47 for 5 to 346 for 7, or, Draco can bat

I don't know if I've sparked anyone's curiosity about cricket, but if you have even the faintest interest, the Test match between England and Pakistan that's going on right now at Lord's, here in London, is about as good as it gets.

Today's play was just astonishing: in the first 15 minutes, Pakistani bowler Mohammad Amir ripped through England's batting line-up, taking four wickets in eight balls without allowing any runs.  England had scored 47 runs and lost five wickets.  To baseball fans, 47 runs sounds like a lot.  But in cricket, when many matches have at least one player who scores 100 runs by himself, 47 runs is practically nothing.

At this point, I predicted that England would struggle to get to 80 runs.

They promptly went on to get to 346, with three wickets still to go.  To put this into perspective, at 11:30 this morning, it looked as if Pakistan would roll to victory in this match, possibly by Sunday evening.  By the time play ended, the chances of England losing are minimal, with victory very much theirs for the taking.

And that captures what I love about Test cricket: the possibility that, until the very end of the game, either team can win.  In most sports, when you have a big lead, you can just run out the clock.  In Test cricket, you can't win that way.  You need to bowl out the opposition (twice, in fact), and until you do that, they still have a chance to win, no matter how slim.  Today, England took full advantage of that chance.  Still a long way to go, of course, but if you were following today's action, you may have witnessed one of the greatest reversals in Test history.  Not quite Headingley in 1981, but not far off.

England's really hero of the day (Jonathan Trott's stubbornness at the crease notwithstanding) was Stuart Broad, who struck his first first Test century.  Batting in the ninth spot in the line-up (i.e. way down), Broad came to the crease just after lunch with England at a precarious position: 102 runs on the board with 7 wickets down.  He was still there at the end of the day, having scored 125 runs, 49 more than his previous best.  He's a bowler, first and foremost, but there's always been talk of his batting potential.  Today, that potential was fulfilled, and under the most pressure imaginable.  Call it heresy, but I've got a feeling he's going to end up a better allrounder than Andrew Flintoff. 

So if you've got some spare time tomorrow, give a listen to Test Match Special online.  Even if you can't really follow the details of the match, the commentary is charming and you'll get a sense of the flow of the game.  Also, a great collection of English accents, from the plummy Henry Blofeld to Yorkshireman Geoffrey Boycott.  Seriously, give it a try - this is the time.

Update: Jonathan Agnew got it exactly right in his column on today's play: "But days like this can only happen in one sport, and the 26,000 or so here will never forget it."

Explaining Cricket

Okay, before I start on this most difficult task, RPOTD:

The vegetarian alternative to a sausage - baguette with cheddar, smothered in onion and real ale chutney.


Okay, now it may seem a little strange that I am writing this post and not Danny, but we decided that since I wasn't quite as deeply embedded in cricket stats and history, maybe I would have a better perspective on how to explain it to people who know nothing about it. My goal is to explain this humorous description that's been hanging in our bathroom for the last 4 years:


Object of the Game:
There are two teams, and the object is to score more runs than the other team. Like most other sports, this is done through a combination of scoring lots of runs, and preventing the other teams from scoring too many. Good so far?

Overall Structure of the Game:
Each team has 11 members. I didn't want to use too many baseball analogies, but I will use this one: imagine a baseball game with only two innings, where one team bats, then the other teams bats, then they each bat one more time, then the game is over. That's cricket.

The Pitch:

A cricket pitch, or field, is a large grass oval, and in the middle there is a thin dirt rectangle, called the wicket. At each end of the wicket there are three wooden posts, with two small pieces of wood bridging the top. These are called the stumps. The main action of the game takes place on the wicket, but there are defensive fielders on the rest of the pitch. Fielding positions are fairly fluid, though there are people who specialize in being far from the wicket, and some who specialize in being close to the batsman.

Central Tension:
The main interactions of the game involves 2 people batting, and 2 people throwing the ball towards them, called bowling. At any given moment, however, there is only one bowler bowling to one batsman - the other bowler and batsman stand to the side of the stumps and watch. The batsmen stands in front of his stumps and swings his bat to prevent the ball from hitting the stumps. By hitting the ball he can also score runs (see below). Each bowler goes 6 times from one end of the wicket (6 balls is called an over), then the other bowler goes 6 times from the other end of the wicket, and they go back and forth, bowling to whichever batsman is on the opposite end of the wicket. Also, the physical act of bowling is quite strange to watch at first, and bowlers must keep their arm straight for the entire bowling motion, and they are often trying to bounce the ball off the ground in funny ways.

Scoring Runs:
Each time the batsman hit the ball, there are several options. If the ball doesn't go very far, he can just stand there and wait for a fielder to throw the ball back in to the bowler. This does not score any runs. This is totally fine and happens a lot. If the ball goes a moderate distance, he and the other runner can each run to the opposite stump, crossing in the middle - this gets them a point. If the ball is still out in the field they can switch again, for another point, and so on. However, if the ball is hit a long way and rolls all the way to the boundary of the pitch, this is an automatic 4 points. If this ball is really given a good whack and clears the boundary in the air, it's a automatic 6 points.

Getting Out:
While the batsmen are hitting balls, trying to run back and forth, the bowlers are trying to get them out, and there are several ways that this can happen. If the batsmen misses and the ball hits the stumps, it is out (bowled). If the batsmen hits it in the air and it is caught, it is out (caught). If the batsmen try to run back and forth and one of the fielders throws it back and hits the stump before the runner gets close to the stump, it is out (run out). If the batsman lets the ball his his leg (which has ample padding), and the umpire determines that the ball would have hit the stumps if it hadn't his the batsman's leg first, it is out (leg before wicket, or LBW). In other works, you can't defend the stumps with your body. These are the main ways you can get out. I should also point out that there is some confusing terminology here. While a wicket describes the middle, getting people out is described as "taking wickets", and getting out is "losing wickets".

Overall Game Play:
Like any good game, it starts with a coin toss. The winner of the toss decides, based on the weather and conditions of the pitch, if they want to field first, or if they want to "have a bat." The fielding team, all 11 of them, go out on the field: 2 bowlers and 9 other fielders in various positions. The batting team has established a batting order, and the first two batsmen put on their kit, or pads, and go out to the wicket. Everyone else on the batting team sits in the clubhouse, watching and eating candy. The first bowler bowls 6 times, then the next bowler goes 6 times, etc, trying to get the batsmen out in one of the 4 ways described above, and the bowlers try not to get out and to score runs. If one of the batsmen gets out, he goes back to the bench to eat candy, and the next batsmen comes in. It continues like this until 10 of the batsmen have gotten out, even though the last person is "not out", because you can't play with just 1 batsmen. Then the teams switch - the team that was batting now goes out into the field, and the team that was in the field puts their first two batsmen onto the wicket. This cycle goes through twice, so each team bats twice and each team fields twice.

And in terms of bowling, any given team has 4 or 5 people who specialize in bowling. They tend to be less good at batting, though there is the occasional all-rounder. So at any given time 2 of these bowlers are taking the position of the bowler, and the other 2 or 3 are just part of the fielding positions. The bowlers can move in and out of the bowling positions fairly fluidly throughout the game.

Duration of the Game:
What's I've described is a multi-day match, which is the traditional form of the game. This can either be 4 or 5 days. So it's an approximation that in a 4 day match, each team will bat for about a day, then field for a day, then bat for a day, then field for a day. But of course this is subject to a huge amount of variation. In today's match, as Danny has discussed, England lost 4 wickets in about 10 minutes, which if you extrapolated suggested that England might only bat for 30 minutes! However, if the batsmen are doing really well, your team could be batting for almost 2 days. There's also a lot of individual variation - today Kevin Pietersen got out on the first ball bowled to him, while Jonathan Trott stood out there and batted ALL DAY. So unlike many other sports, in these multi-day matches it's generally more important to bat for a long time and focus on not getting out than to try an score runs quickly. So the progress of the game is really measured in how many outs have been made.

A Note about Scores:
In these long matches, scores are in the multiple hundreds. The best batsmen are hoping to score 100 runs by themselves, called a century. The record for most runs scored by a single batsmen in one match is by Brian Lara of the West Indies, 400 and not out. The most runs a team has scored in one turn batting is 952 by Sri Lanka in 1997. So the 346 that England scored today, with 7 outs, is very respectable.

Exceptions to these rules:
Way to many too list here, of course. There are some shortened versions of the game, some situations where a team might bat twice in a row, sometimes when getting points quickly is essential, bad weather conditions that truncate the match, etc. But that is the basic premise of the game.

Howzat!?

Extension of a Sunday in North London

Take a swim in the Ladies Bathing Pond

Have a little extra time during that epic adventure on Hampstead Heath? Well, on your way up to the Kenwood Estate, why not take a dip in a chilly freshwater oasis in the middle of the city? I supposed this one is a little unfair to the gents, but only a little since they can just head down the hill to take a dip in the Mens bathing pond. The ladies bathing pond is truly serene. It is surrounded on all sides by trees, so it is just you, the sky, and the other intrepid ladies who want to swim on a brisk, windy day late in the English summer. Oh, and the ducks, who at this point are so used to their pond companions that they just paddle around with you. And after you swim you can soak up the day's last rays of sunshine, as you lay in one of the "meditation gardens", where no cell phones are allowed. Okay, so there's a bunch of leaves and sticks floating on much of the surface, as well as duck feathers, and there may be a blue-green algae bloom warning that discourages you from swallowing water or indeed putting your mouth under water at all. But all of that is a pretty fair trade-off for getting to feel like you're enjoying a Maine vacation, just over a mile from your doorstep.

How to spend a Sunday in North London

Walk up to Kenwood House on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath
Remind yourself that this used to be the countryside; Kenwood House was the estate of the 1st Earl of Mansfield during the 18th century.  It was only in the nineteenth century, with the coming of the railway, that "London" began to reach this far north.  It was only around the turn of the nineteenth century that London's population exceeded one million.

Get lost wandering in Hampstead Heath
At almost 800 acres, there's a lot to get lost in.  Fortunately, there are landmarks throughout (roads, ponds, and the like).  This isn't a wide-open green space like Hyde or Regent's Park.  While there are open spaces, much of the Heath is wooded.  On the whole, it feels quite wild and you can almost forget that the hum of central London is just a few miles away.  Worst-case scenario if you get truly lost: walk in one direction long enough and you'll find yourself back in civilization.  Still, not a bad idea to bring a map and compass.

All right, so it wasn't actually our plan to get lost.  But it happened.  Twice.  As I said, it's wild and unruly on the Heath, with lots of twisting paths.  It's all too easy to lose your sense of direction.  But it does wonders for your sense of adventure.

If you find yourself in the neighborhood of North End (as we did), marvel at the fact that there are dirt-and-gravel roads in London.

Eat ice cream and look at the emus in Golders Hill Park

Though it's technically part of the Heath, it feels very different: manicured lawns, a "water garden," and the ubiquitous cafe.  You can't have a park in London without an accompanying cafe.  The mint chocolate chip ice cream tastes like summer.


Stroll down the hill to Hampstead
Always described as a "village-y" bit of London, it lives up to its reputation.  Outside the pub prices (see below), you could imagine yourself having just found a respite from a long walk in the countryside (something we know about).  A few Hampstead highlights:

- Have a pint at the Horsheshoe. The beer's not cheap (almost £4 a pint), but it's local (brewed downstairs) and good. Their wheat beer is the darkest I've seen.

- Hampstead Creperie. Not to miss. Seriously. We were just in Paris, and this blows the crepes we had in Paris out of the water (if my abstract gets accepted to a conference in Rennes, I'll be sure to report on how the Breton entry in the Great Crepe Competition of 2010 fares). Becca's choice: mushroom and cheese. Danny's honey and walnut.

After enjoying the charms of Hampstead, make your way home through South End Green, stopping for ingredients for dinner.  Our recommendation: roasted garlic and sage risotto with walnuts, sauteed zucchini, and a Greek-ish salad.  Finish it off with a caramel and cashew cheesecake and you've had yourself an awfully good day.

Things to love about Britain

In the first 15 minutes of Would I Lie to You?, four different supermarket chains have been mentioned.  Better yet, we apparently have been paying enough attention this past month or so to get the jokes about Waitrose, Asda, Tesco, and Sainsbury's.

Also, Rob Brydon doing an impression of Ronnie Corbett.

À Paris!

I realize that the Random Photo Of The Day is kind of a misnomer, because I'm not blogging every day (lately it's barely been every week!), but I'm going to continue calling it that anyway:

More birds! The first day Jessica arrived (yay!) we set off immediately to see some of London's great sights - Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the posh shopping area of Knightsbridge, finished off with a trip to Harrods. Somewhere in the middle of the day we took a break in St. James Park, which is a green, peaceful oasis in the middle of the madness of central London. And it has pelicans! Jessica felt a little guilty for falling asleep on a park bench, but it actually worked out really well because the pelican and the heron took that time to pose for this perfect picture. Jessica will hopefully be doing a guest blog post later this week (an option for all visitors!), so I'll let her share more stories of what we did while she was here. But I will talk about Paris!

I'd like to say that I was able to resist the temptation of all the cliched Paris activities - Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, etc, but it would be a lie. I had only been to Paris once before, for a few day in high school, and I don't really remember much of it except going up the Eiffel tower, so I felt that I had to start over. Luckily, even though Jessica had been there 5 times (!!!) and Danny had been there 3 times, they didn't object. I apologize in advance if this post just reads like a list of things we did - I'll try to provide some exciting commentary as well.

First of all, many thanks to Maike for recommending the Hotel Saphir - a nice location on the rive gauche, at a very reasonable price! The most exciting thing for me about this place was the shops it shared a street with - at least 3 boulangeries, several fruit and vegetable grocers, a gelato stand, a lively café on the corner, and the most tempting cheese shop I've ever seen (Fromagerie Vacroux et Fils, slogan: "Sauvons Le Goût," which I think translates to "Savour the taste," or something like that.) I was charmed the minute we stepped off the metro and onto our little street.

Day one went something like this: dropped off stuff at hotel; bought croissants and a baguette; walked through cemetery Montparnasse (lots of Jewish headstones mixed in with Catholic and other religions, which I thought was very interesting); relaxed in the extremely french Luxembourg gardens and ate said baguette (Frenchness is derived from the perfect organization); visited the beautiful churches St. Sulpice, which has an impressive organ, and St. German de Pres, which was incredibly dark because, as Danny put it, "They hadn't figured out how to do windows yet."; got crepes and cider at a Breton restaurant; walked to Île de la Cité to visit Notre Dame cathedral, walked to Île Saint-Louis for the famous Berthillon ice cream (I got pear and gingerbread...soo delicious) and on the way passed some WWII-era movie being filmed; headed back toward the Louvre via the Hôtel de Ville, which was hosting a music festival that at that time was featuring French hip hop...later on in the evening was going to be the "French rival to Lady Gaga", and the Centre Pompidou (crepe #1 for Jessica - with Nutella); took advantage of the Louvre's late night hours on Fridays, where even though we split up, Jessica and I both decided we like Dutch art from the 17th century (Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque, apparently), and I just happened to bump into Danny in the Caravaggio section; walked back towards the hotel for a late and yummy dinner at Restaurant Polidor; finally crashed at the hotel, exhausted after our 5:25 train that morning!

I can't believe that was just one day! The second day followed a similar pattern of walking and eating, with maybe a church or museum thrown in. Basic rundown: missed breakfast at the hotel because we needed our sleep, which forced us to get more pastries on our street; walked directly to the other side of the river then sprawled out on the grass in well-planned square that is the Place des Vosges; enjoyed the small Victor Hugo museum, which is located in the apartment where he lived from 1832-1848 and houses quite a collection of letters, portraits, and examples of his gaudy taste in furniture; wandered around the Marais district of the city, which is both the traditionally Jewish neighborhood and a trendy shopping area (we got falafel for lunch and weathered a rain storm in an expansive bookstore); fought the crowds to get hot chocolate at Angelina's; wandered through the Tuileries to Place de la Concorde and down the Champs Elysee with a destination of the Arc de Triomphe, but took a detour midway through to check out L'église de la Madeleine, a church in a neo-classical building that Danny remembered learning about way back in his Humanities class in high school; made the obligatory trip back across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower, which you have to admit is a very impressive structure; got on the metro (Jessica and I split a crepe with strawberry jam on the way) to go to Montmartre to have dinner (a dinner which featured a cheese plate to die for); Jessica got her 3rd crepe of the trip - plain chocolate this time; took in the view of the city from the steps of the Sacré Coeur, where guys are walking around selling bottles of Heinekin - so weird; rode the metro back to our neighborhood, where Danny and I split a carafe of Côte du Rhône and Danny and Jessica got crepes (just sugar for Jessica this time) at the aforementioned café on the corner. What a great way to end a busy day!

The last day we just had the morning, as out train was leaving at 2:40pm. We decided we would either just wander the neighborhood and have a relaxed picnic lunch in the Parc Montsouris or see another museum, depending on the weather. We woke up and it was pouring - well then! We enjoyed baguettes with jam for breakfast, and we were joined by the tiny black cat that lived in the hotel. Jessica headed off to the Musée Cluny to look at old stuff, and Danny and I headed off to the Musée Marmottan to look at only moderately old stuff...impressionist painting, to be specific. Thanks to my mom for the tip on this museum! It was in a cute, quiet neighborhood, on the edge of a very nice park. A park that was home to a statue of Jean de la Fontaine, with his Corbeau et le Renard! This may not mean much to most of you, but in AP French we had to memorize a poem each semester, and the first semester we all had to stand at the front of the class, one by one, and dutifully recite "Le Corbeau et le Renard...par Jean de la Fontaine". I still remember most of the poem, so seeing this statue was really amazing! The Monets at the Marmottan were also quite good. It was also nice to see a collection of paintings by Berthe Morisot, since female painters don't really have much of a presence.

We successfully met up with Jessica at Gare du Nord for our Eurostar train home. What a trip! The only sad part of the weekend was that we found out that Danny's family dog Buddye's bladder cancer had spread and that he really wasn't doing very well, so he was going to be put down on Sunday, the last day of our trip. We were hoping that if we raced home from the train station Danny would be able to see him on skype one last time, but unfortunately the train left 15 minutes late.

We miss you, Buddye - we hope doggy heaven is full of tennis balls, swimming pools, and belly rubs, and that there are never any thunderstorms. We know that there are lots of nice dogs there for you to play with...

Frantic catch-up post

It's been a while, we know.  So instead of trying to get through the backlog in anything approaching thorough-ness, we'll give you the super-quick version of the last few weeks.  Then we'll do our best to keep up in the future, I promise.

Wednesday, July 28 - Five Days in the Lake District, Part 5

The day began in Keswick, a town of pubs and outdoors stores.  Seriously, there's not much else.  I've never seen so many outdoors stores in such a small area.  But given Keswick's centrality in the Lake District, it makes sense.  After a lazy morning wandering around Keswick, we hopped on the bus to Carlisle, where we raced around the cathedral and castle.  At the Carlisle train station, I practiced my forward defensive shot, much good that it did me.

Tuesday, August 3 - Our First Night of the Proms
Each summer, Royal Albert Hall hosts "the world's greatest classical music festival," a series of daily classical music concerts.  Seats aren't cheap, but there's the wonderful tradition of "promming" - show up a few hours before the concert and buy a standing-room ticket for just £5.  We went to Prom #23 and heard Fould's Dynamic Triptych, Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music and "The Lark Ascending," and Elgar's Symphony #1.  We'll prom at least once more this summer, so we'll provide a fuller report then.

Thursday, August 5 - Went the Day Well? at the BFI Southbank
My adviser recommended this, a WWII film that imagines a German invasion of a strategically located English village.  Full of simple English folk, from all walks of life, doing their duty.  Rather charming.


Friday, August 6 - The National Gallery
We met up with a friend from college (and elementary school, in my case) at the National Gallery to see the exhibit on Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries.  If you have any doubt about the role that science plays in the art world these days, have a look.  It also raises all sorts of questions about authenticity and the experience of seeing works of art - does a work suddenly become less powerful because it turns out that it was done by a student of Rembrandt rather than the master himself?

Sunday, August 8 - A day with the birds

Another nice day brought us out to the London Wetland Centre in Barnes.  Wholly man-made, it has a zoo-like section with micro-climates supporting birds from around the world as well as a larger, more open area where you're on your own in terms of spotting the birds.  I'll leave the list of birds we saw to Becca - she's much better at identifying them than I am.  I'm pretty sure these guys are ducklings, though.

Monday, August 9 - Harrods
Becca's cousin arrived last Monday.  She enjoys a good department store, and we hadn't been to the spectacle of Harrods yet, so off we went.  Our visit was made all the more sweet by the fact that I had a gift certificate (thanks, Mom and Dad!) just waiting to be used on chocolate truffles.  Harrods isn't really the sort of place where graduate students actually buy anything, so this was mostly a time for ogling.  If only I had £1,200 for that smoking jacket...

Tuesday, August 10 - An afternoon at the palace
Liz and Phil  spend their summers in Scotland, which means the likes of us get to scope out their place.  A good day for it, too, since the rain that had been holding off for so long finally descended on us.  What struck me is how you can trace the history of the British monarchy over the past few centuries through the changing styles and decorations of successive rooms.

Wednesday, August 11 - Othello in Waterlow Park
Somehow I've gone the first 28 years of my life without seeing Othello.  Yes, it really is that good, and yes, Iago really is that devious.  The actor playing Iago was superb, not least in dealing with the hiccups that inevitably come with outdoor theatre, like a group of loud, loutish teenagers walking by in the middle of a monologue.  Is there any better way to spend a summer evening than seeing Shakespeare in a park while drinking a beer?

Whew.  With that, I'll turn it over to Becca for a recap of our weekend in Paris.

Cheeses of England #3: Fresh Iambor

Disclaimer: this is not a typical English cheese. It is a buffalo cheese, inspired by traditional Romanian cheese-makers, but it is made in Somerset and sold at our farmers market, so it counts as an English cheese. The maker is Alham Wood Organics, and they make a range of buffalo and cows cheeses and yogurt, both pasturized and "raw". This is one of the pasturized fresh cheeses, or Iambors. Danny describes it as "solid ricotta", but I think it has a much more mature and slightly saltier taste. Maybe a cross between ricotta and feta. It was really delicious on the olive bread we got from one of the stalls at the farmers market, the name of which we now cannot remember. The bread was delicious, if a little expensive, but it was sold to us by a French man, and when a French man offers you freshly baked bread, you take it.

Alham Wood also makes the cheese-tasking yogurt (or yoghurt, if you prefer). Next time I'm going to go crazy and try the buffalo yoghurt!

Five Days in the Lake District, part 4

Day 4: Great Langdale to Keswick
This is the only day of the trip that we stuck to the Cumbria Way the whole time (though it's actually day 3 of the Cumbria way).

The day started out looking cloudy but dry, with even a hint that maybe the sun would come out later. In the time it took me to put on sunscreen outside the front door, it starting raining. blah. But not a heavy rain, just the light drizzle we had come to expect, and we were hopeful it would be short-lived. We struck out from the Old Dungeon Ghyll, deeper and deeper into the Langdale valley towards Mickledon, the basin where the Langdale peaks come together. At this point you have to make a decision: turn around or head up and over. Luckily, the Way goes up and over the lower part of the ridge, but still high enough to afford a great view of the valley, with it's broad river bed and rocky terrain. Just image what it would have looked like if we could have seen the peaks! Surprisingly, this valley actually reminded me of some river beds in Denali National Park of all places. Smaller mountains, though.

After the climb out of Mickledon we descended into another beautiful valley with a good Scottish name: Langstrath. It was in this valley that we saw what I can only describe as "The great sheep migration of July 2010". What we saw was a line of dozens of sheep walking out of another valley that branches off Langstrath, following the path and walking in a nearly single-file line. And they were being pretty noisy about it! The sheep just kept on coming...soon it looked like a hundred or more sheep all walking alongside the river with great purpose (on the opposite bank from us, sadly). We could only assume that they were being herded by someone deep in the valley, but we couldn't see it. After about a half hour of this we encountered a short line of sheep walking towards us on our side of the river, and they were followed by a real-life shepherd carrying a crook, and his real-life sheepdog, who was having the time of his/her life running up and down hills herding sheep (who really are amazingly easy to herd). It was pretty awesome.

After a few hours the trail brought us to the hamlets of Stonethwaite and Rosthwaite, in the valley of Borrowdale, which seem to exist only to accommodate walkers and vacationers like us. I should mention that by this point it had been fairly dry for a while, but our boots, which had started the day a bit damp from the day before, were completely soaked through, and I was grumpy about it. The bits of chocolate in our gorp weren't enough to get me through my afternoon grumpiness, so we had to stop for a pint at the Scafell hotel.

Fueled by beer, the next few miles passed without too much trouble: rolling hills and farmland, crossings of the River Derwent, clearing skies, lots of adorable sheep, craggy fells all around us. By the time we reached Grange-in-Borrowdale it was downright sunny for the first time in the trip (see photo of me wearing sunglasses for proof)! The only problem was that when we got to Grange we still had 5 miles left, and our feet were really starting to ache from all the walking in wet, dirty socks. The lesson here is CHANGE YOUR SOCKS! Which we did not. And our feet just got more tired and our moods more glum the closer we got to our destination.

Which is really a shame, because it should have been a very nice ramble. The sun was shining, and most of the rest of the walk was flat and through a pretty forest along the edge of Derwentwater, another tempting lake. Derwentwater has a system of shuttle boats that we could have taken to Keswick, but it really seemed more appropriate to walk, even if at that point it was more of a hobble to the tune of constant whining.

Knocking on the door of the Bridgedale Guesthouse was a huge relief, as was a shower and a pair of dry socks. I'll save descriptions of Keswick for our last post, but I'll put in a huge plug for the pub we went to that night, called the Dog and Gun. It's 100% dog friendly, and even has a dog menu. Also fantastic local ales (Keswick Brewing Company = awesome) and big plates of tasty food (butternut squash lasagna!) for the cheapest prices we saw in the Lakes. Check it out! you know, when you happen to be passing through Keswick...

15 miles walked.
Towns: Stonethwaite, Rosthwaite, Grange-in-Borrowdale (seen from afar!), Portinscale (just outside Keswick), Keswick
Peaks: none

Five days in the Lake District, part 3

An early start to the day in Grasmere, as we left the hostel shortly after 7:00.  But before we started the rambling in earnest, we stopped at St. Oswald's, where Wordsworth worshipped.  Two pictures, the first one suitably softened into the Romantic early mist.

This second, rather more prosaic, picture captures one of the key trends within British Christianity in the last few decades: the decline of denominational conflict

After being disappointed by the still-closed bakery (what kind of bakery isn't open by 7 AM?!), we started the walk proper.  Up and over a little ridge to rejoin the Cumbria Way at Chapel Stile.  From the top of the ridge the main view was a rather unsightly slate quarry, but by the time we reached the valley floor the quarry disappeared from view and picturesque-ness returned.

We stopped by a small stream for a bit of breakfast: pita, cheese, and gorp.  Then it was into the valley of Great Langdale.  Our guidebook told of the tremendous views of the Langdale Pikes to the north, but the cloud cover kept them pretty obscured.  We did, however, see plenty of sheep, like this friendly pair.

Four miles into the day we arrived at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, a famous destination for Lake District hill-walkers and climbers, complete with the Hikers' Bar watering hole.  We dropped off our big bag at the hotel, then had a look at the weather forecast for the day.

The initial plan for the day was arrive at ODG early enough to make it to Scafell Pike and back.  But 14 miles of serious hiking with less than a 10% chance of views from the summit (coupled with gloomy skies in Great Langdale) dissuaded us from climbing England's highest mountain.  Instead, we opted for a walk that kept us closer to "home," ascending High Raise, described in our guidebook as the "overlord" of the Langdales.

The ascent up High Raise had three distinct phases.  First was a steep but well-traveled path following Stickle Ghyll to a waterfall.  This part of the climb was full of other hikers, including some young children with impressive hardiness - we overheard no whining about the rain.  The power of the waterfall is rather poorly captured in this photograph, but it at least provides a sense of the terrain.

Just above the waterfall, at an elevation of approximately 1,500 feet, is Stickle Tarn, a small lake that was dammed in the early 19th century.  Towering over the tarn is the imposing face of Pavey Ark.

After Stickle Tarn, the path upwards became a lot more lonely, and also much less clear.  No longer able to just follow the stream up, we had to use our compass and handy Ordnance Survey map.  About two-thirds of the way up this section of the climb, we were crossed paths with another hiker who had been bounding ahead of us.  "You can't see jack from up there," he warned us, as he rather gloomily passed us by.  But at this point we were committed to making it to the top, so we continued upward.

The next clear stopping-point was Sergeant Man, a subsidiary peak of High Raise.  The clouds actually did roll away enough for us to get a nice view of the valley below, though they continued to enshroud the high peaks in the distance.

From Sergeant Man, the final ascent to High Raise was nothing more than a short walk, with a barely perceptible change in elevation.  Given the mist that had settled on the summit, I'm not sure that we would have found the summit cairn without a clear compass heading to follow.  Here I am at the summit of High Raise at 762 meters.

Our plan from this point had been to descend back into the valley via some other peaks, bagging Thunacar Knott, Pavey Ark, Harrison Stickle, Pick o'Stickle, and Loft Crag along the way.  But that would have involved finding a different path down the western slope of High Raise.  Given the mist, lack of landmarks (we even struggled a bit finding our way back to Sergeant Man), and advancing hour, we decided to just descend the way we had come up.  A bit below the tarn, the clouds finally cleared enough to allow a decent photograph of the valley below.

From there, back to the hotel to check in and enjoy a hot shower.  Dinner at the Hikers' Bar was disappointing (not least because they didn't actually have either of the menu items I order), but sometimes, as a vegetarian, you just have to accept your fate.  At least the stilton and broccoli soup was flavorful and warming.

We had a long day to Keswick in front of us, so early to bed...

Approximately 10 miles walked
Towns: Grasmere, Chapel Stile
Peaks: Sergeant Man, High Raise 

Cheeses of England #2: Red Leicester Vintage

Another beauty from Green's of Glastonbury:

In an earlier post, Danny described their blue vein cheddar as "tangy", which I think I agree with, but it was more of a smoldering tanginess, presumably due to the blue cheese component. The red leicester's initial flavor was strong, but not quite as sharp as the cheddar. Its most dramatic characteristic was that I would almost feel my lips tingle after each bite, which I decided was a good thing. The photos are of the end piece, which was especially mature.

The Great British Beer Festival

Two beer festivals in ten days!  A few Fridays ago, after spending the morning exploring the cathedral precincts of Canterbury, we went to the Kent Beer Festival.  Impressive as that was, it was a mere taster to the main event, the Great British Beer Festival in Earls Court.

The highlight, of course, was the hundreds of beers on offer.  Here's what we tried, along with our notes, which, as you might expect, got sillier as the day went on.

Kipling South Pacific Pale Ale by Thornbridge Brewery, Derbyshire
[We hadn't thought to write down any notes at this point - shame on us!]

Sunchaser by Everards, Leicestershire
Sour nose.  It was at this point that I made a bad drawing of a nose on our sheet of paper.

Chocolate and Vanilla Stout by Titanic, Staffordshire
Becca: Smells like vanilla.
Danny: Super-sweet nose, more balanced taste.  Long vanilla finish.

Honey Buzzard by Cotleigh, Somerset 
Becca: "That's not copper!" [In response to the putative copper color.]  "Not tasting the honey - it tastes of anti-honey?"
Danny: Subtle flavor, increasingly chocolate with more sips.  Soft (weak?) finish?

Norwich Terrier by Buffy's, Norwich
We chose this one, as you might have guessed, in homage to a particular pooch.
More aftertaste than taste.

Triple Chocoholic by Saltaire, Yorkshire
Becca: "Chocolate chocolate chocolate!  Ack!"
Danny: "None blacker.  Washes over you with a wave of goodness."

Pegasus by Milton, Cambridgeshire 
Becca: "Really interesting nose... caramelly.  Toffee, since were in England.  Aftertaste goes on forever."
Danny: "Smooth but bright."

Echte Kriekenbier by Verhaeghe, Belgium
Becca: "Tart.  Definitely on the girly side."
Danny: "Ridiculous foamy head."


Lots more to the beer festival than just beer.  For instance...

Carnival games!

Exhibits of beer ingredients!  It turns out that caramel malt tastes just like Grape-Nuts.  Who knew?

And food!  And no, we have no idea what goes in a breakfast pie or why they would be selling such a thing in the late afternoon.

Also, table football (foosball).  After Becca scored four quick goals against my weak defense, my ball control skills returned and I scored five on the trot to take the game 5-4. 

On the whole, a good way to spend a rainy London day.  The concrete floor and convention center atmosphere may have diminished the real ale charm a bit, but it's hard to complain when the outcome (us getting to try lots of yummy beers at reasonable prices) is so good.

Five Days in the Lake District, part 2

Coming to you 10 days later, it's the 2nd day of our rambling/hill walking trip!

We woke up in the Black Bull Hotel in Coniston to dry weather and patches of blue among the clouds. Score! One delightful aspect of the trip was that 3 out of 4 places we stayed were B&Bs, so breakfast was included. That morning, our vegetarian version of the full English breakfast included tea, orange juice, toast, jam, cereal, 2 eggs, beans, fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, and fried bread. Not a bad way to start a day of walking!

Our plan for this day was to hike the standard day 2 of The Cumbria Way, which technically goes from Coniston to Great Langdale, but hotels in Great Langdale were limited and pricey (we discovered why when we were there), so we opted instead to spend the 2nd night in Grasmere, another picturesque town on a lake, 2 miles off the Way.

The day started with a little bit of climbing out of Coniston, but generally this was much more of a rambling day than a fell-walking day. Forests mixed with rolling, grassy, sheepy hills led the way to Tarn Howes, a large lake that used to be 3 separate lakes until a dam was build downstream. This of course led to a discussion about how even what we consider to be beautiful and "nature" today may have been shaped by human hands in the past, and in this case you wouldn't know it unless you stopped into the helpful visitor information booth.

From there to the small town of Elterwater the terrain was mostly rolling farmland, with many picturesque farmhouses, views into green valleys, and the ever-intriguing stone walls from centuries ago. All of these stone walls necessitate one of the most charming features of the Way - the bizarre collection of ways there are to get over and through these walls. In some places there are wooden steps, or stiles, to simply climb over the wall. In some places there is a space in the wall and there is a gate to let you through - either a standard swinging gate (with a variety of locking/closing mechanisms) or more involved kissing gate. Or there was our favorite, the tiny gate at the top of the wall with embedded stone steps. Amazing. This funny little website has a nice picture and description of a kissing gate. Or, if you want to build your own, check out this one.

Somehow we managed to navigate all of these gates and arrive at Elterwater, first the water itself, then the tiny village. The lead-up was a very nice flat path alongside the lake with an open field where many people were playing with their dogs. Overall, I was very impressed with how the dogs, for the most part, were refraining from chasing the sheep. Elterwater is home to the Britannia Inn, which has a nice pub and is very clearly a haven for cyclists, ramblers and hill walkers alike. We stopped in to enjoy a cup of tea and a scone, and to try Coniston Brewing Company's special "Britannia" ale.

It was in Elterwater that we diverged from the Way to hike up and over a small ridge and into Grasmere. It was actually nice to gain some elevation after a day of walking in valleys, and from the top of the hill the views back to Elterwater and down into Grasmere, which is of course situated on yet another lake, were great. In Grasmere we were staying at a youth hostel, though this term is a bit misleading, as the other guest ranged from young children to couples in their 60's. Another reason I wanted to detour to Grasmere is because I couldn't resist the name of this hostel: The Grasmere Butharlyp Howe. We scouted out what looked like the restaurant with the best veggie options (a caramelized onion, walnut and stilton tart for a starter, and sticky toffee pudding for, um, pudding, though actually in the North they just call it all "sweets"), devoured our food, enjoyed a few local beers back at the hostel (the "Scafell Blonde" and "High Pike" from Heket Newmarket Brewery, for those of you keeping track at home), and were in our bunks by 10pm.

Approximately 12 miles walked
Towns: Elterwater, Grasmere
Peaks: none

Five days in the Lake District, part 1

Thanks to Becca's mad planning skills, and buoyed by a sunny and basically rain-free weather forecast, we pulled off a last-minute trip to the Lake District last week.  While the weather didn't exactly cooperate, we still had a lovely time tramping along the Cumbria Way and climbing some fells.

Day 1: London to Ulverston to Coniston
The 6:05 AM departure from Euston was, without doubt, the most stressful portion of the trip.  But we managed it just fine, catching the 5:41 subway from Tufnell Park and arriving at Euston with plenty of time to collect our tickets and settle into our first-class seats that were inexplicably cheaper than the standard fare.

I can't say that I remember much of the train ride up to Lancaster, as we rather groggily watched the Midlands pass us by.  Lancaster's also something of a blur.  It's really only the list of stations served by the Cumbrian Coast Line that really woke me up.  Ready?  Carnforth, Silverdale, Arnside, Grange-over-Sands, Kents Bank, Cark and Cartmel, Ulverston, Dalton, Roose, Barrow-in-Furness, Askam, Kirkby-in-Furness, Foxfield, Green Road, Millom, Silecroft, Bootle, Ravenglass, Drigg, Seascale, Sellafield, Braystones, Nethertown, St Bees, Corkickle, Whitehaven, Parton, Harrington, Workington, Flimby, Maryport, Aspatria, Wigton, Dalston (not to be confused with the Dalton above!), and Carlisle.  All in just over a hundred miles.  That, my friends, is a local train.

Our first surprise of the trip came soon after disembarking at Ulverston.  We already knew about the Laurel and Hardy Museum in Ulverston, but what we didn't know was that Swarthmoor Hall was just a mile away.  Yes, as in Swarthmore.

It being early on a Saturday morning, the actual building was closed.  But we had a nice stroll around the gardens and some early views of fells in the distance.

After wandering around Ulverston, a vibrant little market town, we hopped on the bus up to Coniston.  "Bus" is really something of a misnomer.  It was really more of a glorified shuttle van, and even that was more than enough space for its riders.  Aside from us, there were two little old ladies who had come into Ulverston to do their shopping (one of whom, inexplicably, had nothing more in her shopping bag than a few apples and a handful of carrots) and a backpacker.  Hardly the stuff of a money-making route, which probably explains the sulky teenager driving the bus.

We checked in at the Black Bull, drawn in as much by the accolades the associated brewery has garnered as anything else.  After settling into our room, we decided to attempt the Old Man of Coniston, a 1,365-foot peak that rises almost directly out of the village.  There was a light mist as we left the Black Bull, but we were hopeful that it would burn off in the afternoon sun.

After a few moments of uncertainty regarding the exact direction of the trail, we were well on our way.  About halfway up we passed an old slate quarry.  The exact location of the mining was easy to determine, with a rather stark contrast on the mountainside between green ferns and gray mining spoil.  A bit further up we reached Low Water, a small lake.  Along the way we were already starting to marvel at the omnipresence of sheep, with no sign of them thinning out in number as we ascended.

By Low Water, we were pretty well socked in by clouds.  Not exactly optimistic about a view, we kept going up.  We faced a pretty steep section near the top, but the encouraging words of those on their way back down provided all the inspiration we needed.  Sadly, no view whatsoever from the top of the Old Man.

But still, the first ascent of the trip.

As you can tell from that picture, we were soaked and cold.  So back to the Black Bull for a hot shower and dinner at the pub.  If you find yourself with the opportunity to sample some beers by the Coniston Brewery Company, be sure to try the Blacksmiths Ale.  Top-notch stuff.

Approximately 6 miles walked.
Towns: Ulverston, Coniston
Peaks: Old Man of Coniston