Country diary: I call to the boulderers 'Can you spot me?'

Armathwaite, Eden Valley: Their fingertips white with climbing chalk, they are surmounting overhangs and traversing blank-looking walls

John Buchan's hero Richard Hannay crosses my mind as I reach an impasse while walking along the banks of the Eden to Armathwaite crags. A flight of steps descends into Sandy Bay, created from fine-grained sand churned up from the riverbed each flood. Only, while Buchan's 39 steps descend to sands between white chalk cliffs in Kent, Armathwaite's stairs are sandwiched between red sandstone precipices. Also, Hannay's adversaries were international spies; mine are old age and a dodgy hip.