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BB1242
: Five Little Boys and The Beast of Barbon
Thursday
13th December 2012
Five
Little Boys Have An Adventure
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<<
It's
a sunny day. >> said Donny.
<< Let's
have an adventure. >>
<<
Yes,
let's. >> agreed Jim-Rob
<< What shall we do?
>>
<<
I
know. >> he replied,
<< We'll ask Mikey to get
out his og-og. He can take us and Bry to see Johnboy.
>>
<<
What
fun! >> Jim-Rob answered.
So they did.
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Johnboy
lives near a park where big boys hit little balls with
sticks.
Sometimes Mikey plays with them. But
we didn't want to play with them.
Not today. We
wanted a real adventure. We wanted to climb a
mountain.
So we didn't stop there.
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Johnboy
had brought his og-og.
He
pushed us all the way to a house.
It has a funny
name. It is called the Head.
It must be fun
in that house. Grown-ups go in and come out laughing.
And doing other funny things.
But not real adventures.
We
were going to climb a mountain.
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We
walked up a very long path to a place called Long Bank.
It was very long.
Soon
Bry said something.
I think he said <<
Look, there's
Naughty Barry
Moor. >>
Johnboy said he was a very naughty man.
<<
Woof, woof! >> shouted Jim-Rob when we climbed over Barkin Top.
We all laughed.
A
few minutes later Bry said << We are at the top of
the mountain now. >>
He knows all about these
things.
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He told us it is called Calf Top.
On
the way down we found something.
Mikey said it was
a Castle.
Bry said << It's Knott.
>>
Bry
had a piece of paper in his hand.
It had pictures
on it.
He said that one of the pictures was of
a stream with Three Little Boys.
They weren't playing
out today.
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At
the bottom of the hill is a village. It is called
Barbon.
It is near where the big boys play with
their balls and sticks.
A nice man in the park
gave us some fizzy pop. He asked if we had been naughty? Mikey thought he was going to smack our bottoms
so we all climbed onto his og-og. He pushed us to the house with the funny name.
Then
we went home. What a fun day. Jim-Rob called
it << bonza! >>
I don't know what that means.
I thought it was spiffing!
Donny,
13th December 2012
That
is not exactly what happened. On the morning,
I, Don(ny), was unable to join the party due to family
illnesses. However, as I had already written the
report as a story for my very young grandchildren who
are staying with us, it seemed a shame not to use it.
Remarkably, I am advised that there are
strong
elements of coincidence with the actuality.
I
am just annoyed that I was unaware of the Beast of Barbon
so didn't weave it into my story. Here is Bryan's
account of the day:
The
Beast of Barbon
Thursday
13th December 2012
We
met up with John at the Kirkby Lonsdale Golf Club, left
Mike’s car there, and took John’s car to the start.
Glorious
day to be out. No wind on early climb, and sun out,
meant the cold didn’t seem too bad.
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Approaching
Fellside farm
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View
down to Sedbergh
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It
was a long steady ascent to the ridge with views opening
out as we went.
View
of the Howgills; Aye Gill Pike; Baugh Fell; Mallerstang
John
is part of a group trying to stop the building of a
number of new wind turbines in the valley. He pointed
to some we could see from the ridge and asked us to
imagine more of them that were at least twice as high.
Photo gives some idea of impact it would have on views
towards the Lakes.
Example
of the impact of wind turbines on the views
As
we hit the snow line Mike pointed out a series of large
indentations (at least 3 times the size of a person’s
foot) with a distance of 5ft or so between them. There
seemed no logical explanation for them so we assumed
it must be a first encounter with the Beast of Barbon
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Mike
and James looking for the Beast of Barbon
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Comitibus
: Calf
Top summit
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Reaching
the final ridge a light wind got up which rapidly chilled
everyone down. We opted for a lunch stop before the
summit so as to ensure we could get out of the breeze.
After
lunch we carried on to the top and took the Comitibus
photo.
I
stopped with John to get the map out and work out what
hills were in the view. I suggested James should carry
on as he was getting cold and said John and I would
catch them up – a mistake on my part as we lost sight
of them and spent some time working out where they were
and catching up. James’ view was that it was my fault
because when Don’s leading he tells him what to do and
I hadn’t!
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Descending
into the valley
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In
the clubhouse
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Day
finished with a beer in the KL Golf Club
Bryan,
13th December 2012
Palindromic
Challenge
Last
week's palindromic exercise (BB1241)
has led to a competition between father and son for
the longest palindrome containing the word BOOTboy,
some tenuous relevance and no personal names. Jamie's
best effort todate is:
BOOTboy:
now on YobToob
However,
I have topped that with:
Ye BOOTboy rotavator yob
to obey
Can
anyone beat that? Small prize for the winner (don't
get too excited!).
STATISTICS:
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BB1242
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Thursday
13th December
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| Distance
in miles:
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9.3
(Memory Map / OS)
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| Height
climbed in feet:
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1,972
(Memory Map / OS)
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| Wainwrights:
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-
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| Other
Features:
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Calf
Top, Middleton Fell
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| Comitibus:
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Bryan,
Mike, James, John Hn
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You can follow
our route in detail by downloading bb1242
If
this won't work with your mapping software, let me know.
To
discover which Wainwright top was visited on which BB outing
see
Which
Wainwright When?
For the latest totals of the mileages and heights see: BB Log.
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