John's Birthday Walk to Cross Fell

John selected a walk to the top of Cross Fell for his Birthday Walk so a car from Edinburgh with 4 walkers and a car from Langholm with 4 walkers met at the the very small village of Kirkland to commence this walk which rises to almost 3000ft.
At about 2500ft my hip was causing me a lot of problems so I decided to go no further and made a painful journey back to base leaving the rest to climb to the top. I aggrevated my hip two weeks ago on the coastal walk at St Abbs and it looks as if it will end my mountain walking for the forseable future. I am afraid that 25 years of playing squash has caused this problem combined with Gaye's good cooking.

This looks like an old Lime Kiln in the valley

The birthday boy at the top with fiance Sandria and the rest of the Last of the Summer Wine walkers.

After the walk John had planned for us to have a meal at the Brief Encounter cafe at Langwathby Station. He had checked on line that it would be open and it advertised as being open 7 days a week during the summer from 9.00am to 5.00pm. When we arrived at 4.00pm it was closed. Why do people advertise one thing and then do another. Not good for business so they lost 8 good paying customers. Just as we arrived at Langwathby station we heard the unmistakable sound of a Steam Train about to arrive at speed through the station. I managed to point my camera and this is the result more by luck than anything but it shows the train speeding through the station.

After the disapointment of Brief Encounter we headed into the village and had a lovely meal in the Shepherds Inn so their gain was the others loss. As we departed this horse drawn Gypsy caravan pulled out in front of us and again I just had a few seconds to grab the camera and take this slightly blurred photo.