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BB2226
: Enjoy the Marbles
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Thursday
1st September 2022
When
I were a lad, at some stage between nappies
and pimples, or to narrow it down further,
between The Bumblies and train spotting,
a favourite game in the school yard was
Alleys. You might know it better as
Marbles. Or possibly Aggies or a variety
of other names.
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“Alleys” probably
comes from alabaster, “Aggies” from aggregate
and Marbles, surprise surprise, from marble.
For
us, an
Alley was a sphere of clear glass about
half an inch in diameter. Inside the
sphere would be a string of coloured glass,
no two being the same.
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I
remember two games.
One used a gutter
downspout
grid as the target. You took in turns
to fire your alley into the grid. Any
that missed were left where they lay until
your next turn. Meanwhile they could
be knocked away by your opponents. A
bit like bowls.
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The
other was "Tiggy Alley" which
required much more space. The first
alley was fired. The next person fired
and tried to hit the first. If successful,
he kept the target alley. If not,
the first person could attack the second
and if successful keep the alley. And
so on.
There
were also Dobbers which were twice the size.
They had some purpose but I forget
what. It is over sixty years ago.
Anyway,
the games we thought we might have encountered
as we arrived at Wasdale seemed more likely
to be things like hound trailing, Cumberland
wrestling, gurning or fell racing. Marquees
were process of being set up. This
was not our purpose in being there.
I
was on the Wainwright Trail. Having
opted out of Kirk Fell on BB1923 when Stan
bagged it along with Brian, I needed it
to bring my total level with that of Stan.
He and TV Mike kindly came along as
my support team. It promised to be
a glorious day with the Coniston Fells
clearly seen as we headed west.
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Then,
of course, there was the classic view looking
up Wast Water.....
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.....
before arriving at Wasdale Head.
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There
are basically three routes up Kirk Fell.
You can go up Black Sail Pass then
attack it from the north via Kirk Fell Crags.
If you are a sucker for punishment
you can go from the south, straight up the
seemingly endless nose. Or you can
take the allegedly easy route from Beck
Head.
We
chose the Black Sail route, partly because
it would give us the option of adding on
Great Gable if we felt up to it and partly
because that is the way we had tackled it
12 years ago on BB1022. The relevant
part of the report reads “By now I was tiring
but it was still an enjoyable scramble.”
Not surprising I was tiring; we had
already climbed 4,400 feet.
Today
age was catching up with me. I was
tiring by the top of Black Sail Pass, a
mere 1,500 feet.
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However I did quite
enjoy the subsequent scramble to the Black
Sail summit.
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We
had lunch near the summit, a magnificent
viewpoint for the Scafell range.....
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The
descent to the pass was certainly easier terrain.
We chose not to carry on to Great
Gable. The path up the cliff face
was not calling to me and my objective for
the day had been achieved. That might
have been a mistake.
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Shortly
after we began the descent we met a man
with his dog. After a brief conversation,
he left us with a cheery “Enjoy the marbles”.
We laughed. But not for long.
The path soon deteriorated into a
scree track covered in very small, rounded
piece of rocks determined to bring you crashing
to earth. The Marbles. To add to the
fun, on the right hand side was a rather
steep slope to the valley bottom. You
will not be surprised to read that I took
this section very gingerly and I am almost
proud to report that I only slipped once,
though there were a number of impressive
recoveries. Of course, TVM and Stan
had no such indignities.
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Down
in the valley we visited St Olaf’s church
with its memorial plaque to Margaret’s cousin
Ian before returning to the car.
Work
was continuing on the show field, putting
up marquees. Security staff had arrived.
I asked if one if it was for the Wasdale
show and how long would the tents be up.
Nine days was the answer. It
is all for TV's Countryfile to visit Wasdale
and go up Scafell Pike. Nine days?
Judging by the weather forecast, there
would be a lot of hanging around. That
would leave the presenters plenty of time
for playing alleys. Or maybe they
too could
enjoy the marbles.
Don,
Thursday 4th September 2022
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