Bucolic Day in Northumbria

I finally started my hike today. I was away by 8:15 and walked from Carlisle to Walton probably about 18 km in about 4.5 hours with a 15 minute break for lunch. Incredibly it was sunny and not too hot. A beautiful day to walk in the countryside. It was very beautiful and bucolic. The terrain reminded me much of Southwestern Ontario where I grew up but it felt very English. The trail goes through farms so there were many sheep and cattle and all the birds were singing. Everything was happy. It was a good day to be alive. Leaving Carlisle there were dog walkers but no hikers. I must have walked 2 hours before catching up with a seniors group from Newcastle. 12 women and 3 men. I didn't ask them where all the other men were. It would have depressed me. To this point I hadn't seen any evidence of anything Roman. The path supposedly followed a Roman military road which I could imagine as it was straight and a little raised even in the farmers fields. The map that I am using showed the course of the vallum which was a large ditch the Romans had built behind the wall but unless I really used my imagination I really couldn't see it. I couldn't see the wall. The seniors confirmed my impression. There was no wall or anything Roman to be seen but they did agree that with the sun it was spectacularly beautiful. After I left the seniors I think I only met several other hikers. I made it to Walton a small village by 1 o'clock and went to the Reading room and tea room. It was like I had stepped onto the set of East Ender's but there was no alcohol and they were Northumbrian. The place was packed with the locals young and old all visiting gossiping with each other. I had a apricot cake desert and tea and waited for my taxi to pick me up and take me to Brampton for the night. Mr TPHM begged off today with excuses of a sore knee so he stayed in the luggage which was transferred to my next hotel by a luggage service He was having a drink at the bar when I arrived but told me he had had a good day catching on some journal articles he had put off reading.Read more