Stoned with Betty and Ralph

Uncles and niece all together again today – Mick having rested his wounded limbs – and here we are leaving our hostel (no, really).

We start off at the Lion Inn this morning and we're back to our gang of four, as Hauke appears out of the pub enthusing over the fabulous food he'd eaten there the night before and the 15th century bedrooms. We're feeling none too chipper after our evening of sloppy hostel cooking and a night of seven-in-a-room sleeping. 

This route is waymarked by stone crosses that may date back as far as the 11th century when Christianity first became widespread. They all have names. This one's called Fat Betty and you're supposed to leave a sweet, and take one. Nothing on offer looks particularly appetising and all I have is a Malteser, but I leave it anyway.

This is one of the rare ones that still has a cross on top. It's called Ralph.

We arrive at an isolated hut, Trough House it's called on the map, with a stone bench on one side and guess what time it is… 11am. So coffee and biscuits are taken to the sound of hammering inside. Closer investigation reveals a couple zhushing up the interior with ceiling drapes, so that the Scarborough landowner's grouse shooting guests don't have to look at anything so uncouth as a bare barn roof. We should have known from the preponderance of grouse butts. 'Could be worse places to be,' says the man on the job. 'Looking out on t'moor on a sunny day.'

It's six miles to the end of this section along the old Whitby Road that runs along the top of the Rigg (ridge) above Glaisdale and Fryup valleys (yes, I kid you not, though the name probably has more to do with friars than a full English).
'You know, if you'd said a few weeks ago that I had to walk another six miles, it would have seemed impossible,' declares Paddy. 'Now I think, is that all?'
As Mick and I are succumbing to aches and pains (my bunions are giving my gyp and I can't walk without a pad, or a knee bandage) Paddy is getting stronger and fitter. We've told him that when he gets home he has a window of opportunity to continue the good work – 'more of a yawning abyss,' he said the other day, but now it actually looks achievable. On the bright side for me, my farmer's tan is coming along nicely.

Back in Whitby we descend from the Abbey's lofty heights to the town centre and manage to find refuge from the teeming masses in a brilliant little Costa Rican restaurant. After a quick glance over the wall at floodlit Whitby Abbey on the way back...
...we're all tucked up by 9.30pm, as per usual. Don't know how I'm going to cope with re-entry.