Week Thirty-Seven: Castles, Cakes and Coniston

People huddle at the bus stop in the rain at Bamburgh. We park beneath the castle and admire its outline against the seashore sky, while having lunch in one of the tiny town's outrageously overpriced teashops.

Him Outdoors simply doesn't understand my dislike of hills. We walk the Coniston horseshoe by going straight up Red Dell to the top of Wetherlam. The sheep regard us curiously, as well they might. Swirl How lives up to its name as the mist and rain billows around us providing occasional glimpses down to Coniston and Levers Water.

Visibility from the Old Man is minimal, but we encounter a few cagouled walkers sheltering behind cairns and nibbling Kendal Mint Cake.

Some of the rock formations are aesthetically dramatic and I photograph square lakes, stone sheep pens and petrified caterpillars - well, that's what they look like to me. I am interested in our differing reactions to this (or any) scenery. I see hills and think they are beautiful - I want to photograph and look at them; Him Outdoors wants to run up them and be amongst them; my siblings want to study them and analyse how they were formed. I wonder if this is symptomatic of something deeper.

Days later, Scarey Sis takes me to Harrogate where we shop for music (recommendations I have gleaned from the newspapers), a suitcase (pink; hard-shell; should be easily identifiable on the luggage carousel), and shoes. Actually, we didn't intend to shop for shoes - they just leapt off the shelf at us. We buy Fat Rascals from Betty's and eat them on a bench - the queue to get into the shop is massive!