Blake Fell (or was he pushed?) Paddington is a delight!

Monday 22^nd December

I had another lie-in today, this time until 7am. On waking I walked the dogs up the hill hoping to dodge the spots, which I did! In fact it was quite a dry day altogether. We decided to wander in to Carlisle to get a few little odds and ends of presents which we hadn’t bought yet. I called at the Sands Centre and snagged us a set of tickets for three events in the coming few months: February, April and May 2015. I will hand these to Loll as an extra surprise present. I collected her big surprise from one of those collection points in Carlisle. She was dead keen to know what I had bought so I pretended it was something for Dad. (It is for her really.)

We found a shop that sells duffle coats and I absolutely fell in love a red one. It is gorgeous, plus as well as toggles it has a zip! That is a great idea. It also has a breathable waterproof membrane too, it is claimed to be waterproof! That’s mad, as the outer fabric is going to get soaked though whether it has a waterproof layer or not! Laura liked the blue ones and the bottle green ones. In the end I made her decide which she liked best and I bought her a blue one to match my red. We have agreed not to go out wearing them at the same time. That would be so twee!

Carlisle wasn’t as busy as I expected it to be when we arrived but by about 1pm it was starting to fill up so I steered us to Moreish Café in the market place for a lunch. I knew this might be silly as I had a feeling in the back of my mind it closed on Mondays. However, when we got there it was open! It has changed ownership and is no longer called Moreish (I think it is now Claire’s Kitchen, but I could be wrong.) I mentioned to the woman on the till how it used to be annoying that the place never opened on a Monday, she agreed. We had soup and a baguette for lunch. The baguettes were so large we both wrapped the second half of ours up to take home for a mid arvo snack.

This evening we subjected ourselves to the first part of our Lord of the Rings-athon, watching the extended version of the Fellowship of the Ring. Laura has never seen it. Can you imagine that? She was suitably over-awed by it.

Contacted Mum and she informed me that she is heading to Leeds on Christmas Eve to stay at Phil and Jane’s. From there she will go back home on the Saturday after Boxing Day and then is going to drive up to Hawick on New Year’s Eve. On the 2^nd she and Gran are driving over to Dad’s to spend some time with us, then we are driving down in convoy to Sheffield so we can go and see Swan Lake on the 8^th, in Sheffield. She will be a busy bunny. Gran is looking forward to seeing the old Holiday Home again, the last time she was here was before Mum and Dad divorced, so that’s over 12 years ago! Mum came up last year (when I was also house sitting) so she is used to being in her old holiday home when Dad is elsewhere.

Tuesday 23^rd Dec.

The weather was surprisingly clear this morning so after brekkers we decided to walk the dogs up Blake Fell. This is on the western Edge of the Lakes National Park and if there was to be any inclement weather rolling in, it might miss Blake Fell. This was actually an unfounded worry as it stayed clear and cold all the day. There is a useful carpark at Felldyke, the start and the end of the route to Cogra Moss, so we left Dad’s Landrover in it. There is a row of terraced houses next to the car park where I would love to live if I ever had the chance. The views to the west are amazing and you are right on the edge of the National Park boundary as well.

The sight of Cogra Moss itself is always a surprise, because if you didn’t already know it was there it’s the last thing you’d expect to find as you round the corner to find this beautiful little tarn. I think it was even smaller originally, but the stream flowing out was dammed to make a larger lake. I have one of my favourite pictures of my Dad taken here. He is leaning against the railings across the mini-dam wall, this his hand clasped in front of him, fingers entwined and his left elbow on the railing top. He’s got dog leads stretched across his body, looking like a bandit’s ammunition belt and is smiling at the camera. He looks so young but he must have been about 40 when Mum took the picture.

It is a popular place for local fishermen and there are walkways out into the lake for them to drown their maggots if they so desire. I had expected the place to be empty but there were already three men sat on their little stools, rods in hand, looking like a grimly coloured set of garden gnomes from a distance. The route took us right past these chaps but they all continued at their task and studiously ignored us.

From the lake shore there is a gentle gradient up to the col between Blake Fell and Nock Murton, with a forest road running through it. This road looks like is follows a contour line all the way round the lake, on the lower slopes of Blake itself. We were going to rejoin this later in the walk, further round as it snaked away towards Burnbank and Owsen Fells.

There was no-one in sight as we continued our upward progress, neither before us or behind us; apart from the petrified statues of fishermen on the lake shore down below. We pass two small outcrops on the way up which delight in the names of Low and High Pen, from the latter you begin to get a glorious view out eastwards across the National Park. At the summit shelter at the top of Blake we broke out the sandwiches, biscuits and flask of hot tea. There was a really strong wind whipping in from the Irish Sea and putting your head above the side of the shelter made your ears freeze off in an instant.

At 1800 feet, Blake is a minnow in a pond of huge pikes but it is a beautiful minnow. Its views are glorious and include a full sweep of the Solway coast from Annan in the north round to Sellafield in the south. The Lakeland Fells are visible but the massif of Grasmoor, Robinson, Dale Head and High Spy tend to obscure the further eastern ones. We were hoping for a scattering of snow on the summit, but there wasn’t any. However, across the way towards Herdus there was a generous sprinkling at about the 2200 feet mark (at an educated guess).

In the shelter you could indulge your passions quite safe in the knowledge that no-one would be able to sneak up on you. Today we decided it wasn’t worth freezing our butts off, but we made a promise to come back in the summer months and have a shag here then! Today we filled our desire for lunch, biscuits and a hot drink instead.

Sufficiently restored and energised we struck out northwards and downwards towards Burnbank Fell on a really grassy path, then off to Owsen Fell which offered greater views of Lamplugh than from the top of Blake. From here we found a route which took us back down to the western edge of Cogra Moss itself. The whole route was about 8 miles and we took just under four hours to complete the circuit, but that did include a good half an hour in the summit shelter having lunch. (OK, and a bit of a snog!)

I tried to get the woofies to splash about in Cogra Moss itself to clean themselves off a bit. Callie was a bit reluctant to get herself cold, I thought, but Dad’s trio piled in with reckless abandon, even Izzy, who is knocking on a bit. Wiping them down back at Felldyke took a while too, and we grubbied up five dog towels in the process.

Being greeted on our return by the smell of a cooked leg of pork joint was just the ideal thing to come home to, especially as we had prepped the veggies in advance, so we took the joint out to rest whilst the veggies cooked and Loll had a shower. After the meal, and dessert, I piled into the shower but was joined on getting out by a certain blonde girl who had come to see if I needed drying off too. I did, but in the process she made part of me much, much wetter!

We had part two of our epic film trilogy tonight, The Two Towers. Again Loll was stunned by it.

The stroll had tired us a little bit so the dogs only had a paddock walk for their final exercise of the day, but to be honest, I think they were quite tired too and went into the field without demur.

Wednesday 24^th Dec.

Up and out onto Mowbray Dunes this morning. Laura went to her Mum’s and I went with the dogs along the Solway Coast. The wind here was almost as strong as it had been at the top of Blake Fell yesterday. With the dogs duly exercised and Molly placated by her daughter’s visit we all trooped off to Workington to see Paddington, even 14 year old Stephen decided to come along. Eric finishes, for the week and a half of Christmas and New Year, this evening so Molly was glad to get out for a while too.

Paddington is brilliant. OK, it has a pretty simple storyline but I was totally impressed by it. I wasn’t sure about Nicole Kidman being a mad taxidermist wanting to stuff our Peruvian bear as a plot line but I suppose that having Paddington create havoc for Mr Curry on a repeated basis would have made for a less exciting film. (That is what he does in the books.)

I loved the bit where they gave Paddington a shower and he came out looking like a cute ball of fluff. I was also very surprised to find the aforementioned Mr Curry was Dr. Who! He wasn’t the irascible character he plays in the books but was a bit of a sleaze bag!

What probably surprised me the most was how quickly it seemed to be over. I suppose sitting through almost four hours of hobbits, elves, dwarfs and orcs makes a shorter film just whip by in comparison. Even Stephen was impressed; Molly’s favourite bits were the recurring calypso band passing comment on the action with songs. I think we will have to come and see this again, too.

The downside of seeing a children’s film in the afternoon on a school holiday day was the mass of them that were squeezed in there. It was also weird to hear the laughter at the funny bits being children’s laughter, not adults.

Eric was home when we got back and he was amused to think we had all gone to see Paddington. He is looking forward to Christmas dinner at Dad’s house tomorrow. I cooked a big meal for them at Dad’s before, last Christmas. They have also sampled my cooking when they came down to Sheffield at the start of the term; and they know I make great cakes – even if I say so myself.  I will have to make sure I don’t disappoint.

Christmas Day.

We both walked the dogs up Tallentire Hill this morning, then had a Prosecco and hibiscus flower celebration opening our presents. Laura has found a wonderful lapis lazuli bracelet to go with my pendant and earrings which is simply stunning. It is still gold hearts with lapis centres, just like the pendant and earrings. I told her I was surprised she’d found one in the UK. She didn’t. She described it to Suze and Suze found one. Her major worry was losing it in the post from Australia. That explains why the parcel of mini cherry ripes she got in November was a recorded delivery. It seemed a bit mad at the time. I was just happy to have some more cherry ripe.

Loll cried when she discovered I had replaced her washed i-pad. Hers was a 32Gb one, the new one is 128Gb. It seemed mad replacing it with the identical thing. She cried when she discovered she had washed her old one too. She had been using it in the bedroom prior to changing the bed. Somehow the old one had got mixed up in the bedding she shoved into the washing machine. Apple repair people took a look at it and said they thought it couldn’t be repaired as it has been boiled (we always wash our bedding on the hottest setting). According to the guy at the shop, if it had been a lower temperature wash it might have been recoverable. I have been stalling on the insurance claim reply for about a month, because the company had stumped up the price of a 32Gb one and I decided to put the rest to and go for a better spec. one. I didn’t want her to find out until I had got the thing in my hands.

I skyped the aforementioned big sister and we spent almost two hours chatting and exchanging gossip with everyone. The girls loved their pressies, even Jeff was impressed that I had got him the new Dockers Guernsey. (Suze bought for me but I stumped up the dollars.)

Dad, and more importantly, Louisa are fine. Suze gives her a swift health check every morning, taking her blood pressure and temperature etc. I guess it is pretty handy having a nurse on standby should anything develop. Dad is his old blasé self about the whole thing, as usual. I told him about Loll nearly driving into the tractor and he was livid, apparently the stupid wanker of a farmer (Dad’s words, not mine) has done this loads of times. The villagers have called the police about it but they claimed unless they catch him doing it they are powerless. Typical police reaction in my experience. I suppose they are right and with the cretinous Conservative led cuts to the very fabric of our society it will only get worse.

We ended on a happy note with a promise to skype again on New Year’s Day. (Afternoon for them, morning for us, unless we are too hungover to function after the party at Loll’s friend’s place.

Lunch was a success, even though we didn’t sit down until 2pm. We had masses and masses of food. I cooked the following: Turkey, stuffing, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes and parnsips, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, sprouts with onions bacon and chestnuts, green beans, gravy and a red cabbage, onion, cranberries and garlic concoction that I saw in one of our newspapers. Oh, and five medium to large Yorkshire puddings. The plan was to make sure there would be enough for a bubble and squeak with the left over veggies. There would probably be enough to feed all five of us again with it!

We played some daft games after our meal had settled including the “who am I game” using your mobile phone as the post it note. It seems there is an app which automatically selects the person for you and you hold your phone to your forehead. Very silly. Luckily I always got someone I knew, unlike the last time we played this game – using the old fashioned post-it method.

I was all for videoing the TV shows I wanted to watch but they all wanted to watch the Dr Who special. So we did. It was very clever and a little confusing. The layer within a layer idea reminded me a bit of Inception, none of the others had seen it, so they didn’t know what I was talking about. The best bit was the obvious conclusion that Jenna Coleman (Clara) would be returning for a new series. I think having been in a lesbian relationship for over two years is beginning to affect my perception of people, because I really do find her as hot as anything! I can’t remember having girl crushes (in a totally serious, sexual way) before. I don’t think it is her looks so much as the personality of the Clara Oswald character I find attractive.

All in all we had a pretty enjoyable Christmas Day and I think I am unanimous in saying that. LOL [Where does that bloody line come from? It will bug me for ages.]