Ian and Greg, good friends and former colleagues of mine at the WEA had with Les set off at 8.30 in the morning from St Bees on the Cumbrian coast and arrived, muddied and wet, at The Larches bang on time as predicted four hours later for a hearty lunch of soup and sandwiches.

We had pressed them to stay over for the night but 30 miles on the first day was too slow for an intended two day crossing, which was to land them up at Tynemouth on the east coast.

By the end of the first day they needed to have done 40 more miles and crossed the M6 to reach Great Salkeld beyond Penrith.

They were still arguing as they left about the exact distance they had to travel! But did not dispute that it was somewhere between 125 and 140 miles. Good going we thought for two days, particularly as they had to cross the high country of the Pennines via Consett in County Durham.

PHOTO The Larches is less than 300 metres from the C2C route, which cuts down through the forest from the Whinlatter pass and the Visitor Centre to reach the Thornthwaite road. It’s an excellent stop off for C2C bikers but is a good base too for anyone interested in road and track cycling in the northern lakes.

It’s also only ½ mile from the start of the Altura cycle trails through Whinlatter Forest, regarded by many as the best in the country. The garage provides good storage facilities for bikes and equipment. The photo opposite shows Ian after bringing in his bike from the rain.

We had another lovely week at The Larches over Easter and I had hoped that I could persuade one of my girls to write about it, but unfortunately they all were too busy with school. The photo opposite is an early morning view we had from the Belvedere of unusual cloud patterns in the valley with Skiddaw above.

We did some great walks during the week, including Whiteside and Hopegill Head, which was quite ambitious for our first day. I certainly thought so as I scrambled up Whiteside with three children, but looking down it seemed the only way was up and the collective sense of achievement felt as we reached the top, definitely made it worth it.

We’d been seduced into choosing that walk by the prospect of the ridge walk along to Hopegill Head and it didn’t disappoint, particularly because Hopegill Head was in the clouds by the time we reached there. (See photo opposite)

Other walks we enjoyed, included Castle Crag from Seatoller, Haystacks on a day with superb views (see bottom of the page) and of course Barrow which we climbed from The Larches. Some of us also ventured up to Go Ape at Whinlatter.

Our youngest is now eight and it is lovely to watch her confidence and enthusiasm grow each year in the Lake District. Two years ago Cat Bells was an achievement for her and now she is bounding up peaks almost twice as high.

I bought a GPS watch for running just before we went away; I had been thinking about it for a while and was eventually persuaded to do so by a friend who used his for walking too. It was fantastic in The Lakes, no problem with the satellite once it was locked in, and very useful to be able to give accurate progress updates when legs were tiring or to argue authoritatively if the distance given in the book was called into question.

Our week at the Larches seems like a fast receding dream so luckily we have consoled ourselves with booking again for next year.

The photo below shows Barney with his Blackberry high above the mighty Yangtze River, conferencing ‘on the hoof’ with colleagues in Beijing. The photo opposite of all our mobile communication devices was taken at the Halfway Cafe in the gorge and features in my book ‘Digital Nations in the Making‘, published in 2006, on the uses of technology with adult learners.

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Yesterday provided an exciting follow up to all this, as we met up with Chloe and her partner Henry at the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road. She had stopped over in London on her way from Seattle to Katmandhu in Nepal, where she plans to set up a technology project with an initial three primary schools.

Fortunately Barney has helped here by arranging for Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE:OWW), the online travel company in Chicago where he works, to donate ten reconditioned Thinkpad laptops. These are ideal for piloting this learning through technology scheme in the high mountains of Helambu.

We ourselves had already transported five of these laptops across from the US two weeks ago and Chloe brought a further five with her.

The Nepali partners in the project will include two of Chloe’s students whom she taught in 1993 at the village school in Shermathang (3,000 m). They now work for local NGOs there and are keen to explore with the schools and children the environmental and sustainability issues which affect upland communities in the Himalayas. The laptops provided by Orbitz Worldwide will be of particular help for the teachers.

The photo above shows Chloe yesterday with her iPad, displaying a picture she had taken 19 years ago of a young girl at the school, sowing seeds brought from the UK. It will be useful as an information resource as they visit the different schools.

There’s plenty to organise for the project like ensuring the children carry out a census in each area and checking that each of the schools has reliable electricity. Internet connectivity is another hurdle to overcome – a problem familiar for adult education bodies in the UK even now.

The challenges facing the project are considerable which is why the New York based Explorers Club – where Chloe is one of the youngest members – has agreed to loan one of its coveted flags for the expedition.

“Does everyone get one”, I asked her. “Oh no”, she replied casually, “you have to put up a good case. Best known perhaps is the flag, which Neil Armstrong took to the moon. He’s one of our members you know.”

The photo opposite shows Chloe and Henry displaying the flag at the Wellcome Collection. If you are interested in finding out more, making a donation for the project or helping in some other way, drop me a note at ian@lakelandbelvedere.com

Our thanks to the Wellcome Collection and staff for their help and provision of space for us to meet and plan arrangements for the project.

Benny with some of the other organisers were imprisoned at the time for this, so it is right that they should be recognised as pioneers in opening up the countryside for all and for demanding ‘the freedom to roam’. The 1932 trespass is correctly recognised as being influential in getting the National Parks established in 1948.

What I didn’t know was that a similar action had been taken more than 30 years earlier in the Lake District. My thanks go to Brian Wilkinson from Keswick who has a fascinating letter in today’s Guardian “Latrigg and the early mass trespasses“, where he describes successful trespasses organised by members of the Keswick and District Footpaths Preservation Society in August 1897.

These included walks round part of Derwentwater from Nichol End with about 400 walkers; and on Latrigg above Keswick with up to 2000 supporters. Several ‘worthies’ including Samuel Plimsoll, the MP for Derby and Canon Rawnsley were involved, so this may explain why none of those taken to court in Carlisle received sentences like those involved in the Kinder trespass.

Sounds like a good plan to clear the city of some traffic and pollution and encourage more use of its public transport system? You’d think so, but the building of this 56 feet wide underground tunnel up to 200 feet below the surface has been one of the most contentious projects in the city since settlers first landed at Alki Point in 1852!

At the root of the issue has been the future of the city’s two-storey six-lane Alaskan Way, built in the 1950s, which with adjacent rail tracks dominates the city’s waterfront onto Elliot Bay.

Imagine how the Embarcadero area in San Francisco has changed since this photo below was taken 10 years ago when a major renovation programme was just taking off. Then you can get a idea of what Seattle is now missing and what the waterfront could look like with the Alaskan Way removed.

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The Alaskan Way viaduct is an ageing structure, but what brought this to the City’s full attention was the 6.8 Nisqually earthquake in 2001, which left many residents scared and parts of the viaduct seriously weakened as this video clip shows.

The Washington Department of Transport had to carry out urgent repairs but eventually determined that an ‘outside of the box’ solution was needed to confront the city’s transport infrastructure problems. This was to involve the construction of what would become the world’s largest deep bore tunnel, with behind it a new sea wall to hold back the waters of the Puget Sound. After all the delays, a new dawn beckoned!

The snag came when The State House of Representatives decided in 2009 that any costs over $ 1.8 billion would have to be met locally in Seattle. Although the Seattle Port Authority agreed to contribute $300 million for the project and additional monies were to be recouped from users of the tunnel, the issue became highly politicised in April 2009.

Newcomer Michael McGinn, who’d been involved in local campaigning in the city, decided to run for the post of Mayor and fought a successful campaign – in which opposition to the construction of the tunnel was a key element – and was elected.

Just two years later in Feb 2011 when the Seattle City Council voted 8-1 in favour of the tunnel, Mayor McGinn vetoed the decision, only to have his veto overridden by the City Council, again by an 8-1 majority. The Mayor responded by announcing a referendum on the issue, which resulted in a 60% vote in favour of the scheme and a defeat for McGinn. His populist politics had lost the day and the Mayor had now to back down and support the tunnel.

As the story in The New York Times (19 August 2011) last year put it: “the results will be one of the more ambitious public works projects in the country and a remarkable urban transformation.”

In October last year, demolition of the southern end of the Alaskan Way commenced as these photos on flickr show in great detail. It’s good news for Seattle, its residents and its visitors but the story shows too the danger of having an elected Mayor, who may get into a head-on fight with an elected local council.

Voters at next week’s referendums on the issue of electing mayors for some of England’s big cities should think carefully about this experience of costly long delays and political indecision in Seattle, before putting their X in the YES box for having elected mayors!

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It’s built on a track through Discovery Park’s woodlands in West Magnolia, which leads down to the shoreline – where we subsequently walked. The photo below of massive pine driftwood washed up on the strand evokes memories of so much of this beautiful Pacific coastline, where some of the world’s tallest trees are to be found.

Think “Snow falling on cedars” by David Guterson and the subsequent film of this book and you’ll get a sense of this world. It’s a precious environment that needs and receives protection.

The park itself is now managed by Seattle City Council, but parts of it are still used by the army, which was stationing troops there from the 1890s. During WW2 over a million US troops were being trained and transferred from this camp to fight in the Pacific war.

When you are living over here on the Pacific Rim, Japan and other countries in the ‘Far East’ appear much closer than they do from the UK! Seattle is indeed a major US port for trading with these countries and has commonly huge merchant ships crossing Puget Sound on the way west.

You can see an example of this in the photo below of a heavily laden Maersk Line ship, passing the West Point lighthouse, where we walked. Like many others with containers stacked upwards on the decks, they look too top-heavy for my liking to make this the first choice for crossing the Pacific!

“They shared the blog with Kitchencraft and Kitchencraft is going to repackage their products for us using minimalistic cardboard box shippable without overboxing. Thx for the feedback!”

So for the future Kitchencraft will mend its ways and provide smaller packs for small items, reducing therefore the paper packing needed. This is good news for the environment.

But the package in question came with the usual Amazon badged box and packaging, so I had assumed that it had come directly from Amazon and from one of its own warehouses.

Amazon’s response shows I was wrong and implies that some and maybe a lot of Amazon’s inventory is sent to customers by suppliers not directly controlled by Amazon. What happens with these other suppliers?

It’s clear that Amazon is concerned enough about the issue of wasteful or poor packaging to have a policy and international initiative on the issue.

As a massive online retailer they should be, particularly since they receive a lot of complaints, like this broader one on an Amazon forum earlier this month “What’s Up with Amazon’s Poor Packaging Lately?“.

But it’s obviously not a simple matter. I’ve complained about wasteful packaging. Others complain about damage from too little packaging!

As a result of my complaint are we going to see a change in packaging policy across all Amazon’s sales, regardless of supplier or country or will this case be a ‘one off’ for the UK with one kitchen equipment supplier?

Ultimately it all depends on the control Amazon has over fulfilment policy and the training of staff across the whole of its operations including both those in Amazon warehouses and those in partner companies who supply goods.

One worry must be that a focus on getting the right packaging for the particular job will lead to slower delivery times across the board. Green policies do not necessarily lead to a faster service. With Amazon expanding its reach into more areas – like specialist sports equipment for instance – these issues may get harder to fix!

There’s always a good film screened by the Keswick Film Club on Sundays at the Alhambra Cinema through the winter months; and the good news now is that this 98 year old cinema – which itself has an excellent programme – has a more certain future since Tom Rennie, the manager for 20 years, has taken on the lease in order to keep the cinema open. Source: BBC news 3 Jan 2012. An interesting new feature will be Wednesdays, when more experimental, minority and foreign films will be screened.

The Words by the Water festival has just finished and as always has had a line up of fascinating talks, which can match what’s on offer at most other literary events.

This last Wednesday though I was in for a real treat at the Music Society’s choice for their March session. Dutch jazz and classics trained violinist, Tim Kliphuis was at the Theatre by the Lake with colleagues Roy Percy (bass) and Nigel Clark (guitar) to give a stunning performance of mesmerising string playing, which had the audience clapping for more.

Kliphuis was new to me but is clearly a highly talented virtuoso performer. The group is popular in Scotland, Holland and Germany and is performing in the summer in the US at the June Django Festival. They’ve been recently too on BBC 3.

Described as taking over the role of Stephen Grappelli, who worked with guitarist Django Reinhardt in the 1930s, Kliphuis’ verve and note-sure technique on an instrument that ruthlessly exposes any weakness, marks him out.

Watch out for the name and make sure you get to any concert of the Kliphuis Trio that’s on in your area! They’ve several CD’s available too.

The full picture at the bottom left of the page shows the calendar in fact occupies a key position beside the computer of our Christmas visitor from Beijing last December. Heather was delighted to receive it and we have been equally pleased to receive from her a photo of the calendar in her hutong in central Beijing, where she lives.

The blurriness of the photo reminds me though of another visitor from China, who spent in the 1930s a few weeks in the Lake District. Exactly 75 years ago his experience was published in a slim 67 page volume, entitled The Silent Traveller: a Chinese Artist in Lakeland.

Chiang Yee, painter, poet and teacher had come to the area in the summer. He describes the results of his comparing ‘the different customs of various countries’ in words, poems and a deft series of delicate drawings, often a little blurred like this one below of people going to church in the Wasdale rain.

The Silent Traveller was an instant success and had been reprinted three times by 1944; and since then has been re-published many times. It was to provide too a successful format for his further Silent Traveller books, covering Paris, London. Edinburgh, Oxford, New York, San Francisco and Boston. An early version of the Lonely Planet series!

A taste of Yee’s writing can be seen in this unusual comparison he gives of Wastwater and Derwentwater after he had walked over in the rain via Taylor Gill Force to Borrowdale and jumped onto the lake steamer:

Wastwater “was somewhat like a beautiful woman bathing without much clothing on her body; and sometimes she dived into the great white mass of cloudy Nature, which made her invisible or left only a vague image. Though she was mysterious, yet she had great dignity … But Derwentwater was like a fully dressed lady in green-and-blue gown with all sorts of jewels and ornaments, who sometimes sat behind a gauze curtain which, though it might cover her face and obscure it a little, left her charm still visible.”

On Valentine’s Day, we walked up to Blaeberry Fell above Keswick. We had an amazing view of Cat Bells and Derwent Water from our picnic lunch on a rocky outcrop (see photo opposite).

We were in search of a derelict shepherd’s cottage Ian had told us about. He had taken some pictures of it on the Rooftops of the World Gallery. We squelched across swampy moorland. Dad said “look for grey stone” so we did.

Soon enough we sighted a pile of grey mossy stones in a dip in the mountains. The picture below is of me and my sister in the ruins looking very pleased!

The cottage had been reduced over the years to rubble by the weather.

We reached the cottage and after a bit of exploring found roof tiles and a very old gutter. The gutter was encrusted with rust.

The roof slates were unusually thick and had holes for nails to go through. The moss covered stones defined the outlines of rooms.

Two rust coloured jambs were sticking up like a flagpole. Ian spotted a name carved onto one of them and a date – 12/1/49.

We could imagine what life was like when the shepherd and his family lived there with his sheep.