A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS

No not the one by Lemony Snicket!!!!

UPDATE:  I succumbed and went down to the rail bridge and took some photos of the derailment.  You can see where the wall has also collapsed due to the train hitting it - A VERY LUCKY ESCAPE I think, it could have been so much worse.  If that train had rolled over, that must surely be down to the skill of the driver and that wall!!!!

The day started off to plan.  We had some important phone calls to make first thing so I had to send my apologies for QiGong, just for today.  We actually got those done no problem, in fact we somehow managed to get through quite easily for a change - all now sorted.

We decided that as the day was looking good weather-wise we would actually pop out and just go over to Kirkby Lonsdale.  The plan was to have coffee, a walk through the village and along the river then have lunch at the Orange Tree!!!

Before we left we heard that there had been a de-railment at Grange-over-Sands = WHAT!!!!  Luckily it was an early morning  train and no-one was hurt - it was just a "minor" derailment in the fact that the train had come off the tracks!! Apparently a hole has been found under the tracks, this is largely due to so much rain as this is the area near to Grange's largest golf club which has been under water most of this year.  There were 4 passengers and 4 members of staff at that time of day - all were fine and taken safely off the train.

As we left for Kirkby we went past the train and could see it through the trees. 

We got to Kirkby with no problems.  Called into the Bakers Tea  Rooms for coffee and I reminded hubby, remember we're going to the Orange Tree so only something light - OK he says and promptly orders a Bacon Bap, even  though he's going to have his usual weekly one tomorrow!!!!!  Aaarrghh!!

Oh well.  We then walked through the village, along to the church to have a stroll through the grounds and then back through part of the village to join the river walk just down below Plato's Restaurant.  The river is the River Lune.

Had a lovely walk along the river.  We managed to get down to the stony each near Devil's Bridge, with just some help from Hubby.  Took a few photos had a chat to a lovely lady and her dog then the route  we usually walk back has been washed away and a large tree covering some of it, so we had to another way up.  We did this but at one point I was practically on all fours - but we made it no problem.  We shall not be going down there again.

Walk onto Devil's Bridge, over the road and into the park on the other side and then decided we walk back  along the river again, this time  with the sun behind us so we didn't have to keep sheltering our eyes.  

This time we went right to the end but this meant we had to walk up Radical Steps (see in extras).  This is quite steep and very uneven and quite large steps in places.  Still we made it up there, I of course had to stop several times on the way obviously to look at the view and take a photo (oh and to have a rest of course!!)  NOTE:  The "Radical Steps" in Kirkby Lonsdale lead down from the churchyard of St Mary's Church down to the banks of the River Lune, near Ruskin's View. The steps were built in 1820 for Dr Francis Pearson, who had a reputation as a political radical, to divert the existing public footpath that ran through his garden at There was a lot of opposition to the building of steps, which thereafter became locally known as the "Radical Steps".
Sadly you can no longer get to Ruskin's View due to the walkway be closed off because back in September 2021, the area was deemed unsafe to the public due to the erosion of footpaths and was forced to close. It was meant to be temporary and a fund was set up to raise the £1,000,000 needed to re-build it. I've not idea how far they got with that but I'm sure that price will have gone up rather a lot by now and it's such a shame.  The closest you can get to the view is the when the tower in the grounds of the church is unlocked and you can see through the gridded window (see Extras). 


We then walked  through the lovely church grounds again and along the other side of the main road in the village.  This was largely to give me an opportunity to try and find  some interesting doors to photograph for LetsDo52.  Then it was time to think about lunch, well of course Hubby was not hungry so we didn't bother, we just came home and had lunch at home. I will get to the Orange Tree at some point and HE will be banned from having anything to eat at all!!!


So that was my day with a few series of unfortunate events thrown in for good measure!!!