Tommy Ogden

Mina Fem Favoritsvenskar

2011-12-29T00:00:00-08:00

Christer Fuglesang är en docent av partikelfysik inom Stockholms Universitet, och också, som du ser, ar nu en rymdfarare. Hon är Sveriges förste och hittills ende rymdfarare. Jag drömmer jag kan följa med honom ut i rymden!

Er vet Robin Miriam Carlsson. Hon är en svensk popsångerska och låtskrivare. Hon var född, och bor i Stockholm.

Hon har redan släpptes två album i år, Body Talk Pt. 1 och Pt. 2, och ska släpp annan, Pt. 3, snart — Hon arbetar mycket hårt.

Jens Lekman är en annan svensk popmusiker, från Göteborg, men nu hon bor i Melbourne, Australien. Han är min hjälte. Jag har sett Jens många gånger, i Manchester, London, Malmö, Barcelona och Stockholm. I sommar, jag träffade honom på en pub i Manchester, och och vi drack en öl och pratade om hur vi missade Sverige. Det var kul.

Hon har släpptes tre album: When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog, Oh You’re So Silent Jens och Night Falls Over Kortedala, och nästa år en annan.

Föddes i Wien, Österrike, faktiskt, Lise Meitners familj ville inte hon att studera fysik — men hon gjorde, och disputerade i 1907, som första kvinna på universitet.

Nästa hon reste till Berlin för att arbeta med kemisten Otto Hahn. Meitner och Hahns grupp upptäckt “atomkärna fission”. Hon var första person att förklara hur neutronen hade delat uran i två mindre delarna med mängd energi, enligt Einstein ekvation E är lika med MC i kvadrat.

Eftersom hon var judisk, var det politiskt omöjligt att Hahn och Meitner skulle publicera upptäcken tillsammans, så Hahn publicera ensam.

Efter att Tyskland annekterade Österrike, 1938 flydde Meitner till Stockholm, och hon blev svensk medborgare. 1944 tog Hahn Nobel Priset i kemi för upptäcken. Meitner inte fick Nobelpris — många tror idag på gud av att hon var kvinna, judisk och emot militär använd av atomkärna fission. Sade hon “Jag ville inte ha något att göra med en bomb.”

Alla har hört talas om Ingmar Bergman, även om de inte har tittat på hans filmer. Hon var en av Sveriges internationellt mest kända kultur person, och räknas allmänt som en av de bästa regissörerna i filmhistorien.

Han var född i Uppsala, och börjarde sin teaterbana 1937 som ledare av Mäster Olofsgården teaterverksamhet i Gamla Stan.

Hon var regissör av många utmärkt biofilmer, såsom Det Sjunde Inseglet i 1956, Smultronstället i 1957, Nattvardsgästerna i 1963, Persona i 1966 och Höstsonaten i 1978.

Useful Mac Apps for Scientists

2011-01-27T00:00:00-08:00

Even if you, quite reasonably, don’t know what computational physics is, I’m sure you can imagine that what I do most days involves spending a lot of time sat with a computer. I choose to use one with a glowing white fruit on it, as do many, for all sorts of reasons. One of the reasons I like Apple computers is the quality of the software available for OS X, and as the introduction of the Mac App Store has put the spotlight on Mac apps I thought I’d write about some of my favourite for doing science.

The apps I’m writing about are all of a sort, and its perhaps easiest to describe them by what they are not. First, they’re not the behemoths of scientific computing, the big Ms: Mathematica, Matlab, Maple and Multiphysics. These—as you will know if you’ve used them—are powerful pieces of kit, and come with price tags to match. Their user interfaces are ported across all platforms. In my opinion, these interfaces can be clumsy¹ and slow compared to those tailored to the system they will be used on.

Second, they’re not applications specific to one narrow area. There’s little value in me recommending the quantum chemistry or molecular dynamics software we use — if you need to use them you will likely know about them anyway.

So what sort are these apps? Well, I’d say they all follow the Unix philosophy, ‘Write programs that do one thing and do it well.’² They’re written in Cocoa and each show care has been taken in getting the look and feel of great Mac software. They’re written by small, indie companies, or in one case a mathematician with open source help. They’re inexpensive and good value.

Soulver

Acquilia’s Soulver is like TextEdit with a built-in calculator. Start putting in numbers and it will tally up on the right. You can add all the constants you might wish to drop in, and reference values from previous lines. I think the demo video demonstrates its usefulness better than any further rambling from me.

Where before I might have resorted to launching a spreadsheet to say, convert some results to atomic units — with all the slowness and faffery that brings — now I can fire up what is essentially a text file that can do sums. It’s simple and super. I also like the ‘Big Answer’ button, which makes final results more exciting, even if I am still out by an order of magnitude.

One thing I would like is support for greek alphabet constants—those 26 romans get used up very quickly.

Papers

Papers is iTunes for scientific papers. It solves the problem of having hundreds of PDFs in odd folder structures, with opaque names, in the same way that you don’t have to worry about where your MP3s are once iTunes is taking care of them. Drag in a paper you’ve downloaded from some journal and it will automatically search the online databases to look up the author, journal, keywords, DOI and any other bit of metadata you might use. Magic.

If you’re Cupertino all the way, there are syncing iPhone and iPad apps so you can keep all your literature handy and searchable when you’re out and about.

The developers have avoided the icon style of ‘a piece of paper tilted to the left’, instead making a nice little isometric library, which brings back fond memories of SimCity 2000. You can even see an iMac G5 through the window if you look close enough.

Mekentosj offer an educational discount — you just have to email them.

OmniGraphSketcher

OmniGraphSketcher makes beautiful graphs, very quickly. Copy two columns of text from anywhere — output from Terminal or a Console log, a spreadsheet, a website, wherever — separated with spaces, commas or semicolons. Paste them into OmniGraphSketcher and you’ve got a graph.

Everything is made as simple as possible. The size of the window is the size of the graph — shown in the status bar in pixels for bitmaps and cm for vectors. To adjust the range of the axes, just click and drag them. And the ability to fill in areas of the plot, with boundaries that lock to the curves, makes highlighting the important bits easy.

It will make prettier and clearer graphs than Matlab or Gnuplot and it will take you a quarter of the time. You won’t have to remember what the keyword for ‘red’ is or how to adjust the axes.

The developers claim it to be halfway between a scientific plotter and a drawing package, but really I find it almost perfect for making scientific diagrams. It lacks logarithmic scaling and 3D plots, but the built-in OS X utility Grapher serves me well enough in the few cases I need those.

The OmniGroup has an Education Store with good discount.

TexShop

Richard Koch’s TeXShop edits, typesets and previews TeX files. I downloaded it as part of the free MacTex bundle. The bundle is great for starting off writing with TeX — there’s enough tags and layout features to learn without having to worry about what applications to download. MacTeX thus gives you everything so you can try them all and see what you like. Obviously, this means it’s a huge (~1 GB) download.

TeXShop is simple to use, with a text editor for input and a preview of the PDF once the document has been successfully typeset. The Macros menu offers prefabbed layouts, tables, references and so on. Personally, all I’m using TeXShop for now is for writing, then using the keyboard shortcuts for ‘Attach Bibliography’, ’Typeset’ and ‘Preview PDF’. I’m certain I’ll switch to my usual text editor and a couple of commands soon, but I’ve been very happy using TeXShop as my training wheels for TeX.

I use this replacement icon as the original hurts my brain a bit.

Transmit

Panic Transmit is the best FTP client on OS X. I hadn’t intended to include Transmit at first, as FTP is of course useful to a far broader group of people — web developers, particularly. However, I upgraded to Transmit 4 a few weeks ago and was wowed by a new feature which is already helping me to work quicker.

In computational science we often log into more powerful machines loaded with simulation software to run the codes we’ve written — it might be a multicore desktop in the institute or a supercomputer facility in a different city. This usually involves working with files locally and then sending them over to one of the big machines to compile and run — which would previously involve a long series of terminal commands. Transmit 4 has this wonderful Disks feature which allows me to mount a folder on a university computer as a drive on my Mac, via SFTP, so I can drag and drop files to it. Utterly brilliant.

Finally, I should give a mention to the window in which I spend most of my time: typing Vim commands into the trusty old Terminal.

Another multi-platform tool I find indispensible is the remarkable, free, world-conquering Dropbox. As well as syncing all my working projects between computers and my phone, the version tracking has saved me many times after a misplaced Save, and even given me an up-to-the-minute backup of my work when a hard drive failed.³

If you know an app I’ve missed that you think I’d find useful, please write to me.

On 10,000 Days

2010-09-07T00:00:00-07:00

Today I reached a milestone. I’m ten thousand days old. This curiously comfortable planet has spun around 10⁴ times since I joined the party. For reference, less excitingly, that’s been 27 years, 4 months and 16 days.

I feel some significance in this, more than birthdays I’ve passed. I think it’s because a day is such a useful little unit of life. You can make something wonderful—something that changes everything—out of a day. Its just long enough. At the same time, its short enough that if one gets messed up, by circumstance or idleness, the next one is coming right along with all that opportunity restored. Years get hazy but 10,000 days—that’s serious time!

According to Malcolm Gladwell, if I’d spent just one hour of each of those days practicing a thing, I’d be an expert at it by now. I’m no expert at anything. What have I been doing? To ward off useless nostalgia, I felt I should mark this big round decimal with a reflection, that I should find some dusty trinket of wisdom to share from the attic of my brain. It turns out there wasn’t much up there.

One thing swirling around my head now though is a lovely and impelling sentence I read some time ago in The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes. It’s from a letter written by a young John Herschel to his friend and fellow maths student, Charles Babbage.

‘God knows how ardently I wish I had ten lives, or that capacity, that enviable capacity, of husbanding every atom of time, which some possess, and which enables them to do ten times as much in one life.’

It’s obvious perhaps, but what a lyrical expression of that feeling—that ardent wish to use time more wisely, and that envy of those who do. ‘Every atom of time’ is precise and tidy, and that verb fits snugly. My dictionary here tells me here that ‘to husband’ comes from the Old Norse,

húsbóndi ‘master of a house,’ from hús ‘house’ + bóndi ‘occupier and tiller of the soil.’ The original sense of the verb was [till, cultivate.]

Discarding the gender baggage of our more common use of the word, isn’t that precisely what we would like to do with time? Not just to occupy it but to cultivate it, to till it like soil? So from the heart of Herschel’s line, the phrase that stuck with me is the imperative: Husband every atom of time.

How well have I cultivated the 10,000 days to this juncture? Well, I’ve tilled some soil. I’ve spent days making and doing things I’m proud of and, most important of all, I’ve been lucky to share many of them with people I love dearly. But I’ve also wasted plenty of time—entire days even—through distraction, forgetting what it is I want to be and who I want to spend my time with. Something I have learnt by now is how dreadful, how horrific it is to waste time—mine or anyone else’s.

So that’s what I say to myself here as I feel myself being distracted by the noise of the world again: Husband every atom of time. Till the soil. If I can expand toward ‘that enviable capacity’, I’ve got a good chance of still being friends with myself when I hit 20,000. 23 January, 2038. I’ll make a note of it.

On Tasting

2010-07-06T00:00:00-07:00

Last Sunday, I was enjoying a lovely holiday in Normandy with a few dear friends and at about this time in the early evening would just have been squeaking out the cork from another French red. I love red wine. As warm, rich and deep as I am not — it always makes me happy. Sometimes too happy, of course, but if you told me I could only drink tea and the vin rouge for the rest of my days I’d say ‘fine, put the kettle on and bring me a glass.’ Well, one of those depending on the hour, of course. So far, so boring — humans have been enjoying fermented grapes since we dropped out of the trees ourselves. The corkscrew was, as you know, invented right after the wheel.

Photo of our Normandy wine haul taken by Kevin.

The problem is, I have no taste in wine. None at all. I know the basics, like the regions and the famous grapes, and I understand about the smelling and swishing and tipping the glass, but in terms of flavour I have no idea. I read the labels, telling me I can find chocolate, strawberries, coffee, oak, cherries or tobacco (everything but grapes, it would seem) but all I taste is wine. And that’s fine of course, because wine is delicious, but I just feel like I’m missing out on all those flavours. And it means I miss out on the conversation, which is half the fun of anything. If I joined in, I know I’d immediately out myself as an impostor by claiming to detect ‘gooseberries’ instead of ‘whiskey’ or something.

Making an awkward analogy with music, I’m the person who can only say ‘I like a bit of everything really.’ Which is awful, really awful. Nobody wants to be that guy. Again, it’s fine to like music without really being able to discern what elements of it are ticking one’s boxes, because music, too, is delicious and noone is obliged to read Pitchfork before enjoying a tune. However, I get so much more joy in being able to read and think about the music I’m listening to, to pull out the textures, timbres and timings, and talk and argue about the use and importance of these qualities with my friends; and I know I’m missing out on this stuff with wine. I’m tone deaf in the taste buds. It’s a sad state.

Anyway, this ignorance of mine must stand out most when I’m stood in the aisle of a stocked hypermarket looking blankly at the ranks of green glass, as I was on Monday morning before returning through the tunnel to London. ‘This is France,’ I’m thinking, ‘so they’ll all be good even if they are relatively cheap (or at least, good enough that I won’t be able to tell the difference) so how do I choose?’ And I’m cajoled by a bottle with a picture of a sweet old church and a sticker suggesting it won a bronze award from no place I’ve heard of. Because, you know, awards are good. And when I got home and supped it I found it perfectly delicious, but I’m still troubled because I don’t know how.

It’s not just wine either. Fast forward to Friday evening, and I was back in Manchester, at St. Clements church for the annual Chorlton-cum-Hardy beer festival. A cheery, portly and maybe even a little tipsy chap stood before me guarding stacks of promising-looking barrels, ready to fill my glass with the ale of my choosing. But what to ask for? I look down at the handy leaflet I picked up from the table and glance across a few flowery descriptions. ‘Liquorice? Lemon? Chocolate? What do I want beer to taste like?’ It was that feeling of the wine aisle again. I was an impostor, and I was sure everyone could see that.

Photo from the Chorlton Beer Festival website.

Again, I went with entirely superficial selection criteria. First I chose a beer called Brahms & Lizst from the Ulverston Brewery because I liked the name and because I like that bit of the country. Also, it was near the entrance, the church hall was crowded with beer connoisseurs and I was a bit nervous of getting in people’s way.

Once I felt ready enough to head back in, I went in search of Marble 57 as I actually know that brewery (it’s quite a famous little one on Rochdale Road) and because Merlyn had recommended it to me. Also, at 5.7% it was potent enough (I know real ale festivals are about savouring, not getting scalloped, but I still like my money’s worth in alcohol by volume, thanks). I got in another half. It was scrumptious. You know, all beery.

Finally, I ventured a bit further into the church hall to look for Wobbly Bob from the Phoenix Brewery. I went past the big old Phoenix sign in Heywood so many times living in Rochdale that I thought it only right I give them a try. Also nice and beery.

Out in the warm evening air, I was enjoying the merry atmosphere around the church grounds. A covers band strummed acoustic guitars by the cider tent, and as they bashed out the hits of the Stones and Kaiser Chiefs and so on, I realised that a younger, more cynical version of me would’ve huffed at a group like that, but here I was enjoying it. Was I getting old and dull? Well, yes. But I’m still sure this was a good thing. I mean, half of Chorlton out on a sweet summer night, together at the church and shouting along to Starman by Bowie. What else would work? Indie pop jangle? Post rock drone? Nah, this was perfect. Or perhaps that was just the Wobbly Bob kicking in. Taste is a strange thing.

Sing of Old Djurgården

2009-11-05T00:00:00-08:00

Monday morning conversations with my neighbour Niklas over breakfast have been downcast these past few weeks. 'How did Djurgården get on this weekend?', I'll ask tentatively, over the ever-gurgling kitchen coffee-machine. 'Not good. We lost again.' comes the familiar reply, as I stir my tea. 'How about Liverpool?'. 'Ah, don't ask.'

Finding a Stockholm football team to follow has been a task I’ve put off since my move to Sweden, with plenty else to keep me occupied. Hammarby were the team I’d considered beforehand, but Djurgården turned out to be the local team when I found a place to live. ‘The Blue Stripes’ play at the beautiful old Olympic stadium, built for the 1912 summer games. It sits between my new home in the north of the city and the campus of Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan where I study, so I pass it on my daily walk.

I often slow down to admire the beautiful brickwork, the clock tower with its battlements and the old telephone boxes outside. You can even see the pitch from the pavement on Valhallavägen, through the main arch of the structure. And it’s close enough to hear the cheers and boos on match days, as a weekly reminder for me to investigate. This season, apparently, there’s been few cheers. At the end of a decade of success for Djurgården — winning Allsvenskan in 2002, 2003 and 2005, along with a bunch of domestic cups — this season has been awful. Not only has their poor form driven them down into the relegation zone, but they’ve had to watch as bitter Stockholm rivals AIK have enjoyed a strong campaign at the top.

Seventeen losses seemed to have sealed Djurgården’s fate, but a late turn of form and a couple of wins have brought some hope. A vital 2-1 win over the other team facing relegation, Örgryte, was backed up with a surprise 0-2 win at Helsingborg. The match will be remembered as Henrik Larsson’s professional bow, but the importance of the result for the future of Djurgården could be huge. Örgryte have slipped below them into the automatic relegation spot, two points behind with just one game to go.

Still, Örgryte only have to beat tenth-placed Gefle in their final game, their team probably planning their skiing holidays; Djurgården’s final hurdle is a tough match against fourth-placed Kalmar, who have a Europa League spot to fight for, and against whom they’ve lost their last three home games. There is still a tough job to do.

Meanwhile, those rivals I mentioned, AIK, sit on top of the league, one point above Göteborg. Remarkably, the fixture list has drawn the old clubs against each other in the final game, with Göteborg holding home advantage. The newspapers, Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter, are calling it the Gold Medal Match. This is the kind of excitement I need to distract me from what looks to be a season already over on Merseyside. I jump at Niklas’ offer to grab me a ticket for Djurgården’s final match.

So this Sunday afternoon in November, I meet Niklas and a couple of his friends, and our neighbour Hamza. ‘Aren’t you worried about hooliganism, bringing a Turkish and an English to your nice Swedish football?’, he teases. The match is a sellout: all 13,000 tickets. The news from Gothenburg is that AIK fans are already causing trouble, smashing every window on the SJ train that brought them west. I’ve been on one of those fine old locomotives — I’m building a healthy dislike of AIK already.

Arriving at the stadium, we find our space on the wooden benches. The stands are low, though the running track keeps us a little distant from the action. The club anthem ‘Sing of Old Djurgården’ comes over the speakers and gets a loud recital, which I am actually able to join in as Hamza has dutifully written down the words after finding them on the internet. I’m mostly chortling through it as he surprises me with these carefully copied notes, and I have no idea what I’m singing about, but it is an enjoyable and rousing tune nonetheless.

Kick off! Djurgården start brightly. The full backs get forward, overlapping and flinging some decent crosses in, though the Kalmar ‘keeper has little trouble plucking them out of the air. Though the home team are bossing possession, the importance of the game is clearly causing some tension with a few wayward touches in midfield.

Relief comes after 27 minutes. A Djurgården corner is headed clear of the box, only for midfielder Patrick Haginge to fire it back goal wards with a sweet half volley low into the bottom right corner of the net. Celebration and hugs all round , on the pitch and in the stands.

Soon after the goal, a quiet cheer spreads around the ground suggesting good news elsewhere. Örgryte are losing at Gefle. And another, much louder, cheer. Göteborg are 1-0 up against AIK. Niklas confirms my suspicion, ‘AIK losing is probably as important to us as Djurgården winning.’ Half time arrives, and the crowds descend through brick arches to queue for warm Kanelbullar and more coffee, as we hop around to defrost toes. The faces around us are happy — all the important results are going the right way.

Settling back in for the second half, a little tension seeps back in to the crowd. Örgryte have equalised in their match, and Kalmar have woken up a bit. A few high balls leave the centre-halves looking uncomfortable, and only a well placed shin blocks a dangerous run into the box from the left wing. Mercifully, on 56 minutes, Djurgården pick up a second goal. Again, it’s from a corner. This time an attacker gets his head to the ball first on the back post, though without sufficient power to score. A messy goalmouth scramble ends with a decisive touch from veteran defender Markus Johannesson — a nice way to end his final season at the club.

Relief in Stockholm is tempered by bad news from Gothenburg. AIK have equalised, putting them back on top of the pile. Göteborg need a win to take the title.

I try, through the match, to pick up terrace songs. The tunes are easy enough, as even these seem to be a part of the globalised game. We sing ‘Na, na, na (ad tedium) Djurgården’ to the tune of Hey Jude, and an amusing ‘Steve Galloways Jarnkaminerna’ to the ‘Barmy Army’ tune — Steve Galloway being their English assistant manager (he played at St. Mirren and Crystal Palace, apparently) and ‘Jarnkaminerna’ (‘The Iron Stoves’) the fan club. If I close my eyes, I could easily be at Rochdale or York City, but for the lack of dietary advice directed at the away goalkeeper. I find the chants a little disappointing in their politeness, to be honest. One promisingly aggressive call-and-response from the left stand to the right turns out to be ‘Let’s move forward!’, ‘But keep the defence tight!’, ‘Let’s move forward!’, ‘But keep the defence tight!’. That’s just practical. Can’t we at least discuss their striker’s parentage briefly? After the second goal, Kalmar lose some of their fight and the game goes a bit quiet. Apart from trying to follow songs, the best entertainment arrives when the Djurgården goalkeeper slices four goal kicks in a row high into the left stand. Only one goes further than the half way line. Four in a row! I hope he has somewhere to practice over the winter when the snow sets deep.

The relief of getting their win is clear in the players’ celebrations at the final whistle, lapping the pitch to thank their support. Still waiting for results around the country, the disappointing news arrives: AIK have scored a late winner to confirm they’ll be bringing the Allsvenskan trophy back to parade around Stockholm. And there’ll likely be more riots in Gothenburg for Jens Lekman to sing about.

So then, Göteborg didn’t manage to stop AIK but Djurgården did what they needed to do. Most importantly, I care about a club here. I’m looking forward to next season already.

Byreness to Kirk Yetholm

2009-04-11T00:00:00-07:00

I jumped out of bed after just a few thuds of the heart with the alarm clock’s wail. From all the tales I’d heard of the Cheviots — from journals, books and other walkers I’d met on the way — I’d been anxiously thinking about this day for weeks. And here it was, our own Chevy chase. Could we really do these two huge legs in one day?

At the first hint of dawn, dad and I quietly gathered our packs, sticks and maps, and set off down the road to the little church in Byreness to rejoin the Way. My apprehensiveness was lessened somewhat by the clear brightening skies — the weather vowed to be kind at least. We turned right off the road and with early freshness attacked the first abrupt climb out of the valley floor, giving us 400 metres of height quickly and getting our legs moving.

With the forest now falling below us to the left, we ventured north but quickly met some of the soggiest ground I’d met in the whole walk, with no boards or stones to offer assistance. It was frustrating to spend so much time moving sideways in search of viable routes and often having to turn back when we came to dead ends. Dad was finding it a bit harder than me to traverse the bogs, and after a while we realised that the plastic skirt around the spike on his stick had broken off — so while I was finding small patches of grass to pole vault from, he was sinking straight in to the mud.

More Ministry of Defence signs warned us not to touch any military debris we might come across as we aimed for some ancient military debris: the Roman marching camp of Chew Green (A). The camp was a stopover on Dere Street, the colossal highway ordered by Governor Agricola to connect Eboracum (modern-day York) with the shores of the Firth of Forth.

We followed this Roman road north now deeper into the wilderness of the border hills. We were making excellent time moving at top hiking speed, and I worried we might tire ourselves out while full of adrenaline.

We passed a mountain refuge hut before climbing up to Lamb Hill and then Beefstand Hill (B) at 562 metres. At this point, dad and I both started to feel pain — me once again in my knee and dad in a hip. After weighing up our options, we chomped down the painkillers we’d brought in the hope that they’d keep us going at this pace. It meant we wouldn’t have any to call on later, however.

The imposing peak of Windy Gyle (C) lies right on the border between England and Scotland, marked by a fence that we tracked right to the top, where stands Russell’s Cairn. Centuries ago, the wardens of the violent borderlands met upon these empty windy peaks to negotiate truces. At once such meeting on this very spot, discussion turned sour and Lord Russell was violently murdered in cold blood.

The Guide remarks

Desolate… with violent and sinister associations, Windy Gyle is one of the atmospheric highlights of The Pennine Way.

For the first time, we crossed over the border — I had walked to Scotland. For now we didn’t advance far into the country as the Way follows the border fence closely, crossing back and forth. We dropped along a ridge to meet another ancient road, Clennell Street (D). We were making excellent progress — my target for this half-way point was one o’clock and it was only noon. The Guide recommends stopping here if there are fewer than six hours of daylight remaining, as it is possible to walk several kilometres north to a track where a car pick up can be arranged. From here on in, there would be no short escape before Yetholm.

We spotted several wild goats out on the heather-covered slopes on our way to Kings Seat, and up to meet the point where the route branches to the summit of the Cheviot (E). Having gazed at that shadowy humped hill getting closer over the past few days, and with the weather sunny, we saw no reason not to take the five kilometre detour.

Soon we wondered if we’d made the right choice, as the wind got fierce and the flat, long rise to the top was entirely covered with the deep, dark mire. This was a really tough stomp. Reaching the top, we sheltered behind the cairn to regroup and chomp down sandwiches and biscuits. The views from the summit aren’t the best because it’s such a domed hill, but catching sight of the North Sea out towards Bamburgh and Seahouses—where we’d spent a lovely beach holiday when I was small—was exciting.

We didn’t hang around long up there before stomping our way back down through the bog. After wasting a lot of time on the way up trying our best to avoid the deeper pools, we realised the futility and just marched as straight as we could on the way down, which led to some comically deep drops into mud.

Arriving back at the trunk path, we dived down the sheer slope west to a second refuge hut, taking a curious look in through the window. We scaled a high border ridge with stunning vistas to the left and right, struggling our way to the top of The Shill (F). Though lower than The Cheviot by a couple of hundred metres, this summit offered a splendid full panorama of the hill range under crisp blue skies. We paused to breathe it all in. This, we thought, was the last big climb of the way, and it deserved to be savoured.

On the descent from the Schill, dad and I were both really suffering from our injuries, and completely out of painkillers. My knee was agony, and dad’s hip was the same. We were limping, slowing down and running out of energy. At the bottom, the path forks and two options are available for the final section into Kirk Yetholm: appropriately, the high road or the low road. The latter is suggested if the weather is bad or daylight is running out. As appealing as the low route was with the pain we were in, I hadn’t come all this way to miss out hills at the very end. The high road it was.

After the good work we’d done on the climbs so far, that of White Law was the hardest all day. The vertical trudge seemed to last all afternoon — we just couldn’t get to the top. At this point we were walking quite apart, dad needing to walk a little slower. I had been practicing for two weeks, remember, and dad had matched me all day on the longest and hardest leg, which was impressive!

From White Law we were finally, finally, finally on the descent to Kirk Yetholm, between lower, greener hills, across the ford of another trickling burn and onto a tarmac road: the home straight. Of course, this being the Pennine Way, it was still another mile or so on the hard road and now we were seriously limping, just trying to drag our tired legs to the finish line.

Early evening light poured into the valley, and I felt a strange mix of relief, apprehension, pain, pride and some sadness. The adventure was nearly over. Here it was, Kirk Yetholm, the mystical name I’d murmured to myself so many times over the last fortnight. I thought back to the moment I stepped off a train in Edale, rested my foot on a dry stone wall, adjusted the straps on my backpack and took a first step which led me all the way here.

Staggering down into the village, we spotted my mum, who’d arrived in the car with perfect timing to meet us. The official end of the Pennine Way is the bar of the Border Hotel. Exhausted and happy, we limped into the dark pub to procure celebratory pints. We carried them back to enjoy at a bench in the warm Scottish evening sun, and mum surprised me with a bottle of champagne. Bitter, bubbly, family and the joy of pushing my battered and blistered feet into that cool grass — glorious!

Thoughts

I felt a bit strange for a few days afterwards. I’d completed the toughest physical challenge I’d ever given myself, which felt great, but what to do now? For the past two weeks I’d known exactly what I needed to do all day long: walk. Now I was back to real life, where I constantly had to make decisions about how to spend my time. And that is hard, isn’t it?

Except, I realised, that I didn’t need to make these decisions all the time; I was just doing it because I’m that kind of a worrier. And I realised it’s a huge waste of time. I can get far more and far better things done if I stop prevaricating, procrastinating and questioning myself constantly. I should just see what I ought to do and then resolve to do it. Along with the incredible vistas I’ll remember for a lifetime, that’s probably the most important thing I took from two weeks of silent reflection on the beautiful hills of northern England. Now I’m rested and recovered, I can’t wait to get back up there.

Thanks

It’s a cliché, but I couldn’t have done this walk without my mum and dad. Their pick-ups and drop-offs made the logistics possible, and I borrowed nearly all the equipment I needed from them. They even bought me the new boots I walked in. So this is a big thank you to them. Thanks to my grandad Ronnie, who supplied me with two weeks’ supply of Capt. Scott’s Expedition Biscuits. I had to survive on those for a day and a half before I got my stove working. Thanks to Jim, who was great company for two fine days to break up the solitary walking.

I doff my walking hat to Tom Stephenson (whose idea the Pennine Way was), National Trails for keeping it well maintained and the ramblers of the 1932 mass trespass of Kinder Scout¹, who fought for our right to roam this beautiful island.

Day	Distance	Ascent	Duration	Counties Visited²
15	40.0 km	1,620 m	11 h	9

Bellingham to Byreness

2009-04-10T00:00:00-07:00

Following the 30-odd kilometres covered the day before, this penultimate leg through the Kielder forest promised to be a lighter piece before the finale over the Cheviot hills and into Scotland on Saturday.

Happily, I was also walking to meet my mum and dad, who were driving up to meet me in the afternoon. They’d kindly offered to collect me at the end of my walk so I wouldn’t need to negotiate the buses and trains back home. Better still, dad had decided to join me for the final leg, after enjoying our walk from Crowden to Blackstone Edge two weeks before, so this would be my last day of walking solo.

Leaving Bellingham at 8 o’clock, north towards Blakelaw, I passed ruins of mine workings, and the remains of a coal railway track. Via the stiles of Hareshaw House, I met and crossed the B road to Otterburn, and slowly climbed the moorland to Deer Play (A), ‘a wide wilderness with limitless views’, and up to the summit at Whitley Pike. The next ascent, Padon Hill (B), had a tumulus built on top by the owners of Otterburn Hill in the 1920s. The growing mass of Kielder approached, and down at Brownrigg Head I reached and followed its edge for a distance, apprehensively looking under the perimeter of trees into the dark within. Cold steam rose from the canopy. The path led me in at Rookengate, at which the woods swallowed me for the day. It’s a little hard to describe the feeling of being deep in those acres and acres of Norway Spruce. It gets repetitive much sooner than being up on a barren hill or on an open plain, where at least there are usually distant vistas to give some distraction. Here there were only the closest trees, the gloom beyond, and a persistent sense of unease. I imagine a better understanding of nature would help, as one would be able to appreciate the birds and small variety in trees, but to me it was the same one hour to the next. And so my mind would drift into considering the size of the forest, and how easy it might be to disappear into, and if there weren’t people living in there unknown to the rest of the island. Escaped convicts, even! And then a twig would snap and I’d hurry on my way.

Forests are great though. It’s fun to imagine what England must’ve been like before so much of it was chopped to make way for agriculture and settlements. Cities and towns, all oak and birch. Kielder is, of course, a modern addition—grown in response to timber shortages following World War I, it’s a huge mass of Norway Spruce. Yes, a mixed and native woodland would be more appealing, but I reckon this is better than no forest at all.

I escaped the dark and reached my destination at about three o’clock. I called mum in the car, as dad drove, to boast that I’d beaten them there. As they were still an hour away, I decided to explore the village. It took all of five minutes—Byreness is not a place. Built by the Forestry Commission to house forest workers (who were soon replaced by machinery) it consisted of a couple of ugly cul-de-sacs, a closed-down pub and a decrepit petrol station. A pretty Methodist church offered its only reprieve. The camp site was back down the main road, so I was glad to be getting a lift. The petrol station had a little shop and a couple of picnic tables, so I decided that would be the best place to wait. I dropped my bag and glugged on the Lucozade I had left from the Bellingham Co-op. I had intended to investigate the shop and pick up a snack, but as the cashier (or owner, or whatever) came to the window to give me a pointedly scornful look (presumably as I had stopped to rest my legs before buying something from them) I decided they were getting no pennies from me.

It was great to see mum and dad, share hugs and sit in a warm, familiar car. We drove down to the campsite. It turned out this place also had rooms available, which they kindly came back with keys to. So we’d have comfortable beds before the last effort. Even better, they drove me to a restaurant in Otterburn, where I hobbled through the lounge on my battered feet to enjoy a big tasty meal. I was still apprehensive, remembering the tales I’d heard of the Cheviots along the way, remembering how hard it was to do 30 or 35 kilometers, remembering how dangerous Cross Fell had been and that The Cheviot was even more infamous. Would my knee make it through a day of 40 kilometers over even more big hills? Would there be enough daylight, even setting off at dawn? I was certainly glad dad was going to be coming with me. This was going to be tough!

Day	Distance	Ascent	Duration	Plasters on Feet
14	23.7 km	544 m	6.5 h	13

Greenhead to Bellingham

2009-04-09T00:00:00-07:00

I packed up early from the garden in Greenhead, but the sweet old lady was up by the time I was leaving and waved me off from the porch, opening the front door to wish me ‘good luck!’. I waved back and walked down the hill back into the village. As I consulted my map for the correct path leading north to Thirlwall Castle and Hadrian’s Wall, a man in a somewhat incongruous ten-gallon hat came over to point me right. In that same half-geordie, half-Scottish brogue which seemed to me the nicest thing about this place, he told me he’d always wanted to do the Pennine Way, and wished me well. Walking alone for days, these little encouragements really cheered me up and having received two before I’d even got going from Greenhead, I had a spring in my step.

Thirlwall Castle was built from stone taken from the Wall and the nearby fort of Carovan. It sounds like historical vandalism but in the violent borderlands of the Middle Ages, keeping alive against the best efforts of marauding mobs was clearly more important than preserving heritage. The Way meets and follows the Hadrian’s Wall Path here, another National Trail tracing the length of this World Heritage Site. Eager to see the Wall, I got a march on past the few morning dog-walkers.

I’ve visited the Wall before on a family outing, but it was just as exciting to see again up close. Not only did it represent a significant marker on my journey (‘I set off from Derbyshire, and I’m all the way up here!’), but it’s such an impressive work of engineering. Augmenting the already towering northern face of the Whin Sill—that same lump of Dolerite that we met at the Low and High Force waterfalls, where the Tees falls off its southern edge—the barricade stretches 117 km (80 Roman miles) across the width of Britain. And once you’ve applied a little imagination to picture the original five metres of stone that stood up from the foot of the ramparts, the forts and turrets, the ten thousand troops in service, even the emperor himself striding across the land inspecting the merciless wastes to the north, it can’t fail to enthrall.

This time, alas, I knew I’d need to be disciplined in limiting the time I had to enjoy views and explore forts, and plough through the 10 km to Steel Rigg relatively quickly. I was tackling two of the recommended day sections in one go, so a good early pace was essential. But stomping up and down the steep undulations of the Sill was unexpectedly sapping, and I was contending with a painful right knee. Since Middleton, I’d had to chomp Ibuprofen as soon as I woke to reduce the soreness enough to get it moving, but the big steps here were agony and I was beginning to worry again if it would stop me getting to Scotland.

The morning went on, and I passed energetic bunches of youngsters brought out on half-term excurstions by their parents, gleefully disobeying the ‘Please don’t walk on the wall’ signs. I considered it myself—who doesn’t like balancing on a wall? Through the Aesica fort, and along Crawfield Crags, I passed some English Heritage workers painstakingly fixing a bit. I suppose you still can’t be too careful with the Scots. Up on Windshields Crags (A), I reached the highest point of the Sill. Here I paused to look north and get my first glimpse of my final opponent, the superboss: The Cheviot. That dark, whalebacked hill stood out menacingly on the horizon. ‘See you in a couple of days.’

I descended to Once Brewed, gazing north the whole time as I reached the final section of wall I’d cover. ‘A fascinating and threatening place, it must’ve seemed like the end of the world to the Romans,’ says the Guide, and I wouldn’t disagree.

Before Vercovium, the Pennine Way departs from the Hadrian’s Wall Path and heads north between Greenlee and Broomlee Loughs. By this point, it felt like I’d done a day’s walking, but I wasn’t even half way. At least these marshy fields were less work for my knee. Here I entered my first proper covered section, Wark Forest. The dark woods enclosing the path certainly made a change from the exposed moorlands I’d gotten used to. I entered a clearing, with a stone the Guide told me marked the spot legend has it a local chieftain was slain by one of King Arthur’s chums, or something like that. ‘The desolation of the place may cause you to hasten on your way.’ No doubt.

Finally leaving the forest for grassy moorland, the route became a bit difficult to follow, but I managed to find the concealed waterfall I was looking for at Warks Burn (B). Through a couple of farms, I caught up to, and walked a short way with, a couple who were taking the Way in sections. I marched on to the grandly- and amusingly-named Shitlington Hall, and then a while later stopped at the end of a large field with no exit in the barbed wire. I stood confused as the sheep smirked at my stupidity. I grumpily retraced my steps and found the sign I’d missed, hidden behind a parked old Mercedes at the farm. Shitlington indeed. Trudging up a hill to the relay tower that was my next target, I embarrassedly greeted and passed the couple again.

The long walk on boring tarmac into Bellingham reintroduced me to every ache and pain in my legs and feet, but the final stretch through the quaint town, along the bank of the North Tyne in the evening light, raised my mood.

I found the farm I was looking for, which offered camping, and took a shower. The facilities here were great! I could use a cozy room in a converted barn, with a basic kitchen and a lovely potbelly stove in the corner to warm by. This would beat lying in a cold, wet tent. Bellingham had a Co-op, from which I bought a big bag of stuffed pasta, a huge apple pie with a tub of double cream, and a couple of cans of bitter.

On returning, I found other guests at the farm: a group of friends, in their 40s or 50s perhaps, who’d started at Kirk Yetholm a few days before and were walking the Way southbound. They set out to find a pub, but left sitting by the fire was a chap silently sipping tea. I joined him once I’d eaten, being careful not to disturb his peace, and we slowly got to talking. A German professor of East Asian languages, he was on a cycling holiday around the north of England, which he talked of fondly. He’d been at Durham for many years, he explained, and loved the landscapes here. He talked about the joy of exploring slowly, taking time to stop and enjoy views, as opposed to trying to get countryside ‘done’. Often feeling I would like more time to stop in places along my journey, I appreciated this sentiment. Now and then I prompted him with questions about his travels in Japan and Korea, and he seemed happy enough to talk while I was happy to listen. He had a quiet temper of the kind I would like to age into.

When the others returned, we talked more jovially about walking and other adventures, and I must admit to feeling a little proud when they roundly commended me on making it so far. The atomsphere by that potbelly stove was really pleasant. When I went to bed, booming snores resounded around me, but after all that walking I was soon out cold myself.

Day	Distance	Ascent	Duration	Roman Forts
13	34.3 km	920 m	10 h	4

On Acorns

2009-04-08T00:00:00-07:00

The ‘acorn’ logo of National Trails is a brilliant piece of branding. The clear, simple ideogram that appears on the front of the guidebook I carried hundreds of miles, tucked under my waist strap, is reproduced on myriad signposts, gates, waymarks and milestones along the route.

Recognising this symbol, painted on a wooden board, after wandering lost for a long time on Cross Fell, gave me an immense sense of reassurance. This acorn means ‘you aren’t lost. You’re on the right path.’ After hours wandering in poor conditions on a high fell or featureless moor, that is a most welcome message.

It was noticeable along the Pennine Way just how versatile the mark is: carved into wooden signs, painted on paving, embossed in plastic or chiseled onto a conspicuous rock—the distinctive shape is easy to identify. In some instances a kind fellow hiker or local had drawn the mark by hand, along with an arrow pointing the way, and placed it somewhere visible to help future walkers. And it is always welcome. I can remember, on so many occasions along my journey, imploring the gods of Natural England, ‘Please, give me a sign!’ They always obliged eventually.

Alston to Greenhead

2009-04-08T00:00:00-07:00

Over breakfast at the hostel, I chatted to a couple on my table who were on a driving and cycling holiday.

‘I did the Pennine Way—well, nearly did it—twenty years ago now. I got to Bellingham and fractured my shin jumping off a stile.’

Ouch! I still had a couple of days walking before Bellingham, so I certainly wouldn’t be jumping off anything before then. I devoured as much breakfast as I could, including three Weetabix, eggs, veggie sausages, mushrooms, beans, hash brown and a whole rack of toast with marmalade.

I’d read that this leg would likely be the dullest of the Pennine Way but, to be quite honest, I’d had quite enough excitement with Cross Fell the day before so I wasn’t too bothered.

The first section followed a road and railway north through the valley of the South Tyne. On the left slope of the valley, I hopped over stiles through farmland. The only item of note was Whitley Castle (A), the remains of a Roman auxiliary fort. I didn’t spy it initially, only realising up close that the narrow undulations near the path were actually the remarkable rhomboid ramparts of this second-century stopover on the Maiden Way, which connected a fort on the York–Carlisle road with Carvoran on Hadrian’s Wall.

Continuing north, the route took me across the road and under the railway into Slaggyford. Leaving the river, I passed under a pleasing arched railway viaduct, through more farms into Knarsdale and joined that old Roman Maiden Way over Lambley Common.

After Lambley, the route left the road I’d followed all morning to head out over desolate moors. Hartleyburn and Blenkinsopp Commons were big, open hills and the hike—mile after mile of slow climbing—was tiring. The vague ramble west eventually brought me to the fence I would follow all the way to to the top of Blenkinsopp (B).

Eventually, I weaved my way through abandoned mine workings to the noisy A69 road linking Carlisle and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Unfortunately, the quickest way into Greenhead was to walk behind the highway barrier, over the service station fast-food wrappers and cola cans that so many idiots had discarded from their windows; trying not to breathe in too much lorry exhaust.

Greenhead seemed quite uninteresting. Its main preoccupation seemed to be with the big road. It was hardly village-like. I fancied a pint but the hotel didn’t look appealing. A campsite was suggested on the map, so I headed straight for it.

A little old lady, in her seventies or eighties, called from behind me as I walked up the road; she’d seen me walk too far with that big rucksack on. ‘Are you looking for camping?’ she asked, in a lovely half-geordie, half-scottish accent. She led me back to the green lawn behind her pretty house. ‘We’ve not had anyone yet this year, but you’re welcome to stay.’ We had a short chat about where I’d been and where I was off to next. Bellingham was a long way to go in one day, she thought. As she hadn’t mentioned payment yet, I asked how much it was. She frowned as though she didn’t really want to charge. ‘Oh, three pounds it is love. My son looks after the camping usually, but he’s away just now. You’ll need twenty pence pieces for the shower, do you have any?’ I didn’t, so she put four in my hand and tottered back into the porch.

I showered, performed my daily replacement of the plasters holding my feet together and cooked up some couscous as the shadows of tall conifers stretched long across the grass.

Day	Distance	Ascent	Duration	Lucozade Burped
12	26.6 km	577 m	8 h	2.5 litres