The club stayed at the YHA Coppermines bunkhouse above Coniston with almost all of the 26 places filled. As usual with meet reports, quotes from the weekend are taken totally out of context.

Marvin Royce, Juliet Usher and James Counsell made an early start, leaving London in the morning and arriving at Coniston in time to sample the wares on offer at all three of the pubs in the village. Which made the 1-½ mile trip (“very uphill”) to the bunkhouse more difficult than it should have been. Everyone else had relatively uneventful journey with only one car arriving in the early hours of the morning.

Saturday dawned dull and overcast and there followed the usual map faff over breakfast whilst various walks were suggested and ignored. Climbing was out of the question and scrambling was suggested but the interest died for the want of a guidebook.

Only one person had a firm plan and Kirsten McKaige headed out for a 2+ hour run to complement her training for the London marathon (if you wish to support Kirsten in this, you there are a couple of social events happening, or you can make a donation at www.justgiving.com/kirstenmccharge). But she was to return after a couple of minutes to change the music in her Walkman and put in the right batteries for the music. Suitably encouraged she headed down the road to Coniston.

A group consisting of Ian Weir, Sarah Glover, Virginia Cook, Kate Gerard, Russ Beech (wearing a watch on each wrist to ensure good balance), Julie Khan, Juliet, Marvin (protesting that he didn’t really like walking – “and you came to the Lakes?”), Michelle Davis (potentially returning to the fold after a few years absent from the Club) and Mark Winfield decided to head into the clouds enveloping the Old Man of Coniston (ignoring the bright sunshine over Coniston Water!).

Planning a relatively gentle circular route to end up along the shore of Coniston Water they soon disappeared into the low cloud and with only one slight navigational hiccup (“the Tarn should be on the right, not the left”) resolved by judicious use of Ian’s GPS and a map, they reached the summit with little incident. There they were met by Chris and Maria Thring and James already on their third summit. Mark and Kate rose to the challenge of Chris' famous sprightly antics and joined them, knocking off another two summits: Swirl How & Wetherlam on the way back to Coniston.

The rest of the group followed the trail down to Torver (another slight hiccup of following the wrong path but soon remedied by checking the compass, GPS (again) and map) but they struggled slightly to find the right path to the shore of Coniston Water (it disappeared into the yard of a rather disreputable farmhouse and not even the modern technology of the GPS could locate it!) but they eventually made their way to the teashop in Coniston.

After her slightly problematical train journey the night before, Natasha Hanscomb (with burgeoning bump) accompanied by John Nolan went to Ambleside in search of footwear. In sympathy John Bradshaw, Catherine Hartley, Vanessa Foulkes and Rob Newman retired to the teashop in Coniston to read and partake of the homemade cakes. Once the shoppers had returned from Ambleside they all embarked on a 3-hour walk along the shore of Coniston Water to test Natasha’s new boots.

Most of the groups made it back to the bunkhouse before the skies opened except the main party ensconced in the teashop en route from Torver. But they struggled up the road to the bunkhouse and the welcome relief of hot showers before everyone returned to the village to spend the evening in the local pub.

Sunday dawned with brighter skies and another map faff over breakfast. Everyone seemed keen for an early start back to the smoke so short or bumbly walks tended to be the order of the day.

But to give their full support to Kirsten in her London Marathon training, Kate and James actually joined her on her Sunday run. (Kirsten, having already run for over 2 hours on Saturday was secretly wishing and hoping the other two would change their mind about running on Sunday!) Running for a full hour, was the longest run Kate and James had done in ages.

Following Catharine's recommendation of picturesque footpath following the river and passing by Lake Coniston, they were initially eased into a false sense of security by the long downhill slope. Two killer hills later, they arrived back at the hut. Kirsten's final uphill slog being impeded by a pack of barking sheepdogs attracted to her trainers. Kirsten found the training very useful, however her parting comment was: "I'm hoping that the marathon course doesn't have anywhere near as many hills as the Lake District does though!" Boots 'Extra Strength' Deep Heat has apparently been put to good use...

Marvin, having fulfilled his obligation for walking on Saturday, spent the morning reading (not even a guidebook but “Shutterbabe” by Deborah Copaken Kogan – some people have no dedication!) and drinking coffee. And then offered moral support, sweets and coffee to the returning runners, before setting off to meet Juliet in Ambleside to begin the journey home.

John B undertook a solo ascent of the Old Man whilst Catherine, joined by a fellow polar explorer headed out for a walk followed by coffee in Coniston.

John N decided to make some use of the mountain bike that was riding on the car by following Natasha and bump driving the car (Natasha that is, not bump) to Coniston for coffee followed by another shopping trip to Ambleside (boots for John this time!). Before returning to the bunkhouse for items forgotten in the rush to the teashop. Kate, based on her tendency to leave her personal belongings everywhere and anywhere, has requested that it be noted that NO items of hers were left behind on this trip. Not that anyone is keeping tabs!

Ian, Sarah, Virginia, Russ, Juliet, Julie, Michelle and James headed to Ambleside for a very bumbly circular walk to end the weekend. Mark, Chris, Maria, Vanessa and Rob were last seen heading cross-country towards Ambleside on yet another strenuous walk, the reports of which have yet to be received.

Reports do suggest that everyone made the journey home without incident to end successful if incident free weekend.