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Itypically need 24 hours to get over a sulk and so breakfast the next morning is also overshadowed… but walking cheers me up and soon the mood passes and I am back to normal.  Remarkably, this turns out to be the only time of open discord during the entire hike, thus leaving me still as I write this feeling vaguely guilty.  Curse them.  It isn’t easy spending two weeks with a bunch of saints ;-).

Today we cross the Pennines and descend through moorland into lovely Swaledale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  There is a fair bit of climbing and descent, but the hike is not a long one so Miles has decided to give it a try despite continuing to feel somewhat unwell.  He does fine until we start to descend and – after a cool morning – the sun comes out.  Miles, we have learned, is a powerhouse on the climbs, but goes much more slowly on the flats and descents where a weak knee gives him problems.  Today that weakness is complicated by two further factors:  the virus that is gradually overwhelming his immune system, and the fact that he is wearing dark clothes and the sun is out.

I do not understand people who hike in the summer wearing dark clothing… I sweat easily and copiously, so whatever keeps me cool is good.  And when the sun is out, white keeps me cool.  Simple enough.  Or so it seems to me, but of all of us I was the only one who wore white on the trip.  Miles is like me in that he also sweats a great deal, but unlike me he seems to enjoy combining hiking and sauna.  Today is a typical day:  he has on a shirt and a wind-breaker and when he lets his arms hang down during breaks it is as if he has a sprinkler system built into his cuffs.  I don’t know how he stands it.

In fact, he can’t stand it.  We come down off of the moors and wait for everyone to catch up.  It takes a surprisingly long time… seems Miles has had to take an extended, unplanned and unannounced break in order to gather the strength to continue.  The combination of virus and mobile sauna has done him in.  Russell, runner-up to Dave in the “nicest hiker” stakes, takes Miles’ pack and carries it the rest of the way.

By the time we get to Keld, Miles is one tired puppy.  We are split between two B&B’s again tonight and he is less than thrilled to learn that the one he is at (with Sally and Russ) is a mile further up a side valley.  It turns out that their B&B is a great place, with charming hosts and an excellent meal, so Sally and Russ felt fine with the assignment.  For Miles it was perhaps the last straw… the virus achieved supremacy overnight and he was not to hike with us again until five days later.  Two down, five to go.

Dave, Oliver, Dad and I were in a legendary establishment on the C2C: Butt House, run by the redoubtable Doreen Whitehead and her diminutive consort (whose name, appropriately, I forget).  Doreen is a large and forceful woman… like a hurricane is a large and forceful cloud, or an iceberg is a large and forceful snowball.  Generations of C2C hikers have learned:  in Butt House, you do it Doreen’s way. 

We were told to take off our boots, not outside on the terrace, but inside on a chair in the entryway because then it would be easier to clean up if any mud fell off.  Then we were to go up to see our rooms but to come straight down to the living room because she needed to get our orders for dinner and assign us our seats.  Afterwards we would be free to do what we wanted… until 7:30 on the dot, when dinner would be served.  As Doreen says, you can wait for dinner, but dinner can’t wait for you.

Dinner was plentiful and solid, if not gourmet food, enlivened by interesting dinner conversation with the other cowed guests and by Dave doing his Southern Californian Film Star thing.  You see, Dave seems to regard a menu as an aid to those lacking in imagination:  at the most he takes it as a point of departure for a conversation with a waitress.  He almost always wants something different, or changed, or merged, or whatever… just not what’s on the menu.  As you might imagine, Doreen doesn’t do changes.  A collision was predictable and happened over dessert.

Doreen appears after the main course and tells us the way it is going to be.  She will describe to us the choices for dessert (four) and then for each choice she is going to take a count of those who want it.  Simple enough… but Dave doesn’t do simple.  So she tells us the choices and then says, alright, who wants choice 1?  Two takers.  Choice 2?  Five takers.  Choice 3?  Catastrophe.  Dave says he can’t decide between choice 1 and choice 3 and asks her a question about choice 1.  Doreen looks at him as if his head had just started spinning on his shoulders.  Dave does not compute.  Dave is… different. 

Doreen probably hasn’t had someone disobey her instructions in 20 years (certainly not her husband – the very definition of henpeckedness).  The world has crashed, she seems to think.  Only one thing to do:  press the reset button and reboot.  She goes back to the beginning, explains the process again, and starts asking for choices again.  Thank God Dave follows orders this time.  Otherwise I might be at a wake right now instead of writing this.

Summary:

• 5.5 hrs, 18km, +515m, -355m.  Difficulty: easy.
• Via Nine Standards Rigg, Whitsundale, Swaledale.
• Picnic lunch.  Dinner in your B&B (4 of us at Butt House, 3 at Greenlands).

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