Don't pay the ferryman

The A591 may well now be open but on Monday I tried to take Glebe Road in Bowness out of commission using only my head.  We were running to catch the last ferry back to Lakeside when I tripped & fell head first onto the pavement.  Contrary to popular opinion the road was harder than my head and I ended up in Westmorland General for 2 nights with a severe concussion and a broken right arm.  I'm home now and doing OK but very light-headed and washed out and learning how to type with my left hand - but back to Monday...

The day had started out so well - as a thank you for the April Fool's Day blog the jolly nice folks at Windermere Lake Cruises sent us a free ticket to enjoy and we waited for a clear, sunny day so we could go along and take plenty of lovely photos.

We took the first ferry of the day from Lakeside - our plan was to travel to Ambleside, catch the little ferry across to Wray Castle, explore the castle then walk down to Claife Heights before getting the ferry back to Bowness and then down to Lakeside.  Their excellent Walkers Ticket will let you do a shorter version of our cruise starting and ending at Bowness.

The weather was perfect and the lake looked superb.

Wray Castle is always fantastic fun to visit with games and activities set up in many rooms, an excellent cafe and a great guided tour.

I should stress that the following photos were taken before any head injury occurred - honest!

Then came the lovely sunny walk back along the lake shore - just beautiful!

The last time we'd been to Claife Heights it was all boarded up so we were delighted to find it now fully renovated and offering superb views up and down the lake.

By now time was getting on so we headed for the small ferry back to Bowness.  We somehow managed to miss the Windermere Cruises one so took the chain ferry giving us 10 mins the other side to run back to the pier for the 16:55.

This is the last photo I took before my fall and the following 8 hours remain a complete blank despite the fact I never actually lost consciousness.

Apparently when we reached the other side we started to run for the ferry; Steve was ahead and about half way along he heard a shout followed by a big crack as I hit the deck.  I was clearly very dazed and when he tried talking to me I was spouting more gibberish than usual and he realised that an ambulance was required. (I have no recollection at all of what happened next so the following is based on what Steve has told me). 

As he made the call some lovely people sat with me (I have NO idea who you are but thank you!) and I was stuck in some sort of brain loop with my conversation apparently going something like this...

Me:  Have I been on a ferry?

Ans:  Yes

Me: Oh that explains why I have Don't Pay the Ferryman in my head.

Short pause

Me:  Have I been on a ferry?

Ans: Yes

Me: Oh that explains why I have Don't Pay the Ferryman in my head.

Short pause

Me:  Have I been on a ferry?

And so on until the ambulance arrived - very funny now but probably quite disturbing for those folks who were kind enough to sit with me.

I was taken to Westmorland General where my brain loop continued but with a few added elements now:

Me:  Have I been on a ferry?

Steve: Yes

Me:  That explains why I have Don't Pay the Ferryman in my head

Steve: Yes

Me:  I'm in hospital aren't I?

Steve: Yes

Me: Is it Barrow or Kendal?

Steve: Barrow

Me: Do I have any training courses this week?

Steve: Yes

Me: Oh well we need to cancel them

Steve: I have

Me: OK

Short pause

Me: Have I been on a ferry...

Apparently on one loop Steve got his middle answer wrong and this happened...

Have I been on a ferry?

Me:  Do I have any training courses this week?

Steve: Yes

Me:  Oh well we need to cancel them

Steve:  Yeah, I will do

Me:  So you haven't?  Go and do it now - you need to call them else they'll all be waiting for me...

Steve:  OK

(Good to know I'm a control freak even when I've completely lost the plot!)

The great thing is that it was like GroundHog Day so once Steve knew that one answer was going to bother me, he just changed it on the next loop so I was happy again.

I was CT scanned (all clear but I'm gutted I don't remember it) and X-rayed.  Because of my continued gibberish they clearly weren't letting me out of their sight so I was admitted.  The odd thing was I was processing everything like a dream so when a nurse I'd seen earlier reappeared I'd gaze at her in wonder and tell her I'd had a dream about her and wasn't that amazing?

Eventually they got me up to a ward and although it was late Steve was allowed to stay for as long as we wanted.  By now I was beginning to return to the land of the living and realising what had happened to me I was getting very frightened and upset (I know a bit about brain injures and the dangers of the first 36 - 72 hours).  After I'd calmed down a little Steve headed home (it was now gone 2am) and he left me in the care of Jess who checked my blood pressure and shone a light in my eyes every hour or so.  

I was too scared to sleep and as clarity began to return I was doing whatever I could to keep my brain working - counting the ceiling tiles, pacing the ward, reading all the notices on the ward - anything so I didn't fall asleep.

As dawn broke I heard oystercatchers outside (one of the joys of hospitals up here - there's plenty of green around) and watched herring gulls circling above the warm air vents.

Dawn from the ward

Slowly I was beginning to piece together the day before and I could elaborate on my "Have I been on a ferry?" routine though to be honest, even though I can now recall it all I remember it more as a dream than as an actual event.  Of course what wasn't helping was that when anyone asked what I'd been doing that day (to see how my memory was getting on) my answer started "well, you see I wrote this blog about submarine tours under Windermere..."

The docs decided that I was still confused enough for them to want to keep an eye on me so I stayed put for another 24 hours.  The nurses and the doctors were all absolutely amazing - superb care - I honestly don't know how they do it.  My only teeny tiny, eeny winey complaint is that there were no decaff drinks on offer on the drinks trolley, (there wasn't any G&T either, but that was probably pushing things to be fair) but one of the nurses took pity on me and gave me some of her fruit tea teabags.

I took a wander around the ward and noticed that they were somewhat blunt with their medical notes...

Just glad this wasn't my medical chart

Anyway, the upshot of all of that is that I'm now back at home though still coming to my senses.  If any of you has been unfortunate enough to have a similar style clout on the head you'll know how scary, confusing and disorientating it is.  I know I'm still not processing things properly and I feel tired after doing almost nothing.  

For once I've cleared my diary to give myself time to recover - though being freelance if I don't work I don't get paid so it is a bit of a worry (you could always encourage your friends to buy our book to help fund our "not beans on toast again" coffers :-)  )

I've promised everyone I'm gong to take it easy and I mean it - I've given myself (and Steve) a proper scare and this isn't the time for bravado, this is the time for looking after myself a bit.  It may be a while before I'm back on the high fells but I'm sure I'll still find some fun things to do.  

Meanwhile, there really is only one person who can have the last word on this blog... 

Let's do it

Like everyone I was hugely saddened by the death of Victoria Wood recently; gone too young at only 62.  I'm not just sad because we've lost a huge comedic talent but also enormously sad for her 2 children.  My dad died of cancer when I was just 18 (well technically it was 2 days before my 19th birthday but either way, far too young), so I know what it's like to grow up without a parent around to see you mark the important milestones in your life.

Whilst I was of course devastated by his death, it had a huge impact on my life.  From the age of 18 I was blindingly aware that life was short and unpredictable.  We grew up in a very working class house with a lot of love but not much money and I clearly remember talk about money being put aside each month into his superannuation.  I never saw the books being balanced in but I'm pretty sure that money could have been put to good use in many other ways.  One of the overwhelming things that has stayed with me is that dad saved hard for his retirement but died before he got the chance to relax and enjoy it - and the unfairness of that has always driven me.

It's driven me to not accept mediocre in life, even if that drives the people around me a little nutty.  It's driven me to dye my hair bright colours (currently purple, red and pink) because I like it that way, it's driven me to try and make the most of every single moment, to find pleasure in the simple things rather than "things" and it's what continues to drive me as we journey on in this crazy ass new life we could only have dreamed about 10 years ago.

So many times people have said to me "I'd love to do what you're doing but..." or "I'd love to dye my hair crazy colours too but..."  But what?  It's so very easy to find excuses not to do things and hard to find the reasons to drive you forward - especially when those around you are telling you you're bonkers to even consider it.  I'm not pretending for one minute that this adventure has been plain sailing - I've been redoing the blog index this week and re-reading our early blogs when things, at times, really were desperate but do you know what?  I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

So we don't have the cash to buy the latest big car but we've achieved the dream of publishing a book - and there are two more on the way over the next couple of years.  We get to walk in beautiful countryside, write and take photos and call it work - it doesn't pay the bills yet but we're getting there.  And we get to do things like we did today - Delores needed a habitation check so we dropped her off in Ulverston and set off on the bikes for a day together in the sunshine.  We peddled all the way to Roa Island and back, stopping for lunch and snacks in the sunshine.

Bardsea Church

Beautiful windows by Wilhelmina Geddes

Birkrigg double stone cricle

Gleaston Castle

Dendron Church

Road block!

Tea.  There was cake too but we ate it all...

Of course a new car would be nice - ours makes all sorts of odd knocking and grinding noises - but it gets us from A to B (most of the time!) and we're having the most amazing adventure.  As I've been writing this blog I've also heard that Prince has died - and there have been FAR too many others this year - just all so very sad,  I know she wrote it about something rather different but really - let's do it - let's stop worrying about the small stuff and go out and have an adventure or two.  You can all watch this - I'm off to buy my copy of the Woman's Weekly...

Knights in shining armour

Our long journey home from Cornwall was paused in Devon for a few days where we took time out to visit 2 magnificent National Trust properties.  Knightshayes is definitely one of the best we have ever been to - I normally have a pretty short attention span in country gardens but not here, they are spectacular and we particularly enjoyed the guided tour of the walled garden and the vast expanses of rhubarb.

My lawn looks like this...sort of...

Interesting sculptures growing from the ground.

I'd like to say the final day of our tour was spent being equally cultured at Dunster Castle - but that's only half true. Fuelled by goodies from the amazing "Baked to Perfection" shop in Dulverton we headed from Dunster to Minehead and mindlessly blew the last of our tourist pennies in the slot machines along the seafront.  We only ever partake of the 2p machines meaning £5 kept us amused for most of the afternoon and produced 3 highly valuable prizes from the machines.

Dunster Castle.  Well not all of it obviously...

So, a busy month that has seen us dancing, surfing, climbing, cycling, hiking, zipwiring, delving into history, drinking beer, eating cream teas and generally making the most of all the fantastic stuff we can visit without the need of airport queues, visas or injections. Oh, and if you're worried that I missed out Cumbria then here's proof that we even squeezed in a fantastic hike and ridge route in between our other adventures. (In fact the only thing I haven't done is keep the blog up to date - sorry about that)

I don't have a deep hankering to travel the world but I do have a very deep longing to see more of the British Isles - in fact I'm thinking of getting a T shirt designed - Proud to be a Bloody Tourist!  Who's with me?  :-)

Surf far, surf good...

Work took me down to Exeter and an over developed sense of adventure took us on to Sennen Cove.  It's an awfully long drive from Cumbria but the weather was stunning with the twinkling blue skies and stunning sandy beaches evoking idyllic childhood memories of old family holidays.

Steve on approach to Sennen Cove

Having gotten used to the tidal extremes of Morecambe Bay it seemed odd that the tide didn't really seem to go out here but that just meant I didn't have to walk too far for a paddle.  Well, when I say paddle I mean "roll up your jeans, we can paddle around those rocks without having to go back to the cliff path honest - oh well never mind I'm sure they'll dry soon"

Views from the cliff path to Lands End

Fuelled by an unseemly number of pasties and cream teas we headed for Lands End - the views are spectacular but the cliffs are suffering from a combined attack from tourist and mother nature (here's a pic from last winter's storms in case you missed them...) but they're made of tough stuff so I'm sure they'll survive!

Tough cliffs

If you're hiking in Cornwall be prepared for a challenge if you head inland.  The coastal path is magnificent but the interior paths are blocked, overgrown and largely unsignposted.  We gave up trying to find the paths halfway through our planned walk from Sennen to the Minack Theatre and stuck to the roads instead but regardless of the challenges the views were worth it.  Rowena Cade was a driven, and clearly very fit, woman who planned, built and financed the theatre during the course of her lifetime - my only regret is that I've never seen a show there.  One day...

Minack Theatre

Our last mission in Cornwall was to get up close & personal with the waves so we booked a session with Sennen Surfing Centre - they had their work cut out for them as I have a lousy sense of balance, even when there's no gin involved - but we had a fantastic time and I hummed the Hawaii Five-O theme tune throughout.  If you're ever down there look them up and give it a go - you'll definitely get your money's worth!

Da da da da daaa da, da da da da daaa....

Plundering the tourist leaflets at the campsite Steve decided that the most sensible thing to do en route to our next stop was to whiz along England's longest zipwire which flies high above the Eden Project - one of those "it seemed like a great idea at the time" moments.

The faces of fear...

It wasn't nearly as fast or scary as we expected but that could be because we're used to being strapped into tight harnesses - as a result of our visits to the Calvert Trust I hasten to add...  It was a great experience though and definitely worth a whiz if you're visiting the Eden Project.