The annual pilgrimage to The Wasdale Head Shepherds Meet and Show was a bit different this year.
It was cancelled.
We weren’t to know that as we ventured North then West and decided on an impromptu stop at St Bees beach. An amazing sunset have way to a pummelling by hailstones.
Trying to sleep with the creaking floors and the weather lashing against the Wasdale Head Inn wasn’t really happening.
We had breakfast on Saturday morning and a cursory glance at social media showed a CANCELLED sign on the events socials.
I wandered along the lane to chat to the farmers and they said that the marquees had been taking off overnight. I’ve been visiting the Meet for many years and sponsoring the Herdwick classes for several years and never known it cancelled, but it was the right decision.
So a change of plan. A wet walk that turned in to a dry and cold walk up to StyHead and back down. A soup lunch. A wander up Mosedale. The afternoon and evening were fine and the night sky was starlit.
In the Inn on Saturday night i recognised the standard issue military moustache on a chap that was losing a fight against several bottles of red wine. His legs weren’t doing as they were told. And he had forgotten the whereabouts of his accommodation. I asked who he had served with. ‘Trying to get to me bed’ he replied. ‘I can see that’, said i. He told me he didn’t really know where he was or where his room was. I asked him again who he had served with. ‘Twenty seven years a Royal Marine’ he said. He then recounted all of his postings across the Corps as i walked him to his basha and unlocked it for him. We indulged in a minute or two of Army slagging the Marines and vice versa then i left him and returned to my pint.
Supper in the Inn (the prices have gone up !!) and then yet another walk round the triangle of the Inn – Manse – Church – Inn so Archie could take the night air.
The weather dawned beautifully on Sunday. Hopefully it will be this good at the 2027 Meet. We’ll definitely be there.
