Health warnings and drought conditions for many parts of the UK but here in Cumbria today we get soaked and a little cold.
It is hard to believe the temperature differences over 300 miles. Here our temperature is around 17 deg Celsius whilst on the south coast of England it is nearly 30 deg Celsius.
With the hope that the rain clouds are inland dad bundles us all in to the car and we head towards the seaside.
Silloth promenade was quite empty apart from a few brave dogs insistent in taking in the fresh sea air with their humans.
Our walk took the usual route starting at the lifeboat station, past the wooden white lighthouse and back along the grass towards the town.
One advantage of the damp air is that we keep cool due to the drizzle soaking through our coats. This created quite a nice cooling evaporation system so we didn’t overheat as we ran around.
Through the misty fog we caught sight of at least one fishing vessel about one kilometre away in the Solway to our left.
In the air, apart from the rain, was the faint smell of a wood burning stove which seemed to get stronger as we started our return journey into the wind.
The source of the smell
Situated on the green at Silloth we came across a most unusual white tented encampment.
Around thirty white canvas tents had been pitched adjacent to a large enclosure made from crowd barriers.
It was at this point dad thought he was in a very confused dream as soldiers from the American Civil war mingled with Roman soldiers.
European armies were also represented with assorted swordsmen and lace clad gentlemen.
Assorted camp fires had been set up around the camp. A central canteen area served food cooked on the open fire pits in wooden bowls whilst in the American army camp coffee pots simmered away atop stoves.
On Parade
Anyone in charge of a fighting force will say that discipline is key to success, and the early morning parade is a great way of maintaining order.
At one end of the makeshift camp set up in Silloth you had orders being given in a bit of a lazy friendly way to the volunteers in the civil war encampment. At the other, orders were being barked in Latin, with the occasional translation in to English for the new volunteers.
Given the poor weather it is quite easy to see why the Roman Empire decided not to travel much further north than Carlisle.
The short toga worn by the soldiers must have made life quite bleak when posted on to Hadrian’s Wall compared to life in warm, sunny Rome.
A family event
Many of the tents had things going on in them, just as they would if the army was on manoeuvres. The men would go away and do the fighting whilst the women and children would make things, gather food, do the chores and cook.
One tent featured a lady making very fine lace using wooden bobbins. In others you could learn about swords, food and general living conditions.
In the central arena displays were arranged showing off assorted parade drills and examples of battle formations.
Charlie got quite confused when the American Civil War teams started firing practice. He looked all around but could not see any birds to go and recover.
Scattered around the camp were a number of quite large cannon. Charlie did wonder what sort of bird he would have to carry back if any of these were fired.
Our day out ended with fish and chips eaten in the car looking out to the miserable Solway.
