Wednesday 8/5/19

I had bought Squirrel food for the red squirrels and staff at the hotel suggested 7:00 am as the best time to feed them, so we got up and downstairs early for this purpose. The day was set in with rain though and very chilly so after spreading the nuts and seeds I sat waiting in the drizzle for an hour – not great for my persistent cold and no sign of squirrels either but thank goodness for Rob and the cup of tea he bought down for me. I did see some little birds – tits I think but not sure.

After a lovely breakfast, perfectly boiled eggs with toast soldiers for me, full Cumberland for Rob, we grabbed our packs and headed back downstairs. As we came into the lobby I noticed that people were at the windows in a sitting room off to the left and to our delight two squirrels were enjoying the food I had put out earlier. So cute!

Rob and I then enjoyed about twenty minutes observing and photographing the squirrels. We also got chatting to a lovely English couple too which is always nice.

Shap

In the car and off again we travelled to Shap. The C2C comes into Shap via the Abbey so that was a must see and to our surprise we ran into three Americans – JJ, Marg and Gray, we had met walking on Day 1 St.Bees to Cleator. We had a lovely chat, catching up on their walk for a few minutes and Marg shared some Gingerbread with me from the little shop in Grassmere (closed when we were there) which was very kind.

we then drove onto Kirkby Stephen were we made a stop to go to the Post Office; hope everyone is receiving our postcards. The day is really cold and wet so our visit was brief. We visited the local Church which was beautiful and had an original Loki stone, then a quick walk through the market. Feeling really cold we decided to grab a hot Cornish pastie; which was amazingly good and a pie to warm us up, then onto Richmond for some groceries before heading to Newsham.

Merok Cottage Newsham

Up til now we had been using pre booked accommodation for the walk. As we now had a car we decided to book a cottage in a central location towards the end of the C2C walk so that we could do day trips aound. This would mean I could cook which would also give us a break from pub food! 😄

Rob found Merok Cottage in Newsham.

When we arrived on this cold afternoon it was a very welcome sight. As you can see above it is very comfortable. Rob immediately set a fire and I whipped up a creamy chicken carbonara and started a beef stew too. The Rayburn (like an Aga) provides heating for the house and is always ready to cook on. It reminds me of the black stove we had when I was growing up, except it was wood fuelled and the Rayburn is fuelled by oil.

So a great end to a cold day! A lovely bottle of French Bordeaux stle wine, hot pasta and a lovely fire followed by a comfy bed.