Day five at the big brother camp

Weather. Overcast but very warm,We walked from Thornhill to Collin 20 miles and on schedual  just south of Dumfries .Hue and my old mate Mick Cradock with me today and a good walk which took in some lovely scenery and Dunfries town centre.we finnished at the 100 mile point.
Body problems . I have a few small blisters my knee is hurting a bit and I have some groin chappage. so all in all not too bad. todays road was the A76 which is mostly quite busy, but with quite a lot of pavements so a nice walk.
Hue is now cooking bangers and mash Flint is asleep , we have all had a shower and tomorrow we move sites to Penrith.
fan bloody tastic

Day 6 wed 29th

It is a land mark day today everyone. We moved HQ from Scotland to Penrith, we started early , decamped and drove to a prearranged drop off point at the Collin premier inn where we left the Caravan and Camper .
Hughie a Naval Paramedic spent 1/2 an hour sorting my blistered feet out before we drove to Annan and walked North for 15 miles to make a change.
We were supposed to finnish in an Ice cream parlour, to send Mick off in style but it was shut. So it was hand shakes and Man Hugs all round and we drove into England and pitched up.
Hughie cooked us Salmon and new potatoes which he as ordered me to tell you was very very nice(it was by the way) and then doctored my toes which was painful but no anesthesia was needed as he bored me to sleep with tales of blisters past.
Big day tomorrow,as we cross the 1/2 way mark and the Scotland - England border.Bring it on.
As we go to bed the show cows in the stables are mooing .The dairy show of Cumbria is on tomorrow, so maybe there will be some prize winning steak for tea on saturday.

Day 5

Weather was over cast this morning, but very mild. So as we only had about 10 miles to the start point we got an early start, at the nice little town of Thornhill where we spotted a couple of butchers to supply our bangers and mash for tonight's tea.
We walked along the A76 then through Dunfries city centre to the village of Collin.The road was fairly straight and mostly flat, and for once there wasn't much rubbish on the road side, though me and mick did contemplate sticking a couple of road kill pheasant in our bag, for Hughie to cook instead of the  Steak bangers that Thornhill's prize winning butchers eventually supplied us.
We all sadly missed having a packet of crisps at our morning break due to Heather the Healthy, confiscating them and any left over chocolate so we are forced to eat healthy this week.
Micks girlfriend Dawn sent us some home made flap jack,which we had at this afternoons stop.(I only had 7 slices darling honest.) to celebrate micks good news that his daughter Martha had used her potty on her own for the first time. (engagements and weddings just around the corner mate)
Any way HQ move tomorrow so a short 15 miles and a move to England.

Well here we are 3 days later we've had some connectivity problems ,that were only partially caused by alcohol intake.
Anyway we have had some laughs and the weekend was great with Paul and Trish  Abbey, Gary and Di and my lovely wife.walking or driving the support van in turn. we have found some crap on the road side , ranging from furry hand cuffs,to positive pregnancy test kits.
We saw the England boys push Wales to the post whilst having a few beers kindly donated to us by my friend Jill who works at woodford's Norfolk beers, We got lost in kilmarnock,circumnavigated Irvine A place I didn't ever intend to go near and walked down a lovely river bank.The blog should now be kept up to date as we are organised .so here's to 2 more weeks.

Well here it is, we are sitting in a static caravan in sanquahar just north of Dunfries after leaving the Navy.Handing my Id card to commadore Wareham I walked out of the gate and set off on the 250 mile walk home.
We have had a good laugh and made 20 miles or so.finnishing at Largs .
The first mishap was Paul and I arrived in Helensburgh and the support waggon crew Trish and Heather were still in morrisons stuffing their faces. still its been great and the desision not to walk through Glasgow was fantasticly astute .Thankyou Mr Terry Heany.
Gary nicolson and his girlfriend Di have just arrived with Faslanes camper van. and we have just aten some quality scran,a stew made my own fair hands.

SETTING OFF

Well its here, van is packed , Caravan is ready ,and we are just having a bit of predeployment breakfast. I. As those of you who know me am a finely tuned athelete.and my body is a temple.My wife however ensured that her Vodka supply was the first thing packed this morning.
Bring it on 250 mere miles.

round the top

A beautiful day in Sunny Queensbury, Aidan and I went down to give a motor mover demo to another satisfied customer and then upon our return me and Heather took The Flintster for a 3 miler around the crown of Queensbury Hill.
I can't deny that it wasn't nippy but it was a  fantastic sunny day and you could see for miles, as we passed loads of other people out for a stroll, and nearly as many horses and their riders.
I have had a week off walking ,after a tumble on the ice meant a very sore knee which was badly aggravated after last Saturday's walk.
I don't think we will get out again before Friday's start so that is all the preparation complete.
We are setting off on Friday at 0900 and the commodore is coming to see us off.
So wish us luck and I will see you at the finish line The George III pub Queensbury on the 10th.
don't forget to read the blog though as I will be updating every Day..

Saturday walk with the famaily

Great day on Saturday we had a family 3 mile walk around Queensbury, unfortunately with out our teenage son Aidan who was fulfilling his duties as a teenager and stayed in bed and obviously my daughter who lives in Scotland with her mum,so really it was just Heather,the dog and me.
As we were walking Heather pointed out that all the photos on this blog so far are of the wonderful country side around our house and not of the Victorian mill town village centre that is Queensbury's heart.so here is a less than flattering picture of the high street on a Saturday afternoon.

Anyway the walk went well and we also took some phots out side the George III where we are having the welcome home drinks on Saturday the 10th march.

Press release for Rothwell record

Here's a copy of the press release for the Rothwell record the mag for the village I grew up in

THE LONG WALK HOME

Rothwell born Royal Navy Marine Engineer, David “Yorkie” Stout (47), leaves the navy after 30 years service on February 24^th 2012.  Once he has handed his warrant card in at HMS Neptune, north of Glasgow, he is going to walk home.  Fair enough you might think; if he’s had a wee dram on his last day then leaving the car at home might be sensible.  However, Yorkie lives in Queensbury in West Yorkshire….250 miles away!

David who was born and bred on Styebank Lane, where his parents still live,  acquired his sense of adventure primarily at Rothwell  C of E school and then whilst partaking in Youth Hostelling trips with his class mates at Roddillians School back in the 80’s.

David has chosen the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity to receive his sponsorship and he will be joined by others who will walk shorter distances for an array of charities.  The Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity is a national charity which provides a better quality of life for serving and former naval service personnel. 

Hilary Jukes, Fundraising Co-ordinator for The Royal Navy & Royal Marines Charity said, “We are delighted that Yorkie has chosen to help the charity. Although he is leaving the Royal Navy, the charity will be there to help him in future (whenever he needs us) and his support will enable us to continue to support the whole naval family whether serving, injured or veterans, as well as supporting the families of the Royal Marines who are killed in action.  For more information on the work of the charity please visit our website www.rnrmc.org.uk.”

David said after a training walk this morning, “I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Royal Navy and feel the charity walk is a novel and different way of leaving the service, and making that transition into civvy  street.” David won’t be idle for long as he is setting up a business as a caravan engineer.   To sponsor him please visit http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/YorkieStout. You can follow his progress on his blog at http://yorkiestout.blogspot.com.  If you are interested in joining Yorkie and his friends on part of the walk please contact him via www.westyorkshirecaravanservicing.co.uk.

bit of a Joy

This is the view from the Queensbury High school playing fields, plenty to look at when you're stuck out on the wing

Flint admires the view, or is he looking for the very cold looking fox we had just seen.

I decided to do a short 3 miles this morning, and reverted to one of my original routes. It didn't take as long as it used to, and the litter patrol have been around the school and village, which is looking a bit tidier. Putting a bit of a smile on my face.

We called in at Tesco's to get a paper, and Flint had a run off the lead with my mate Glens dogs ,so now its off to service a twin axle caravan and hope the snow stays away for an hour or 2.

In the distance you can see Queensbury .I took these photo's at what I thought was the half way point of this mornings walk, I was sadly mistaken and continued walking away from Queensbury for another 3/4 of an hour before We turned for home and started heading up hill.
Much to Flints disgust we stopped at our fantastic farm shop where I purchased all the ingredients needed for a bacon and mushroom sarnie,before timing the walk form the Keelham hall farm shop

keelhamfarmshop.co.uk   to the George the third pub BD13 2PR which will be the last stage of my walk finishing with a pint with Tony and Roxy at the George.1200 Saturday 10th march.accompanied by a cavalcade of local scooterists and the revolution show band. should be a site to behold so come along and join me. 

snow is falling

The forcasted snow has started to fall, its 1/4 past 12 I have taken a photo and will add before and after an hour or so

vehicular mayhem

Very cold but dry today which made for some vehicular mayhem, to brighten flint and mine's walk. Queensbury was the cross roads between Halifax and Bradford. and Cleckheaton and Keighley and indeed was named because the pub was the Queens head.

In the 1850's the Foster familly built Black dyke mills and the housing and infrastructure to sustain it which rapidly became Queensbury. Anyway in the 70's some one installed some traffic lights which forced all those transitting between the above towns off the main roads and onto the narrower farm service roads that are around our house in order to get to work quicker thus allowing them an extra 10 mins in bed.

Any way one of the farmers is doing some work on his dry stones and has closed the main rat run off, thus forcing the city dwellers and their low profiles on to even narrower roads.where though the farmers grit them there is still some snow and ice about. one gentle man in a pimped up van went side ways panicked at stopped causing the rat runners of both directions to grind to a halt.

Due to the road width turning around was impossible and the number of school runners made reversing impossible so lots of shouting and pointing ensued.Flint and I gave each of the 20 or so car occupants a big knowing, indeed smug grin and walked through the middle of the bedlam.

as we approached our final leg to home some 20 mins later the van and about 15 cars passed us. a nice stressful start to the day .

I however am heading to service mr taylors caravan in a very chilled out mood.

Todays photo's are of the lanes we walked with fosters mill on the sky line and what I can see from my bedroom the vally towards Elland and the M62.