The "Blooper of the Day Award" goes to me for calling "CQ from the summit of Lam-brigg Fell" - ie fully pronouncing the 'b' in Lambrigg!  It was only when Steve G1INK, exhibiting class and etiquette not normally associated with residents of Buxton and those with North-Eastern heritage, referred to it as 'Lam-rigg Fell' without directly pointing out my error, that I realised I had been making a 24-carat fool of myself.

   

The alarms rang at 6.00am this morning, and Jimmy, Liam and myself got up and ready, and loaded the car with the gear prepared the night before.  This included new goodies such as a new walking jacket for Jimmy (Liam upgraded to Jimmy's old Regatta coat), new gloves for the boys, new waterproof boots for Liam and new overtrousers for me, to replace the ones that disintegrated when descending Scafell Pike.  I forgot to buy a replacement compass in lieu of the one that has mysteriously disappeared from my mapcase, and this contributed to my decision to cancel a possible second activation of the day on Grayrigg Forest, a less than straight forward ascent.

We set off from Macc at 6.50am, and headed up the A537 and A50 to Lymm, where McDonalds received our custom for breakfast.  From there it was straight up the M6 to J37, with signs warning us that it would be closed from J37 to J40.  That didn't mean considering any detours for our own route, and when we arrived at J37, around 9.30am, the road was open anyway, with what appeared to be the last recovery vehicle taking the last wreckage from the other carriageway.  These observations did not tally with the seemingly out-of-date reports I later got back through the radio during the activation, so maybe the carrier pigeons were nursing a hangover this morning.

   

We turned left off J37 and went about 3/4 of a mile down the A684, before pulling left into a road which is the entrance for Roan Edge Quarry.  There was ample space to park here, so we did, slung on the rucksacks and crossed the road to go through the gate onto the bridleway SD586930.  I know many grumble when the mist is in blocking the view, when it's raining or cold, or when the terrain is not breathtakingly spectacular.  Well, we all have Hamish's famous "it's a reet bonny day" approach, so we now had a very pleasant easy short stroll.  The distance was about one mile, and the total ascent about 60m.  There are several convincing tracks heading off at angles that look to be heading to the summit, but with the Explorer OL7 1:25000 sheet it was easy to stay on the correct route.

The first section curved around between two farms; a conventional one on the left, and a wind farm on the right.  Of the five windmills, four were spinning, and one was still.  On the descent later, the situation with each mill was exactly reversed!  The summit of this hill has been officially moved due to resurveying, so it is at SD586941, 200m south of where it is indicated on the OS sheet.To reach this point, we had intended to cut across from the bridleway at SD583941.  To our surprise, when we reached this point, there were signs pointing west, indicating that the bridleway had been rerouted along the dotty line on the map.  The path on the ground was still well-defined to the north, along the line the map indicates.  In any case, we did indeed bear right here and climb through the boggy grass and burnt heather to the wall at the summit.  The wall backed into the easterly wind, and so provided decent shelter to all the wind, most of the rain, and some of the cold!