The Tenth Circle

Following my birthday, in which the steady footsteps of uncaring fate dragged me closer to the grave than anyone realistically wants to be, I went to the Lake District for what was conceived as a romantic weekend away. And while there was a certain degree of romance, as is charitable at this time of year, there was an impressive amount of undiluted hell.

Readers of the classical book The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, or avid players of the video-game Dante's Inferno*, will know that in the ninth, final circle of Hell, Lucifer screams in eternal torment and flaps his wings, freezing the ice which binds him to the Pit. This is, obviously, only half the story. Because beneath the frozen glaciers of the Ninth Circle, which Dante could not penetrate, lies the Tenth Circle of Hell. This is owned and operated by the National Trust. Membership is about eighty quid.

Treading in sheep dung. Possibly more upsetting than having your dead wife molested by Satan.

I found this out for free, though, at least at the start. We were in the Lake District. The Lake District is in Cumbria, a place that summed up in three words would be 'Hills, Lakes, Sheep', and is impossible to sum up in any greater length due to the complete lack of anything really to talk about. Much like classical mythology, what will henceforth be known as 'That Fateful Day' began by us paying the ferryman to cross the lake, thus beginning our descent.

Crossing the Styx courtesy of Cumbria Council. It is 50p for foot passengers, and £4.50 for cars.

Upon reaching the far side of Windermere, we skipped out most of the infernal circles although gluttony (3), avarice (4), and anger (5) would all play a prominent role in our journey. Ignorant of the fact that we'd obviously been assigned a casual stroll through the nightmare realm, we set off following signs (courtesy of the National Trust) for Beatrix Potter's house. Because, you know, that's cute. And not possibly related to Hell at all.

We even met a helpful traveller, who we will refer to as Virgil, partly because we never caught his name, and primarily because he had the whimsical attitude usually associated with a dead poet acting as a tour guide for Satan. Having taken Virgil's advice we decided to tackle what can only be described as 'A Fucking Huge Hill'. If anyone thinks I'm being melodromatic, you are wrong. I saw the top of an RAF Tornado whilst climbing that hill. And it was flying.

Anyway, we set off in search of Beatrix Potter, who I adamantly referred to as Beatrice, bringing us closer to Dante's tormented vision than I first realised.

Before long we were shin-deep in quagmire and sheep shit, completely lost and screaming our curses to the unforgiving sky. Every now and then we encountered Virgil, perched on a rock, wall, or animal carcass. He frequently offered condescending advice or information on the type of people condemned to live out their days drowning in animal by-product in the Tenth Circle of Hell, their failings and individual sins. At one point, the grasping hands of the recently damned must have grabbed my ankle, because I fell down a hill, sprained my knee or something, and spent the rest of the day limping over rugged terrain with said knee clicking every three steps like an agonising pedometer.

After finding our way off the godforsaken mountain and back down into the valley, we encountered a pub. Sure enough, Virgil was inside, knowingly smirking at my limp and supping a pint of real ale like a smug bastard. He didn't offer any sagely advice this time, but disappeared, leaving us at the mercy of uncaring fate, which is not known for it's benevolence or sound advice. We left the pub after eating our own bodyweight in soup and chocolate, and set off towards the next village, which would reliably contain Beatrix Potter's house. Unfortunately, once again we fell into the trap of following signs placed by the National Trust, which at one point indicated a direction precisely opposite to that of our destination.

But we followed it, because we're not an imaginative couple. By this point it had taken just over five hours to walk four miles. For anyone bad at math or fortunate enough not to walk long distances, thats about three to four hours longer than necessary.

The consequences of following the National Trust signposts - despite their previous betrayals - involved fording a stream, crawling through mud and barb wire, holding back demonic sheep with a burning brand, and eventually performing an 180% turn and arriving, miserable and wet, at the village that was only just down the road from the pub we'd just been in.

We saw Beatrix Potter's house. As houses go, it was alright, apart from you couldn't touch anything, there were rabbits, and because some of the rooms were off limits the entire building possessed a maddening geography whereby it appeared larger inside than outside, and bigger upstairs than downstairs. The net result was a considerable loss of sanity, as well as costing eight pounds. If anyone thinks eight pounds is a lot to pay to see the inside of someone's house, you are right. It is. The National Trust employee, Guardian of the Tenth Circle, told us that if we signed up the benefits reaped were so amazing they might as well be paying us to do it. After all their deliberately misleading signs had put us through, I almost throttled her.

After Beatrix's house we took the road home, walking and limping and making a point of willfully ignoring any National Trust signpost for Windermere, which I'm pretty sure would have seen us eaten by river-trolls before the end of the day. Virgil was not with us at this point, presumably because being a virtuous pagan he is banned from entering heaven, and thus he did not accompany us back across the lake.

Tl:dr? We got the shit knocked out of us. By nature herself.

Did I have a good time?

Yes, I did.

Am I going to try to be a better human being in order to avoid the Hell specially designed for amatur walkers?

You bet I am.



*You can only speculate which category I fall into.