Heading for the coast

Today the plan was to head for Whitehaven and St Bees along the back road and visit Caldbeck on the way.  I always loved going there with my parents as a child – we would stop for a picnic and (on one memorable occasion) share it with sheep.  I also wanted to show R the grave of John Peel – the scene of the famous desecration/body snatching of 1977.

But – Cumbrian road upgrades struck again.  The road to Caldbeck is a narrow B road and I did not think it would have been on the council’s list.  But bloody hell, just as we started to climb into the fells “Road closed – diversion”.  The diversion was deeply scary.  It took us on to a narrow muddy track barely wide enough for one car, and obviously all the Caldbeck traffic in both directions had been diverted down it.  There were virtually no passing places, and my heart was in my mouth that we wouldn’t meet anything coming the other way.  And then we did.  I honestly thought I was going to have to reverse half a mile back to the “main” road, but then, because the other car was not huge, we managed to squeeze past each other.  Gertie is all muddy and will need a good clean when we get home.  So Caldbeck was abandoned and we went on to Whitehaven.

They have done wonders with what was an old commercial harbour and is now a sparkling marina with hundreds of pleasure yachts.

The Beacon museum (quite good btw) was deserted, but the entire population of Whitehaven was walking around the harbour in the warm bright spring sunshine.  Truly lovely.

Then we set off for St Bees, a route I knew very well.  After a few minutes I realized that the Sat Nav was sending me a very peculiar way.  Just when I was about to ignore it and go my way, I saw the sign “Diversion – Road Closed”.  Yet again we were off on our travels down yet another muddy lane.  We got there in the end and took a look at my old school and the Priory which was our school church.

Considering I took my A levels and left the school in 1985, I did not think there was a cat in hell’s chance of meeting anyone who would remember those days.  But having looked round, I wanted to make a donation and the card machine was not working.  Glancing around, I saw a man in gardening gear vanishing into an office, so I asked him about the machine.  We got talking and it turned out that he had been one of the Masters when I was there – we knew loads of people in common and had a great chat for half an hour.

Then we set off again.  It was three pm and I thought we had time for a quick visit to Ennerdale Water on the way home.  We got a short way of the main road, and guess what.  “Road Closed – Diversion”.  We went back to the cottage.