there was the time I lost two days worth of photographs when the SD card in my camera failed. In short, I needed to return to the Lakes to complete the set. Earlier this year, over supper at YHA Eskdale, I was asked whether I was an incrementalist…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Landscape, Photography

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The End of a Beginning

Posted on 16th August 2019

Family holidays are becoming a bit of a rarity for us. With both kids now living away from home, Hannah and I had booked a week in a small cottage in Buttermere, not knowing what the kids’ movements would be over the summer. As it turned out, they both said they wanted to be there when I completed my round of the Wainwrights, and naturally I was delighted. So we booked a couple of camping pitches close to the cottage and we were all set. If you’ve been reading this journal, you’ll know that I had just two Wainwrights remaining, Fleetwith Pike and Haystacks. Both tops are relatively easy walks from Buttermere and my priority was to bag those two; any additional walking would…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal

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Bagging the Scafells

Posted on 30th June 2019

There are a few reasons why I’ve been leaving the Scafells to the end of this challenge. First, as the highest of the Wainwright fells, in fact, the highest mountains in England, it seemed fitting to leave them to the end. Second, it made sense geographically. Broadly, I started in the east, moved round to the north and am finishing in the west and south. Third, they are difficult to get to, or rather, they are a long drive from the key centres in the Lake District. But most of all, they are popular. There would be no chance of getting to the top of Scafell Pike alone and although I don’t mind meeting the odd (in every sense of the word) traveller, crowds…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal

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Way Out West

Posted on 10th June 2019

Teaching is now over for yet another academic year (my 23rd!) and the Lakeland Fells once again beckoned as a curative for the increasing stresses and strains of academic life. I’m now happy to concede that these post-teaching trips to the Lakes, which have become a regular feature of my fell-walking challenge, are now an important part of my mental well-being regime. Under normal circumstances, planning a trip to the Lake District over the Easter bank holiday weekend would be considered a special form of madness. But on this occasion, I had two good reasons. I usually plan my Spring trip in the week immediately following the end of teaching but this year I booked late (3rd of January) and couldn’t find any suitable…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal

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The unbearable lightness of being (there)

Posted on 10th November 2018

The early part of August is one of the few times during the academic year when things are relatively quiet. This year I’d booked two weeks of leave during that period but I wasn’t going away on holiday. For around six years, I’ve been planning to migrate the CADTutor forum from vBulletin to Invision Community Suite. In all that time, I hadn’t managed to find the time and, in truth, I’d been putting it off because although “migration” is easy to say, I knew it was going to be a long and complex task. This year I knew it had to happen. The versions of PHP and MySQL that the old forum software relied upon were coming to “end of life” and would no…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal

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The fells will always be there

Posted on 23rd September 2018

In a world of instant gratification and “must have now” culture, it’s easy to forget that sometimes, the longer things take the better. Given the opportunity to extend a good experience, wouldn’t you take that over having it done and dusted? This and a few other ideas have been occupying my thoughts in a varied and rather unusual/exceptional week in the Lakes. To date, all my visits here have been characterised by careful planning and a desire to optimise my walks so as to bag as many Wainwrights as possible in the time available. This time would be a bit different. I had six walking days and the first two would be used in revisiting some fells I’d already bagged. The reason for this…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal

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Three Years and Cotton-grass

Posted on 16th June 2018

My third trip to the Lakes in 2018 also marks the third anniversary of my Wainwright odyssey. It’s exactly three years since I made my first tentative steps towards the summit of Low Pike in the Eastern Fells. At that time, I wasn’t even sure if I was up to walking the fells and the idea of walking all 214 of them seemed like an enormous challenge, which is why my original objective was to complete the Wainwrights before my sixtieth birthday. At the current rate, I should complete the round sometime early next year, by the age of 57. Over the last three years, my fitness has improved considerably and although I’m not running up the hills, I’m pretty confident that the remaining…

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Categories: Fell Walking

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