BOOT boys 2009

2009 Outings

BB0901 : A Gordon Day Out
Thursday 8th January 2009

BB0902 : Thank You, Aunty Ethel!
Wednesday 14th January  
 

BB0903 : A Wicked Hike???
Wednesday 21st January  
 

BB0904 : Take a Mug With You
Sunday 25th January

BB0905 : Down in the Forest
Thursday 29th January

BB0906 : Not How But Where?
Thursday 5th February 2009

BB0907 : Binsey Can Wait
(but Uncle Monty Can Not)
Thursday 12th February

BB0908 : Badgers on the Line
Thursday 5th March

BB0909 : It's not a W!
Thursday 12th March

BB0910 : Up on the Roof
Thursday 26th March

BB0911 : Not the Blisco Dashers
Thursday 2nd April

BB0912 : John's Comeback
Monday 6th April

BB0913 : Two Churches, a Pulpit
and a Cherry Picker
Thursday, 23rd April

BB0914 : Companions of the BOOT
Thursday 30th April

BB0915 : The Gale Force Choice
Thursday 7th May

BB0916 : The Comeback Continues
Thursday 21st May

BB0917 : BOOTboys Encore !
28th May - 2nd June

BB0918 : Hello Dollywagon
Thursday 11th June

BB0919 : Looking for Lily
Thursday 18th June

BB0920 : Ancient Feet on the Greenburn Horseshoe
Thursday 25th June

BB0921 : The Tebay Fell Race Walk
Thursday 2nd July

BB0922 : For England and St George 
Thursday 9th July

BB0923 : The Coniston Outliers
Friday 31st July

BB0924 : Little To Be Said In Favour?
Thursday 6th August

BB0925 : The Third Night of the Rescue 
Thursday 13th August

BB0926 : Long Wet Windy Monty Bothy Fun?
Thursday 20th August

BB0927 : Dear Mrs Scroggins
Friday 11th September

BB0928 : An Ard Day's Hike
Thursday 17th September

BB0929 : A Canter of Convalescents?
Thursday 24th September

 BB0930 : BOOTboys International Autumnal Expedition
Wednesday 23rd to Sunday 27th September

 BB0931 : A Bit of an Adventure
Thursday 1st October

 BB0932 : Paths of Glory?
Thursday 8th October

BB0933 : When Yorkshire Was Welsh
Wednesday 14th October

BB0934 : Unlocking the Whinlatters
Thursday 22nd October
 

BB0935 : A Tale of Crinkley Bottoms
T
hursday 5th November

BB0936 : Aye Up What?
T
hursday 12th November

BB0937 : Where Eagles Wade
Tuesday 17th November

BB0938 : After the Floods
Thursday 26th November

BB0939 : The Mystery of the Missing Glove
Thursday 10th December

BB0940 : A Too Short Walk
Thursday 17th December

BB0941 : One Hundred and Onesfell
Tuesday 29th December

 

 

 

BH0901 : Back to the Beginning 
Thursday 13th August

BSKIB09 : BOOTskiboys in Saalbach
14th - 21st March

BB09XX : Los Chicos y las Chicas de la Bota
11th - 14th May 2009

BB09Bav01 : Peaked Too Soon
1st September 2009

For the latest totals of the mileages, heights and Lakeland Fells Books Wainwrights see: Wainwrights.

 

Comitibus
or
Companions of the Boot

by Arthur Hugh Sidgwick

You who walked the ways with me
On hill and plain and hollow;
I ask your pardon, frank and free,
For all the things that follow.

Let me at least make one thing clear;
In these I know no name for them
These dreary talks on futile themes,
Dim visions from a dullard's dreams,
At least you take no blame for them.

You cheered my heart, made short the road,
And kept me philanthropic;
I only write this little ode
Which desecrates the topic.

You trode with me the mountain ridge
And clove the cloud wreaths over it;
I take the web of memories
We wove beneath the summer skies
And lo! The ink-spots cover it.

How vain my effort, how absurd.
Considered as a symbol.
How lame and dull the written word
To you the swift and nimble!

How alien to the walker's mind,
Earth-deep, heaven-high, unfillable,
These petty snarls and jests ill-laid
And all the profitless parade
Of pompous polysyllable !

But yet, I feel, though weak my phrase,
My rhetoric though rotten,
At least our tale of Walks and Days
Should not go unforgotten ;

At least some printed word should mark
The walker and his wanderings,
The strides which lay the miles behind
And lap the contemplative mind
In calm, unfathomed panderings.

And one rebuke I need not fear
From those of our profession,
That Walking Essays should appear
To be one long digression.

Let others take the hard high-road
And earn its gift, callosity;
For us the path that twists at will
Through wood and field, and up the hill
In easy tortuosity.

Therefore, companions of the boot,
Joint-heirs of wind and weather,
In kindness take this little fruit
Of all our walks together.

For aught it has of wit or truth
I reckon you my creditors;
Its dullness, errors, want of taste
Inconsequence, may all be placed
To my account, the editor's.

And haply as you skim the work
In skilled, eclectic hurry,
Some word may find the place where lurk
Your memories of Surrey;

Or, as you read and doze and droop
Well on the way to slumberland,
Before you some dim shapes will float,
Austere, magnificent, remote,
Their Majesties of Cumberland.

Dream but awhile and clouds will lift
To show the peaks at muster,
The driving shadows shape and shift
Before the hill-wind's bluster.

Below far down the earth lies spread
With all its care and fretfulness,
But here the crumpled soul unfolds,
And every rock-strewn gully holds
The waters of Forgetfulness.

So dream, and through your dreams shall roll
The rhythm of limbs free-striding,
Which moulds your being to a whole
And heals the world's dividing;

So dream, and you shall be a man
Free on the open road again;
So dream the long night through, and wake
With better heart to rise and take
The burden of your load again.

 

 

 

 

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BOOT boys

 

This pages describe
adventures of
BOOT
boys,
a loose group of friends
of mature years who enjoy defying the aging process
by getting out into the hills
as often as possible!

As most live in South Lakeland, it is no surprise that our focus is on the Lakeland fells and the Yorkshire Dales.

As for the name, BOOTboys, it does not primarily derive from an item of footwear but is in memory of Big Josie, the erstwhile landlady of the erstwhile Burnmoor Inn at Boot in Eskdale, who enlivened Saint Patrick's Day 1973 and other odd evenings many years ago!

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Wainwrights

To download a log of which Wainwrights have been done by which BOOTboy in the "modern" era, i.e. since the advent of BOOTboys click on Wainwrights

If anyone wants to claim other peaks, please let me know and I will submit them to the adjudication committee!