The ride down into
Nenthead was exhilarating; it’s a long steep descent and it was great just to
relax and flow with the bends. It also gave me the chance to recover from that
Attractive Young Woman thingy.
The village of
Nenthead is one of England’s highest. In winter it is bleak. I have on more
than one occasion had to turn back on my way home from the Lakes because of
snow and impassable roads. Nenthead can claim a number of firsts. It was the
first purpose-built industrial village in England and was built by the Quakers
who owned and ran the Quaker London Lead Company. Those
benevolent Quakers built, amongst other things, housing, a school, a reading
room, public baths and a wash-house for the miners and their families, all of
which in those times were unheard of. Nenthead was the first village in the UK
to have electric street lighting from excess power generated by the mines. The
mines were responsible for many good things as well as bad, life expectancy was
short but the children were being educated, for what good it did them.
The last time I was in Nenthead was when we did the coast to coast
and we stopped at The Miners Arms for lunch. It is a traditional 1700’s pub
built of sandstone. The day we were there was chaos, it was a bank holiday
weekend and they were being mobbed by sweaty cyclists doing the coast to coast.
The place was bouncing and there was only a bemused little old lady serving
behind the bar, who, bless her, was completely unfazed by the unfolding chaos. I
think the fact that everyone was so shattered by this stage, and were just
grateful to be able to collapse, staved off the riot that would normally have
ensued given the circumstances. As it happened everyone was extremely patient
and polite, which I thought said a lot for us cyclists.
On this occasion I
just cruised through on my way to Alston-and the second big climb of the day.
How they were fairing in the Miners Arms I could not say.
It was in the fells
above Nenthead, a few months previous, that I had brought my shiny new bike and
kit on its maiden camping trip. I had been met by horizontal rain and manic
headwinds. When I finally made it to where I planned to camp, I discovered that
my tent pegs were on my dining room table at home. In normal circumstances I
would have considered this an irritation rather than a disaster. But these were
anything but normal circumstances.
The rain was monsoon-like
and was being driven in sheets by a howling gale. The temperature had plummeted
as the sun set and my immediate thought was: “holy shit, now what?” I have been in similar situations before,
though never through a lack of tent pegs I hasten to add, but I knew that if I
could get out of the wind I’d be ok. But the big question was how?
By the time of this
rather unhappy discovery, I had managed to insert two of the three tent poles,
and had an almost assembled tent. Given that this inanimate object had
momentarily been given the gift of life as it billowed around me, I felt that
both its behaviour and attitude were appalling. Escape, at first, appeared to be its goal. But
once it realised that I was having none of it, it set about me with a vigour
that was staggering. No matter which way I held it or which way I faced either
the zipper, or some other equally hard part managed to make stinging contact
with my sodden, frozen body.
Now pain is a
subjective thing. I have no issue with the pain associated with a sporting
endeavour, but being thrashed to within an inch of one’s life by a tent is a
completely different matter. And while I have been led to believe that there is
a certain sector of the population that would find this gratifying, it’s where
I draw the line, I’m afraid.
To say I was starting
to lose the plot with this whole wretched business would be to grossly
underestimate how I felt. For those of you that can still remember the state
John Cleese got into when he was driven to beat his car with a tree branch in
Faulty Towers….. well I was way, way beyond that. I had, in fact, passed the
take-it-out-with-a cruise-missile-stage and was starting to think seriously
about an asteroid strike.
So, given the gravity
of my worsening predicament, I decided to wrestle it to the ground to allow me
to have a proper look for the pegs. If I had indeed left them at home finding
shelter was going to be the big priority. It was with this in mind that I
redoubled my efforts to regain a semblance of control over this wild thing,
only to see it escape in the ensuing skirmish. In an instant it was airborne,
climbing like a kite, looking for all the world like a huge green jelly fish.
The initial feeling of
relief to be rid of the damn thing soon dissipated as the realisation hit - if
I did not catch it quickly, it would be in the next county. So I took off
across the heather, rugby tackled the swine to the ground, removed the now bent
poles and collapsed on it in a rather forlorn soggy heap.
At some point during
this rather undignified chaotic episode, I had passed a stone sheep fold which
offered the protection I needed. It was getting really dark by this stage, and,
as there was absolutely no let up in the wind and driving rain, I retraced my
steps found it, and moved in.
For a fraction of a
second I thought about giving the tent another go. But quickly gave my head a
good shake, and then spent a wet, cold disconsolate night wrapped in the now
docile tent listening to the howling wind, wondering, not for the first time in
my life, why was I such a bloody idiot. “It’s just the way I am”, was the
rather dispiriting conclusion.
The only consolation was that every village
appeared to have one, so I was not entirely alone.
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