A brilliant "Nutcracker" and ARSON in the village - shock horror!

Friday 10^th January.

Swimming in a proper size pool was quite a shock after the dinky Cockermouth one and it was nice to see Sarah again. She was surprised to see us so I explained about our theatre commitments and she had to admit she has never been to either the Crucible or the Lyceum. I told her when there was something coming up I thought she’d enjoy I would let her know about it. You have to evangelise about theatre going or people think it is just for an elite.

We whizzed into town and did a mini food shop and major apple purchase! The rest of the morning was spent batch baking six apple pies and six apple cakes! The house smelt gorgeous for ages afterwards. Julie came round in the middle of baking to see how we were doing and I had a call from Kaybers [who I have been neglecting a bit]. She was bringing us up to date on her pregnancy; she and the little Orr are doing fine. She has ultra sound stuff too and we are going to see her, Jan and the film tomorrow morning. I will take her one of the apple cakes.

Mid arvo we went across to Mum’s, she was cooking our meal before the theatre. Callie seemed a bit miffed to be left alone. I think it is the first time she’ll have been by herself since before Christmas. Still she got to in her crate for her biscuits happily enough.

The Nutcracker is one of the most formal of Classical Ballets and needs to be treated with respect. The Moscow City Ballet had done just that. The scenery was spectacular and the costuming stunning plus they had a live orchestra, how cool is that? Of course this is as nothing if Clara and Drosselmeyer aren’t any good. Drosselmeyer was pretty impressive but Clara was beautiful and delicate and full of stamina. She danced her little points off. She was danced by Anna Ivanova and was really impressive. She managed the childlike innocence of Clara so well.

I especially loved the section in Act II where we had dancers from the world entertaining Clara. I think the audience’s favourite was the China girl. She was a real delight and showed the depth of dancing talent available in the corps de ballet. Plus she had the most engaging smiley face. Mum thought the corps was a little rusty looking in parts of Act I but maybe she is being too picky. She has seen this ballet so many times during her 60 years so has loads of performances to compare it with.

Laura was entranced by the whole thing. She especially loved the music and the Mouse king’s defeat by the Nutcracker. We need more dance performances in town. According to the programme notes this company are dancing four ballets altogether on the tour. Imagine that? Having the choreography for four different pieces in your head at once and being asked to switch from venue to venue. It sort of makes me wish I hadn’t been as graceful as a ruptured duck when I was a little girl. [I would have killed Philip for that description when I was younger, but he was right… sadly.]

The bottom line is, if they tour again, we WILL be there! I imagine the almost full house of the Lyceum will be thinking the same as me, too.

We went for a swift snorterino in the bar after the show and got talking to a couple whom I have seen at other productions at the Lyceum and Crucible before. They were probably about Mum’s age or just a bit younger and were full of enthusiasm for the show. They acknowledged the fact that they had seen me and Laura at a number of things since September and asked Mum if it was her influence that her two daughters had a liking for the Arts. I thought Mum would say something like, Yes they have always gone to the theatre but instead she came out with, “Actually Vicki is my daughter and Laura is her partner.” I was so impressed by the way she was able to say that to complete strangers in a manner that showed she was obviously so supportive of Laura and Me and proud of us too. The couple didn’t flinch at the revelation but I detected a slight cooling in the woman’s manner towards us.

As we left the theatre Laura took Mum’s arm and thanked her for what she’d said to the couple in the bar. She uses the term Mrs S when talking to Mum, it is something she has always done. Mum said, “Please, could you call me Helen or Mum? Mrs S sounds like I am your teacher or something.” Laura opted for Mum as she can’t bring herself to call her Helen. I am afraid to say I shed a tear.

Saturday January 11^th.

A strange yellow object appeared in the sky today and stayed there for most of the day! We left the pool this morning in a very premature lightness and the whole day just stretched out as a sunny treat for us all.

I took Callie round Agden Reservoir rather than the usual walk through Hill Top Woods and Onesacre. I think she enjoyed it. She certainly loved having a swim in the reservoir itself, although the temperature can’t have been much above freezing for her. Dogs sometimes have no sense though. I discovered all I had in the back of the car were dirty dog towels, some mistake there I fear, so I dried her off on a dirty towel and we zoomed home for a serious wash of all things doggy. I am considering buy a cheap second washing machine just for dog stuff. I am not convinced it can be all that healthy for us, washing our things in the same machine as Callie’s things are washed.

Kaybers and Jan were delighted to see us and the Apple Cake. In fact we demolished half of it with a cuppa as soon as we got there. We filled each other in on all our news over the past month and we watched yet another ultra sound scan. It looked exactly like Jane’s to be honest but I kept schtum about that. Laura gushed about the baby’s tiny fingers being so cute but she does that every time [well, for every one of these CDs we have watched that is].

They are still thinking about trying to have Charlotte’s confinement in Norway but the airlines are being a bit iffy over a near term woman travelling with them and the insurance premiums they have been quoted are silly! Jan’s plan, now, is to go by train over land from the UK to Brussels, Brussels to Copenhagen, crossing the Oresund Bridge and then on to Oslo. It will only take nearly a whole day and a half of travelling! Plus it will cost them £350 each! I think he is mad! I guess flying or a ferry will be the way they finally select.

We stayed for quite a while gossiping and being silly. Kaybers loves hearing tales about Felice, she thinks she is a typically wappy Frenchwoman. Sadly apart from the message I had earlier in the holidays I wasn’t able to indulge her prurient interest. I have said I will keep her informed about the “affair” with Michael R. I am not sure if affair is the right word for what they have going on, from the position of casual observer it seems that Michael is the one who is being used her, but he doesn’t see it.

Back home we had a quiet evening and actually watched some more TV. The Bridge on BBC 4 continues to be brilliant. I think the more I watch the Saga Noren character the more I think she is unique in detective fiction. I love the way nothing gets sanitised or polished up for other people’s consumption. The character just says the truth regardless. It may be interesting to try to emulate her for a week and see what sort of effect it has on people. I may end up being smacked a lot! LOL

The downside of lovely sunny days at this time of year of freezing cold nights. On our last walk of the day we met the gritting lorry going down Cockshutts Lane as we were walking up it and round the corner Long Lane, being ungritted, was beginning to get a bit tricksy to walk on. There were masses of stars visible though.

Sunday January 12th.

OMG. At about 3am I was grabbed by the gorgeous, slim young lady I love who seemed genuinely worried and said, “WTF was that?”

I am a sound sleeper. I have been known to sleep through thunderstorms and force 10 gales on board ships, so if it was something I might have heard there was no chance I would be able to answer.

“Erm… What was what?”

“That huge bang? It was massive. It woke me up.”

Laura is a lighter sleep than me, admittedly but usually nothing much wakes her. Even me typing on my laptop next to her in bed doesn’t usually disturb her sleep. So I was sure she must’ve really heard something. I went over to our bedroom window (we don’t close the curtains as we are not over looked, unless you have a really powerful telescope and live in Grenoside Woods) and saw that there was a fairly large plume of smoke rising up against the night sky and the ridge that makes up the top of Jaw Bone Hill. [I don’t actually know what the real name for this road is, but all the locals call it Jaw Bone, so I do too.]

After a few minutes a blue flashing light appeared then another and another and another. These were quite visible from our window, in fact their flashes shone off the paintwork in our room even though they were half a mile away on the other slope of the Don Valley. There was also a fairly large orange glow in the area round the lights. Obviously something had gone up in smoke over there and was being dealt with by the fire brigade. We hadn’t heard their sirens though.

With our own fires lit by getting woken so early we had a session of inflaming our passions, which must’ve lasted for a good 40 minutes [during which we gave each other an O] and during all our excitement under the covers, the excitement outside continued. We dozed off again by about four, I would guess.

When I woke again at 6.30 [I have a lie in on Sundays because the pool doesn’t open early] the blue lights were still flashing across the valley but the orange glow had gone. I walked Callie along Long Lane to have a rubber neck with my binoculars and I counted at least six fire engines across the way and what were probably police cars blocking the road up and down the hill near the location of the fire.

It was seriously cold out walking and although our road was clear of ice – Bradfield Council's gritter had taken care of that last night – Long Lane was like a skating rink in places. We trucked on up to Onesacre and then dropped down into the Coumes Valley. Here, the place where Coumes Brook sometimes floods the lane was really, really icy. So much so that I feared I may end up on my gluteus if I wasn’t careful.

At just after 7am I went into Sylv’s and picked up the Sunday Times and The Sunday Independent and had a good old gossip with her. She had missed me coming down to collect my morning papers, even though she knew the reason why and I told her that I would be back for the new semester on the weekend before the 27th. We then gossiped about the raging local news.

She had heard the bang too and then heard the fire engine approach. She had assumed there was only one as she had only heard one. I was able to tell her there were at least 6 up the hill as I had seen them through my binoculars from Long Lane. She also thought that jaw Bone must be closed as she hadn’t heard any vehicles going up or down it since she opened up the shop. I was able to tell her about the police cars I’d seen too.

After I’d paid up, and bought a Fry’s Chocolate Orange Cream bar, I took Callie and went to have a snoop at the bottom of the hill. Sure enough there was a Police “Road Closed” sign blocking the left turn off Langsett Road and a police car with a bored looking guy sat inside it. Being a nosy little cow, I crossed over to the car and knocked on the window. I asked the policeman inside why the road was closed. He told me there was a fire up the hill. I explained that I knew that because we had heard the bang and seen the smoke and blue lights. He said the road had been closed because the fire engines’ water had spilled out across the road and with it being so cold had frozen solid, making the hill extremely dangerous. Until they stopped dousing down the blaze the road would have to remain closed to avoid traffic accidents on the hill.

I asked how they would clear the ice and he told me that the council were sending a gritting lorry especially to spread on that section of road. He also said they thought the bang we’d heard was probably a gas cylinder going up! I thanked him for the information and left him to sit in his car and look bored.

We tootled back up the lane and I fed the woof before sneaking back up stairs and then surprised Laura by crawling under the duvet from the foot of the bed to reach her important little place to give it a good licking. It didn’t take her long to become fully aroused and my tongue was soon augmented by my fingers. She usually will climax after a few minutes of this and today was no exception. She pulled my hair to drag me up the bed and we snogged for ages before she repeated what I had done to her on me. We need more early morning fires I think!

After a leisurely, shared, shower we had brekkers and thought about what we were going to do for the day. The plan was to drive up today and then back down next Friday morning so we could go to the Crucible next Friday night. Laura starts back at Uni on Monday the 20th I was all set to go back up to Cumbria on the 20th  alone, but after getting such a sad look from my babe I decided that I would check with Dad if it was OK to leave his house from the 17th as far as insurance was concerned. If it was OK with him I’d stay in Sheffield too. I would be welcomed with open arms at XXX & Y, I am sure, for the whole week before starting the usual regime of one full day and an afternoon.

With that decided, we also planned our route back to Dad’s. The A66, A1, M1 route was so much less stressful that the M6, M61 and the crap round Manchester so we chose to do that route in reverse until Bedale and then branch off to visit the Tan Hill Inn and have lunch there.

The house was cleaned and tidied by 10.30 so we loaded up and zoomed off. The traffic was fairly busy until the Leeds section where we merged with the A1 then it thinned out considerably. We were at Bedale by 11.30 and wandered through the lanes which took us to Leyburn. It is beautiful, I have never been here before but we will have to come back for an exploration. From Leyburn we drove over the top of the moor past a whole spread of Army shooting ranges to drop down into Grinton. A few miles west of Grinton, along the river valley, is Reeth – where we turned off onto the road to Tan Hill.

It is only 11 miles from Reeth to the pub but they are amazingly beautiful and stark miles. You climb steadily almost all the time along a narrow country lane which takes you through several small, rugged looking villages. Some of them reminded me of the villages to the west and north of my own on the outskirts of Sheffield. The majority of houses were small, built in rows and made form local millstone grit [by its appearance]. They must be a typical style of dwelling in rural Yorkshire hill villages.

Eventually the villages run out and you rise onto what seems like a long fairly level(ish) plateau of land. We could spot what was probably the A66 away to the north running roughly parallel to our road and after turning a sharp corner over a slight steep bit, there was the pub! It was a shame the day was so grey as it would be a wonderful place in bright sunshine. I was surprised to find there were already over half a dozen cars parked outside. So I let Callie have a gallop along the bit of the Pennine Way which heads south and then we sallied forth and infiltrated their place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some commestables!

I have been here before when we did the Pennine Way when I was a child so my memories of it are pretty vague to be honest. But I remembered clearly the little rooms and roaring fires and they were just the same. We got askance looks when we asked for a pot of tea rather than a pint [I dislike the taste of beer] but when we ordered food as well the looks seemed to disappear. I had a filled Yorkie with beef and Laura had a Yorkie with chicken.

We grabbed seats in the room to the left of the bar and ate our meal in there. It was delivered surprisingly quickly and the amount in each Yorkie must have been scale models of one of the three peaks! In fact I jokingly said to the guy who brought our food, “If we had ordered a third one, we’d have had Pen-y-ghent, Inglebrough and Whernside on our plates!” 

Lead Balloon. Didn’t even crack a smile. There is no pleasing some people. 

We ordered the most chocolatey thing on the dessert menu for our pudding and then had a second pot of tea. Yummy in our Tummies. If you ever want a nice meal in a brilliant place it is well worth a visit.

After scoffing we let Callie have another run and then wound our way down the little lanes to Brough in Cumbria. From here it is usually just over an hour to Dad’s. So it proved. Laura phoned the kennel from the car so when we got to Dad’s I simply jumped into his Land Rover and collected Dad’s trio from their holiday home. They had the silly heads on when they saw me and went even more wappy back at Dad’s when they met up with Callie again. I let them into the paddock behind Dad’s and they had a good old chase about for a while. It is a shame humans don’t have the same forgiving qualities that dogs have. The world would be much nicer.

Arrgghh! Yet more TV watching tonight, we are turning into Chavs, I fear. Sherlock was the programme and I was boggled by it again. Interesting but why? Is my question to Moffat and Gatiss. Watson’s wife a hit woman? Really? Oh, come on! This is becoming telly for short attention span morons who need constant stimulation because they don’t have a proper functioning brain cell under their skulls! [I bet none of those who watch Sherlock could manage Bron/Broen at all! Or I am being an intellectual snob?]

It was bloody raining again by the time of the dogs’ evening walk. Only in Cumbria, eh?

Final snippet. We inter-webbed this morning’s fire in Oughtibridge. It turns out to have been relatively huge. Almost a dozen vehicles destroyed and a building. That isn’t the worst aspect of it all though; it turns out to have been ARSON! It was all started deliberately. We can’t have a pyromaniac in our village.

Laura thinks it was probably an insurance scam as she went to the company’s website and it looks decidedly dodgy [that’s the website, not the company]. So based on a dodgy website she has leapt to the instant conclusion that the owners of the company started the fire to get insurance money. I have bet her £10 she is wrong. I’ll never live it down if she is! 

A lucky escape from the waves. Ranting at the news.

Monday 6^th January.

They say the sun shines on the righteous. West Cumbria can’t be very righteous at all then. It was sunny last Thursday morning. That has been it for ages now. I decided this morning to see if Cockermouth Pool had adult early swim sessions. It seems they do but the hours change daily sometimes starting at 7.30 sometimes at 8.00. We toddled down at 98am and had a splash about. Not as quiet as the pool at home but good all the same. Being shorter 100 lengths were finished in no time. Just like home, though, the showers still leave a chlorine smell afterwards! So a second shower was needed at Dad’s.

It is amazing how invigorating getting back into an exercise routine is. After breakfast we decided to walk the dogs at Mawbray Dunes. It was very windy, but not a cold wind. It was blowing from the south and seemed to be sending the rain clouds over the fells rather than along the coast. Despite the pups having run their little legs off on the beach and then back through the dunes we decided to head up the coast to Silloth.

I may have mentioned Silloth before. It is delightful. If the weather here was the same as in the South Coast of England it would be one of the best places to holiday I know. It is old fashioned and Victorian feeling and has a huge green which stretches from the shore line about half a mile inland to the first road and shops. The promenade is two miles of concrete steps and walls from the harbour mouth up to Skinburness, where there is a huge faded and derelict hotel. We parked up by the light tower at the Skinburness part of the prom [where there is a public toilet] and we stolled into the town.

Here the righteous were rewarded for the sun did come out and it shone on me and Laura and the whole of Silloth for about two hours. The difference it makes is incredible. We walked upto the Lifeboat station, but the shop wasn’t open [closed for winter]. We had a look in the Estate Agents window and decided which house we would buy for our retirement. We then bought a couple of bags of chips from the chippy on the corner of Lawn Terrace and took them to the refurbished Victorian Pagoda on top of one of the sea side dunes.

I like eating chips at the seaside. It is a typically British thing to do [although it is popular in Australia too]. We sat in the Pagoda, sheltered from the wind and ate our chips whilst admiring the view. I had a cup of tea from the chippy, Laura had a coffee and it was like our own mini picnic. The clouds were so heavy though, they eventually cut the sun off once more and all the time we were at Silloth we were unable to see the Scottish coast, just a few short miles across the Solway.

After strolling back to the car we decided to drive back along the coast road, turning off at Crosscanonby to get to Dad’s. Mistake.

Earlier in my blog I mentioned being swamped in Sue’s car at Dubmill point when I was little, well it almost happened again at Dubmill Point once more. I was following a stupid idiot in a Hyundai fake 4x4 and at Dubmill the prat slowed right down to watch the waves breaking on the sea wall. I had to sit in horror as I watched a huge wave head for the wall, hit it with a loud whoosh and then break over both vehicles! We must have been going at about 10 mph but for the split seconds after wave hit we were in a silent static world. It went right over the top of the Hyundai and Dad’d Land Rover. The screen was obliterated by the water as the wipers couldn’t keep up. I could feel the car’s 4x4 kick in as the back wash tried to drag us back towards the sea wall. It was pretty scary. I had the sense to put the clutch in and rev the engine in an attempt to avoid the water making it cut out. When the wipers had got control back I could see the Hyundai was almost touching the sea wall where it had been pulled back across the road by the waves, but luckily its engine hadn’t cut out either and it was able to drive back on the right side of the road and move on past the danger zone.

During all this Laura had gone “Arrghh!” Very loudly but very low pitched. Not a wailing scream or anything, just this almost primal howl. I felt inclined to join her but I was too busy concentrating on keeping control of Dad’s car.

As we rounded the corner by the farm house I could see that Highways Agency vehicles were putting up road closed signs to prevent any other idiots driving through the high tide waves crashing over the road. I pulled into the first car park we came to at Allonby and said, “Jesus H Christ. That was bloody scary!”

Laura’s reply was, “You’re telling me!”

I know Dubmill Point is notorious in West Cumbria as a dangerous place when the tides are high, and one year the tide washed away the sea wall and about twenty feet of road too, but I hadn’t even considered the danger as we drove back down from Silloth. If the Hyundai had crashed we could have been in quite serious trouble as I couldn’t have just driven on by, leaving it there. I think this incident counts as another Guardian Angel event, like the falling branch during the Autumn on our drive to work, which hit the oncoming car, not us! Phewee Musky, as Deputy Dawg would say.

The cloud stayed for the rest of the day. Which was disappointing and it was raining so hard at last walk time for the dogs I did a “Fly Drive”. That is my name for taking the dogs out up Tall Hill in a car and letting them out to do their walk from there. It saves me walking them through the village on their leads before letting them off to perform. It’s about half a mile from Dad’s to where I let them run free, we’d be drenched before I could let them off. Tonight I also excavated the Lobby wardrobe and found their waterproof coats. There was even one for Callie, who wasn’t a happy bunny at wearing it but it meant she, and they, were much easier to dry off when we got back.

Tuesday January 7^th.

Wow. It looked like sunshine was on the cards this morning. There were beams of sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. After a swift drive into Cocker for more swimming we decided to head off to Borrowdale and stroll around the Castle Crag area.

It just shows how bloody fickle the weather is up here. By the time we had got to Higham Hall it was clear that the sunlight was just a few isolated beams breaking through the clouds. At Castle Inn we could see there was no chance of walking in the fells without getting drenched. The cloud ceiling was lower than Catbells and any sunshine had vanished completely.

Four dogs in the back of the car would soon make a huge protest if we simply went back to Dad’s so we drove on and parked up in Portinscale. The plan was to walk around Derwentwater shore to about Lodore and then catch the Ferry into Keswick, and finally stroll back to Portinscale from Keswick. The best laid plans etc etc.

The woods were as muddy as hell and the dogs got absolutely slathered in minutes. Why do Labradors have to coat themselves in a layer of muck? The two Weimarners were pristine in comparison. I had forgotten we had to walk along the road a bit from Swinside to Hawes End which was a bugger, but only four cars passed us on our tramp down the tarmac.

More serial disappointments followed. The path to the Chinese bridge was muddied up to hell. We stayed on the wooden decking but the dog went and splashed about. The path after the Chinese bridge was completely flooded. It was a good job we had decided to walk in wellies and not walking boots! At one point the water was so deep it threatened to engulf our wellies too!

The next disappointment was the fact that the Shepherd’s Crag Café wasn’t open! I should have known it wouldn’t be as it only opens at weekends in the winter. Laura did volunteer to give my head a slap but I graciously declined. Luckily there was a Ferry running so we caught that and headed to Keswick. Of course the dogs were far too wet and messy to even consider going into the Dog and Gun so we settled for a Cornish Pasty from the Cornish Pasty shop and a take away drink too. More disaster struck by the Moot Hall, as the end of my pork and apple pasty detached itself as we were walking and didn’t even get to hit the ground! An eagle eyed and ravenous Lab snaffled it on its descent! People must think they never get fed!

We did as much window shopping as is possible with four exceedingly dirty hounds in tow and then squelched our way through the fields to the Derwent bridge near Portinscale. The river was really high just here and the meadow to the north of the bridge was completely underwater. I thought it would be a good spot to let the dogs have a splash to clean themselves up, so we let them have a play in the river for a while.

Back at the car Laura said, “Well, that was a bit messy but it could have been worse!”

“Worse? How?”

“It could have been raining!”

She was right. For all the horrible dark grey cloud swirling over our heads on the stroll we hadn't been hit by a single splash of water from above. OK, you must exclude water being blown from the branches of trees in the woods. As if to prove the Lollster wrong the heavens decided it was time to show us who was boss and they poured bucketsful of water down onto the car.

As if to add insult to injury, back at Dad’s house it was still dry with hardly any cloud at all! I dislike Cumbrian weather!

Wednesday January 8^th.

More swimming and more people. I am not sure that I like this pool as much as I like the one at home. I suppose it is the shock of the new. The shorter lengths mean you feel as though you have done more “proper” swimming as it takes you less time to do 100.

We [well Dad did] had a letter from the caravan park on Arran so I Skyped Aus to see if I should open it. He said to do so and read it out over the net. They are expecting delivery of the new caravan next week, weather permitting, which will mean it will be connect to the services and ready to be used by the weekend after next! Rah, rah and indeed rah!

We are actually bogging off to sunny Sheffield tomorrow as we are going to see the Nutcracker on Friday night, with Mum. I have been checking the google maps pages and it seems driving home the way I usually do is about 3 miles longer than going across the A66 to Scotch Corner, where we’d join the A1 which eventually joins seamlessly with M1. It claims that the journey will be about 15 minutes quicker too. I think we will try that way back tomorrow. It will be interesting to travel by a new route.

I also checked that the kennel was still OK to take Dad’s woofs at short notice. It is and they are doing Dad a deal on all three being there at once. It is a good job he left the usual wodge of house-sitting cash in the tea caddy, I’d hate to be having to pay for the dogs being kennelled too! We will be back up on Monday and down to Sheffield again next Friday [more Theatre commitments]. Next Friday we will probably stay down in Sheffield and leave Dad’s dogs in the kennel until he gets back from Australia – that is the end of January sometime.

I had a few minutes Skyping time with Jill while Annabelle went to fetch Dad so I was able to ask her the burning question. “Well, have you? You know…” Her answer was “No” which I am immensely pleased to hear, this is quite odd for someone who blathers on about the emancipation of women and how we should be masters of our own destiny. She also managed to get in, “I’ll send an e-mail,” before the angelic niece dragged the aged parent to the screen. That doesn’t imply that Jill is the demonic niece or anything, it is just that Annabelle is so much less worldly and still naïve compared to her older sister.

The one thing they did go on about, which made me really jealous, was the weather. It was really hot and sunny and they we hoping for rain. I promised I would try and send them some of Cumbria’s as there is definitely plenty to spare. Dad asked about the Ceilidh and we had to admit we’d forgotten all about it. We were so miffed on Sunday morning to realise we had missed it. He also said he’d got an e-mail from Sue and Iain and they’d commented on how his little girl had turned into a confident young woman plus they thought I was a sort of like a female version of him! Well, thanks a lot Sue and Iain. 

He thought it was very funny; I was a bit annoyed, TBH. I don’t normally get to see S & I without the restraining influence of Dad being present too, so I guess it will have been unusual for them to have seen the “real me”.

We spent another day spot dodging. There wasn’t as much as was forecast on the radio news but we still went fully prepared to the back of Skiddaw hills. I was hoping there would be some snow at lower levels so we could go survival bag sledging but it was well over the height of Knott which, at about 2300’, is the highest fell behind Skiddaw. It was very, very muddy though. I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised by that. The walk we did took us past Chapelhouse reservoir, which is a surprising feature to the ‘unknowing’ in the Lakes. It is a ribbon of a lake just south of Uldale and would be most northerly lake if it wasn’t man made (that honour goes to Overwater a few hundred yards away from Chapelhouse). At Uldale the tea room was open so we had a cuppa and some cake before returning to the car [parked at Longlands] and heading back to Dad’s.

We ate up whatever was left in the fridge for tea, ready for zooming off tomorrow. I used the last of the steak we had to make a Shepherd’s Pie to take down with us for our evening meal when we got in, so it would save us cooking from scratch.

We had a relatively early night, hitting the charp just after 10.30pm.

Thursday January 9^th.

Up pronto to have a final swim of the week at Cockermouth. I wish they would sort out their opening times, it varies with no real rhyme or reason, why is it 7.30 or 8 o’clock? Why not just one standard start time?

After the splash and second shower I whizzed the dogs to their holiday home for the next few days while the Lollster packed the car and drove round to her Mum’s to say bye until Sunday. While she was there, Molly told her we needn’t have taken the dogs to the kennel, she’s have dealt with them. I think that was noble of her but too much of an imposition really. She is going round to Dad’s to give it a clean after we have left. She will have a job to find anything that needs cleaning to be honest, but it will keep her happy.

I was locking up Dad’s Land Rover in the garage as she pulled back onto the drive, so I had a quick check round the house to make sure that we’d not forgotten anything and we headed south. It was strange driving straight over the M6 at Penrith but worth it. The A66 is a brilliant road. It isn’t fully dualled but there are long stretches which means the traffic flows pretty quickly. The best bit is crossing the Pennines at Stainmore. We even spotted the old Stainmore Railway Line Summit marker as we went through the gap in the hills before we began the long descent to Scotch Corner.

Somewhere to the south as we drove is the Tan Hill Inn, that would make a good diversion either going down or coming back when the weather is more clement. We stopped to let Callie answer the call of nature at Scotch Corner and then plunged on in our voyage of discovery down the A1. After about 10 miles south from SC the A1 became a three lane motorway and it was like this all the way down to Sheffield. It made the last section of our journey much less fraught that the M61, M60 mucking about we have to do to the East of Manchester. There was one hairy spot where the road became four lanes for a while as the A1 branched off and the road became the M1 link. Here you had drongos cutting across from the outside lane of the main carriage way to swoop onto the A1. I thought it was a pretty dangerous bit, but as the planners had given the junction well over a mile of manoeuvre space it wasn’t as dreadful as it could have been.

We left the M1 at the point where we normally join it when we are going to Phil and Jane’s and were pulling up the steep lane to my little house in minutes. I forgot to check the trip counter when we arrived but as it was reset to zero before we left Dad’s it won’t be a problem to see if we actually did travel fewer miles. We certainly seemed to be quicker than going the old way down, that’s for sure.

Callie seemed happy to be home and Muriel came out to greet us as we arrived at our back door. Inside was a mini mountain of post, including lots of Christmas cards. I guess that is a problem with going away over the holiday period.

The answer machine had a dozen messages on it and only 30 seconds recording time left! Only two were any use the rest were just stupid advertising and three hang-ups. One was Felice who has lost her phone and all her contact details so can I e-mail stuff to her at her Uni address? She really can be so disorganised really. The second was from Uncle Hilmar looking for Dad and upset because the weather in Germany has been so mild he hasn’t had any grapes freeze on the vine to make into Eiswein this year. At least, I think that is what he said because, although the message started in English, he finished it in German. He speaks at the speed of an express train and I may have not quite understood it properly. I made a copy of it and have sent it in an e-mail to Dad, he is still fluent after all these years.

I phoned Hilmar and got cousin Heinz instead who was able to write down Susannah’s phone number and Dad’s e-mail address so that Hilmar can try speaking to him in Australia. There are still relatives of his living in Fremantle and the surrounding areas so he probably call there quite often. Any way I think I have done all I can do. The dutiful daughter, eh?

I had roughly the same proportion of real mail as I’d had real phone messages on my answer machine. The amount of junk that has been delivered in these three weeks is dreadful. I may look into having it stopped.

The shepherd’s pie went down a treat and so did the last of the apple cakes from the freezer. I can’t believe we’ve eaten them all. The plan for tomorrow is to go and buy lots of apples from the market and bake some more apple pies and apple cakes. We are having dinner at Mum’s prior to the Ballet which will be good. [That’s the meal, I don’t know about the ballet. They may be useless. Although I very much doubt it.]

We actually watched some TV tonight. “Silent Witness”. Do programmes like this deliberately set out to make the police look stupid, I wonder. You watch something like Bron, from Sweden and their portrayal of the police is much more supportive. I suppose situations like the so called Plebgate and the Duggan fiasco make them easy targets.

I can’t get over the fact that people are concentrating on the use of the word Pleb rather than the fact this fucking Tory bastard used identical language to what I have just written, to serving Police officers doing their job. That is the scandal here. Obviously the fucking Tory bastards think it is acceptable for Government Ministers to fucking swear with the fuck word at the police! In my eyes that is enough grounds for the bastard Mitchell to have been sacked in the first place!

The Duggan thing too… This bloody scumbag had a gun and was a criminal. Now a hand gun in the hands of a twat like him, is only used to shoot people, so the scumbag was obviously about to do something criminal with it. His scumbag family should shut the fuck up about their angel son and nephew. If he was an Angel I am the Queen of bloody Sheba!

Sorry. Rant over.  Often watching the news makes me so angry. Sometimes for the obvious misreporting and misrepresentation of the fact and figures [this is so apparent if you listen to BBC Radio 4 news and then watch the rubbish called TV news] but mainly because of the content and the people being reported upon.

Laura told me I need to chill out and she had the perfect solution. She was right! Mmmmmmm……

Mother, brother and family invade the house sitting! Watching the storm.

Friday January 3^rd.

The day dawned bright and clear. First time it has done that for over a week! So clear there were blue skies and no rain!

The weather forecast had predicted a storm surge along the west coast of the UK to coincide with the Spring tide for the month. Having had the TV on last night we were filled with the idiot calming warnings issued by the Met Office and the BBC to try and reassure the public. I checked the tide tables for the Solway coast and found the High Tide was at around 1pm. It seemed like a good idea to take ourselves to a safe vantage point to watch the impending Armageddon.

Mum had been talking to Angela and Peter on Thursday about going to the cinema, so we’d checked the film times and there was a showing of “Frozen” at 2.30pm in Workington. Peter wasn’t so keen but Angela has watched masses of trailers for it on You Tube and really wanted to go and see it. That was the plan. 

Give the dogs a stroll in the morning. Drive down to Maryport to see if the high tide was going to be as bad as the media were blathering on about and then drive on to the cinema.

Good plan, eh? [As they’d say in West Cumbria.]

We walked the dogs up to the trig point on Tallentire Hill and back. It was remarkably clear all the way round the fells over the Solway coast and Galloway beyond. By ‘we’, I mean Me, Angela, Peter and Mum. Laura had wandered off to see if Stephen wanted to come to the cinema too. Mum became quite nostalgic as we wound our way up the hill and a little bit maudlin too. Only understandable I suppose. I tried to remind her that beneath the lovable, charming roguish exterior was a cheating, two timing bastard! She was a bit shocked to hear me call my father that but as I explained, I am his daughter so I can see all his faults and still love him despite them; she was in an entirely different position.

I got her smiling again by telling Angela and Peter some of the silly things Dad used to do when we were little. He once had me go into every sweet shop in Edinburgh we passed asking to buy a jar of Scotch Mist. Mum remembered that very clearly. It was in the days when I was playing with copying Mum and Dad’s accents, so I had gone into every shop sounding like a little Australian! I assume Dad must have winked at each shop keeper as I asked because every one of them seemed to go along with the ruse. [I don’t have to play at the accents any more, BTW, I can do a perfect imitation of Mum’s accent – Lowland Scots, which has fooled linguists from several Universities,  and also Dad’s which is sort of a refined Australian drawl if that isn’t an oxymoron.]

Angela tried to explain what the plot of Frozen was, but it was clear she hadn’t much of a clue having only seen trailers. I must say I am a bit of a sucker for Kid’s film. I thought Brave was brilliant, for example. I did remember that most of the newspapers I read had given it glowing reviews, so that promised to be good.

After a snack lunch we set off in two cars [I took Dad’s Citroen this time] for Maryport harbour. We parked up at the Glasson car park and walked down towards the shore line and one of the mounds which looks north towards the huge harbour wall and the pier. The wind was extremely fierce and quite cold despite the sun shine. The sea however was unrecognisable. I can’t remember seeing the Solway look so agitated, apart from a time when Mum, Sue and I got Sue’s car swamped by huge waves at Dubmill Point when I was a wee lassie!

The sea itself was a dirty grey colour and the waves were bashing the rocks and shoreline with amazing force. We didn’t go down to the shore path because it looked a bit too dangerous but climbed to the top of the mound instead, even here we were still being hit by the spray from the waves striking the shoreline.

Looking north was even more spectacular. Maryport harbour is surrounded on two sides by a huge wall built from large old red sandstone blocks. It makes a huge L shape protecting the harbour from the prevailing winds. It rises about 30 feet above the beach but at the elbow of the L the tide was been forced up it and then was breaking over the six foot wall on top of that! You couldn’t have walked on the seawards side of the wall without being washed into the Solway, if you were on the harbour side of the wall, the breaking spray would have drenched anyone there to the bones! I have never seen anything like it.

Even better than that was the fact that Maryport Pier, which runs out at right angles from the top of the L shaped wall and is considerably lower, was being washed over completely with almost every wave that came along. I have often wondered why the pier is built in a concrete lattice pattern rather than being a solid block, like the harbour wall. It was totally apparent why as we watched wave after wave sweep over the top of the pier. If anyone had tried to venture out on to the pier it would have been an act of suicide. Nobody would have survived any of the waves crashing over it.

The wind and the spray were not abating as we stood and watched, and we started to chill down from the constant battering so we decided to head on to the Plaza and have a hot drink in the café there [or the Asda café] before the film started.

The car park was very busy and we learned, in the café, that part of Workington had been flooded, near the rugby ground. This had caused gridlock in the town for quite a while. We settled down to a cup of hot chocolate each, except Peter who wanted a coke! Children!

Frozen. I was pleasantly surprised. It didn’t tick as many boxes as Brave did for me but I enjoyed it all the same. I was totally surprised it was a musical. Even worse than that the two main characters’ singing voices were dreadful! I know it is all the rage to have singers whose range is only slightly wider than Johnny One Note’s, but honestly I think people today must have a Tin Ear. When they were just being Anna and Elsa they had excellent voices and their acting was pretty good but their singing! Ouch!

I have had the great misfortune to listen to too many female [and male] so called singers since I was little and it seems to me the one thing they all lack is the ability to actually sing! From the Spice Girls onward [my earliest point of reference] they are all rubbish. I don’t know how any of them can listen to Katherine Jenkins sing something from any opera and then have the bloody gall to take money from people for their god awful caterwauling! I whispered this to Mum at several points in the film and she just told me to “Shut up and watch the film!”

I thought the bit where Anna sacrifices herself for Elsa was very touching but it was a bit obvious, to these cynical eyes, this was going to break the spell and it would all come right. Angela, Peter and Stephen loved it. In fact I think we all expressed a similar sentiment. I think it is about time we had some more heroines in films that are feisty and tough and who don’t conform to a studio biased stereotype that doesn’t advance women’s cause at all. Merida in Brave was an even better example of female characters going against type. 

More please! I mean look at the Lion King? Why a story about a MALE lion, FFS? What is wrong with having strong women characters? All we have given out little girls for decades is a series of wimpy princesses. OK, some of us like to be a princess when we are five! Girls also need more than that too!

Mum decided we would eat out after the film so she buzzed around several places and got us all booked into the Horse and Jockey for a pub bite. I was a bit concerned as the pub, while having a reputation for good food, was also well known for being a bit grubby! Imagine my surprise to find it had been taken over, had a make-over and was spotless. Even a cleanliness freak like me couldn’t fault it at all. I imagine the prices have gone up with the new owners taking over but that’s only to be expected. We trooped in at 6.30 to be joined by Molly and Eric, another of Mum’s surprises. They were pretty shocked to see her. It must be a good 11 years since Mum and Dad separated and 9 since the divorce. The three of them sat down one end of the table and spent a large part of the meal catching up on old news. There is a lot to catch up on too.

We all went back to Dad’s after the pub and helped finish off more of his stock of last year’s wine. I mean the year before last year’s wine, don’t I? It is 2014 after all.

The dogs were keen on a longish last walk but they didn’t get one. As soon as the last one had performed I turned them round and marched them back again!

I felt quite bushed despite not having done much all day, so we retired relatively quickly after the dogs were bedded down for the night. Mum, Jane and Phil stayed up long after we’d fallen asleep, I imagine. It was a no nookie night, tonight.

Saturday 4^th January.

It might have been a no nookie night, wasn’t a no nookie morning! Good old Laura and that naughty little strap on!

I had just put the offending item in my bedside cupboard and Laura was having a shower when we had a mini home invasion as Angela came bursting into my room and did a flying leap on to the bed! [Never show kids fun things that you used to do as a child, they will copy you!] What the hell was she doing up and awake at 6.30? She wanted to know if it was true that there was a huge Cadbury’s shop in Carlisle. I had to tell her it was in Gretna, in Scotland. About 10 miles over the border. Armed with this information she bounded off the bed and I heard her do the kamikaze leap onto Dad’s bed down the corridor. I went and closed the door and heard Phil saying, “Well we aren’t going right now, young lady. It is far too early!”

As I was awake I got up and walked the dogs, joined by Angela who wanted to know about the Gretna Village outlet and what shops there were. I had to confess I was in the dark a bit about what shops it had as I have only ever been twice in my life! She has a whole heap of Christmas money which is obviously burning a hole in her pocket. I tried to interest her in the story of Gretna’s fame but even the thought of running away to get married held no attraction for our budding shopaholic.

We set off at about 9.30. Mum and Phil were gobsmacked by the western relief road round Carlisle. I guess I have got used to it driving up to Glasgow airport and over to Arran, too. It takes a good half an hour from any journey time that would have taken you through Carlisle.

The Outlet was smaller than I remembered but having the kids in tow meant we went into almost every shop, so it seemed much bigger. The Cadbury Shop was stuffed full of things which are bad for you, so I bought loads of it LOL. Actually I only bought some Bourneville as I quite like it, otherwise I find their milk chocolate rather too sweet for my taste. Angela was like a child in a sweet shop – which of course she is. Peter was more taken by the sports shops.

We had a Subway lunch which, I could tell, wasn’t as well received as a Macdonalds would have been. What sort of parents are Phil and Jane allowing their kids near such junk? I had thought the lack of a shop selling crap food was point in the places favour, I guess my brother has different priorities.

We did drive round to the Blacksmith’s and Angela told everyone that this was where I was going to run away to get married at! Kids!? You could tell the history of the place was wasted on the children altogether.

The consensus then was to drive back into Carlisle and have a walk round the shops there too. Once again 

parking proved a bit difficult with us eventually pitching up at the west viaduct car park. Strolling through the city with kids was as slow as it was at Gretna. Peter and Angela weren’t really impressed with the place, they kept comparing it to Leeds and saying things like Leeds has… and Leeds is… which I found quite annoying and a little obnoxious and also so like my brother’s approach to life to be worrying. God help them if they grew up like him!

Back home we had a huge dinner and then succumbed to playing on their video game thingy, which they’d brought with them!!

Even the games couldn’t hold the kids attention for very long, so we settled down to watch Brave, which I have on DVD and which I’d brought with me in my laptop bag. This divided opinion with Peter thinking it wasn’t right a girl should be the “hero” and Angela loving it! I had to set the PVR to record the first two episodes of The Bridge Series Two which attracted about as much interest as a cold rice pudding, even from Mother!

Laura and I had a long pillow talk about my nephew and niece and decided that although they were lovely in small doses we couldn’t imagine having one of our own all the time, forever. She had spotted that Peter was turning into a Philip clone. I assured her he’d grow out of it once he became a teenager [hopefully]. I am amazed at how differently my two siblings bring up their children and how different it makes them. Suze has an almost completely opposite way of bringing up her three than Phil and Jane, and as a consequence Annabelle, Jill and Jeff do seem a lot less materialistic and more interested in getting out and doing stuff than Angela and Peter. I hope number three doesn’t go down the same street at its older brother and sister. It is possible it won’t, look at me, for example, I am the exception which proves the rule!

Sunday January 5^th.

OMG. I have won $5000. Australia has whitewashed England 5-0 and I am now the proud owner of a 

winning betting slip. We Skyped Suze and Pete this morning and had a long old gossip. It was sort of like a huge family reunion as Dad and Louisa came on and so did Phil and Jane. We ran into a second hour of chatting! We even persuaded Mum to come and chat which caused Dad’s colour to rise although that may just have been sunburn which we’d not noticed before.

I got the brunt of the disapprobation. How could I bet against my own team? What was I, a traitor? In my defence I did point out I was the holder of two passports [UK and Australian] and therefore was entitled to support both teams equally. Dad’s mock anger was quite funny. Pete was typically brash about it and said it proved I was a true Okker girl: look after number one regardless of the consequences.

I did say I would share some of it with them as a sort of commission but Suze, quite sensibly, said I was to use it to come over to Australia next summer / winter - with Laura too. That was my plan all along whether I had won the bet or not, but it was nice to get an official public invitation to go and stay again. We aren’t going to stay as long this time, only four and a half weeks instead of the eight and a half of last time. I promised I would take the girls whale watching again in Albany or Augusta. Laura just can’t wait for that either.

One thing that was a bit awkward was when Dad asked what the sleeping arrangements were in his house, so I explained that Phil and Jane were in his and Louisa’s room which seemed to pour oil on potentially troubled waters.

The family wandered off after a while leaving me and Laura with Annabelle and Jill. They have got to know each other over the internet quite well in the months since she moved in with me and they seem to treat her like another Crazy British Auntie. We had a giggle about Uncle Phil still being a boring old fart and how Jane didn’t seem to be showing very much. She is in real life but I guess the screen is pretty tiny to see her bump properly. They still think Peter is a copy of Phil which I find hilarious and they sneaked the information that the Aged Parent really was furious when he learned that Helen [Mum] had come back to stay in what was their old home, he wasn’t pretending. That did surprise me. I thought he would be cool with the idea.

I was bursting to ask Jill a very specific question but she and Annabelle stayed on the screen together for the rest of our time, so I wasn’t able to. I will just have to e-mail her about it instead. I am hoping the answer will be no!

The weather was fine and clear again first thing so after breakfast we decided to head for Whinlatter. If the weather held we’d go up Lord’s Seat, if not we’d stay in the forest and just do the Seat How circuit. Either way a cuppa and a cake at Siskins café were very much on the agenda!

Driving down to Whinlatter, via Cockermouth, you could see there was a fairly hefty covering of snow on the top of Grizedale Pike and Hobcarton Crag. It descended to cover all of the Whiteside ridge and even Ladyside Pike too. Lord’s Seat seemed to have a dusting on its north western face but otherwise the Whinlatter peaks were too low to have been affected. When we got there, however, there was a slight precipitation [drizzle], so we decided to do two trails, the Squirrel one and then the Orienteering Course A. 

The squirrel one was a doddle and over in about half an hour. The Orienteering course was a bit more of a challenge to two youngsters and an expectant Mum, so once we’d got to the view point with the semicircle of semi-circular logs we dispatched the Mum to be and the future Gran back down to the café while we rufty tufty types went on to complete the course.

Although it is only 1.8 kilometres, it is a bugger in places as the orienteering posts aren’t easy to find. I was able to show Peter how to read the map and what to look out for between each post and he found the last three through a mixture of determination and applying what Aunt Vicky had told him. By the time of the last post Laura was holding on to Angela’s hand as she looked about whacked [that’s Angela, not Laura, BTW].  As soon as we said we were heading down to the café and some cake she immediately perked up and almost dragged Laura along the forest track to Siskins.

There was enough room at the table Mum and Jane had commandeered for us all to get around and we all had hot drinks and a cake. I had drinking chocolate and hot chocolate fudge cake with ice cream. The rest of them seemed to be trying to eat their way through the cake menu!

After Whinlatter we zoomed back to Dad’s and Phil started to pack their car. They had decided to leave in plenty of time to get back to Horsforth in daylight. Mum was going to drive down to Sheffield straight away rather than hang about in Leeds for the night. So at 2.30 the family departed leaving Dad’s house much quieter and a great deal messier than it had been before.

I hove to with the vacuum cleaner, polish and dusters - starting to tidy up everywhere. Laura stripped the beds and set the first of three loads of washing going. It took us until about 5 before the place was as spotless as it had been before they all arrived. It was quite uncanny to be in a place that was so quiet having been filled with bustle, activity and noise for the last few days. It sort of reminded me what it used to be like here when I was a little girl and Suze and Phil were at home.

We sat down in a tidy, clean and quiet lounge and just stared at each other for a few moments, “It was lovely while they were here, but it is so much nicer now they’ve gone…” I remarked.

“It was like being at home when I was little,” said Laura, echoing almost exactly what I had been thinking. I held out my arms and she came and hugged me on the sofa. We sprawled across it and had a serious kiss and cuddle, which progressed slowly and inevitably to our hiding fingers inside each other’s important little place. “Mmmm…. We certainly couldn’t have done this when they were here!” she giggled.

We needed a shower after all our efforts, which wasn’t a bad thing either because we shared that too!

Before the 2^nd episode of Sherlock we watched the recording I’d made of the first one. I don’t know if I am being cynical but it seemed to me like there was no real story to it all. They messed with our heads about how he’d done the fake death thing but otherwise the whole thing seems a bit anal and self-satisfied. The bomb under Parliament was a bit tame and the idea of an “off-switch” was just a cop-out extraordinaire!

Luckily the second episode was slightly better, but I think it doesn’t have the “edge” that the first two series had. I’ll bet any money on the recording we made of The Bridge being far better than these two smug little efforts. I just love the Saga Noren character, she is so original.

The dogs weren’t keen on a long last walk again, so I turned round as soon as the last one had performed once again. If we keep on at this rate we’ll hardly have left the village at all on their walks. OK, it was chucking it down and they don’t like getting wet! What a set of wussy dogs!

New Year's Party eye-full. More weather!

Monday 30^th December.

We decided not to go to the party in Lancaster after all. I suppose the grotty rain and wind decided it for us really. Better to be snug indoors at home than venture out and risk being blown into the New Year. There was also the fact that we’d know hardly anyone there, too.

OMG. I don’t believe it! I have just won $1250 from a bet made in the summer in Australia. I made a bet, at 100-1, that Australia would win the Ashes Series 5 – 0. They also offered a quarter odds for a 4-0 [or 4 – 1] series win. The time has now come to mention that I have made this bet to my brother-in-law. I left the betting slip with Annabelle, but being only 12 she will have to give it to her Mum or Dad to collect the winnings. He will tease me ad infinitum. If they go on to make it a 5 – 0 victory, I will get a cool $5,000. I don’t mind being teased for that amount of money.

There is worse to come… Dad & Louisa are out there. If I win the full amount I may get murdered when they get back! If Pete will think it funny that I bet against my own side; Dad will be seriously not amused. He will ‘out Victoria’ his Victoria, if you see what I mean. If this blog suddenly stops at the end of January you’ll know what’s happened!

The weird Cumbrian weather continues. Dad’s max / min thermometer recorded a high yesterday of 11 degrees Celsius, its overnight low was 5.5 degrees. That is so un-seasonally mild. It rained almost all this morning until about 11am. Eventually I bit the bullet and went into Maryport. I walked the dogs along the prom in the weather break while Laura went to visit her Mum and Dad. Just as the woofies and I got back to Dad’s the heavens opened again!

Laura came back full of excitement. She had a message from a couple of her old school friends waiting for her at her Mum’s [Mary-Ann and Tina]. They wondered if she wanted to head out with them on New Year’s Eve for a swift drink before going to Sue and Iain’s party. She had phoned form her Mum’s and accepted, so it looks like we’ll be out whooping it up on the 31^st after all. The rain was pelting down so heavily at dog last walk time they only wanted to go onto the back garden to perform. It is sometimes OK to let the dog make the choice.

Laura asked if would be happy with her decision about the pub and party, and I agreed it sounded as though it could be fun. The plan is: we’ll get dropped off at the Ship Inn at Allonby at about 9. Stay there until about 10.15 when there will be a minibus coming along to pick a handful of people to go to Sue and Iain’s – there will be room for us on the minibus. We can either get a taxi or cadge a lift from Crosby to Tallentire after the party so we won’t abandon the dogs all night.

Mary-Ann is one of the few friends Laura has kept in touch with after school. She left at the end of the sixth-form and went to work in a bank. She knows Laura’s sexual orientation and is fine with it. She doesn’t know about the older predatory girlfriend she has found for herself. [OK, I may be exaggerating about the predatory nature but I used to feel a bit of cradle snatcher at first, with her being so much younger than me.] Tina is a friend of Mary-Ann’s from the bank.

We spent a lot of the time before the final dog walk and charp hitting deciding what to wear. If it stays as mild as it has been we have decided on a pair of dresses that are so skimpy you could make one decent dress between them. We are going to pretend we are Cockermouth High School Girls on a Friday night in town! LOL

Tuseday 31^st December.

More rain again this morning, but it stopped by 10am so I whizzed into Cockermouth to get some fresh milk and bread, which I had forgotten the other day. I ran into Sue at supermarket and she asked me if I was accepting Dad’s invitation to her party as he and Louisa were in Australia. I told her we’d be there about 10.30 having been somewhere else first. She was packing the kids off to their Gran’s for the night and was going to walk them on the beach as consolation if I fancied joining them. 

The weather had changed so dramatically in such a short time. There was now a clear sky overhead with bright sunshine. I called Laura and got her to put the dogs in Dad’s Land Rover as we were going to the beach at Allonby. She put my wellies and coat in too. At Dad’s I merely jumped out of the Cee’d into the Laura driven Land Rover, we then stopped at Sue’s to pick up the urchins. Because the wind was blowing up the Solway we parked up near Bank End Nursery and walked south, into the wind, along the beach as far as Dub Mill.

The wind was very strong, but quite mild and not cold at all. The kids loved running through the streams that ran from the sand dunes to the sea and the dogs went silly with the wind in their ears. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky above us or over the Solway. Away in the distance Skiddaw had a heavy covering of clouds and what looked like snow down its north western flank. The rest of the fells were under cloud too.

On turning round the benefit of walking into the wind first was apparent as the difference in temperature and buffeting was amazing. We walked back along the coastal path rather than the beach and in places it was so sheltered, even though it was only metres from the exposed beach, the temperature seemed to be much higher. As an extra bribe for going to their Gran’s the kids were treated to a drink and a treat while we had a cuppa and a bun in the Nursery’s tea room.

As Lollster manoeuvred us and dogs home, I began to musing about the Romans out here all those centuries ago. I would really have hated being a Legionary stationed out on this windswept coast. It must have been one of the most hated postings in the Empire. As if to show we were blessed by the gods of Rome, as we drove to Dad’s the skies clouded over and it began to rain again!

Back at the ranch the driving rain and wind made me question the wisdom of being dressed so skimpily for the party. In the interests of common decency and sobriety [and to keep my important little place warm] I decided to wear leggings with the dress and make it look like a tunic instead. I know; I am a wuss.

After tea Molly drove us down to Mary-Ann’s house, where we met her folks and siblings. I was merely introduced as Laura’s friend, but it seems they had heard of Dad and knew I was his daughter, so that gave us a fair bit to talk about; especially his marriage, last summer, to Louisa. I hadn’t realised that people gossiped so much about people they didn’t really know. We discussed what we were doing with our lives and the usual ‘break the ice’ and ‘get to know you’ type of thing. Mary-Ann, for example, is hoping to be a manager of a bank one day and have a family with two or three children. I hope it stays fine for her!  As there is not even a prospective Mrs Bank Manager’s husband on the horizon yet, she may find her dreams have to be scaled back a little.

At 9, Mary-Ann’s mum drove us from Aspatria down to Allonby and we hit the pub. It was busier than I had expected and M-A seemed quite well known to a fair number of people. There were a lot of introductions made but I am afraid almost all the names went in one ear and out of the other. Three youngish girls and a demi-spinster [me] seemed to attract a fair bit of attention from the would-be Romeos of the parish, however. We got offered drinks and had guys come over and attempt conversation for almost all of the time we were there. Mary-Ann and Tina seemed to see nothing wrong in accepting the drinks proffered but I declined after a while, saying that I still had one. Laura kept up with her school chums at first but she, too, started declining the offers.

We migrated to the part of the pub where the others who were going to Sue and Ian’s were ensconced and room was made for us to join them. These were people more of the age of Sue and Iain and we were able to hold a more intelligent conversation than we were getting at the bar. When I told someone who asked that I was a Research Assistant they actually asked, “At which University?” rather than an incredulous, “What’s that, then?”

The 10 of us left when the mini-bus appeared just before 10.15, spilling us out at Sue and Iain’s a little under ten minutes later. I have been here before when I was much younger but all I remember of it was the view down the hillside to Allonby and the Solway Firth beyond, all of it even closer than it is from Dad’s. By now the rain had eased off and the sky was clearing again to show Orion to the south. Across the water the lights of the Southerness coast were clearly visible from what must have been Dundrennan in the west, all the way to Carsethorn. They were twinkling away invitingly but when I mentioned the names of the places we could see I got the usual, “What? We’ve never been round there!”

The house is fairly large but it was packed with people. Sue took our coats and hid them somewhere then pointed us to the utility room where the booze was amassed. There were tins and bottles in abandoned chaos on the work surfaces and S & I had even bought a barrel of beer from Yates’ Brewery at West Newton. This seemed to be the most popular drink amongst the majority who had just arrived, I headed for the white wine selection and found some Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc which was very palatable. Laura had some Gallo Rose.

We then mingled, and mingled and mingled. By 11.15 I had lost Laura somewhere in the many rooms, although this was an agreed strategy, we planned to get back to the utility room at just before midnight. I met all sorts of people, some I knew; some I didn’t. Some of them were very interesting; some were totally boring old farts. I had to avoid two guys with mistletoe [not at the same time] who were very determined to snog anything that looked female!

Just before the witching hour I went off and found Laura who was having to fend off one of the mistletoe guys as I approached. I grabbed his shoulder and twirled him round. This surprised him quite a bit. I told him she didn’t want his attentions and to clear off. He sneered, “Oh yeah. Let her tell me that…”

Laura said, “I’ll do better than tell you, I’ll show you.” She snatched his mistletoe held it over my head and we kissed for a good minute or so.  “So, now just piss off!” Tina happened to be getting herself a refill at the time and had witnessed our display of affection open mouthed. She came across to us, definitely the worse for drink, and asked the inevitable, “Did I see you two guys kissing just now?”

“Erm… Yes.”

“Why?”

“She’s my Girlfriend. We live together. Have done since September.”

“Does Mary-Ann know?”

“Of course.”

“Oh. Cool!”

With that she wandered off to the living room where the throng was assembled for the counting down of the seconds to midnight by watching it happen on the TV. We counted down from ten then all gave a huge cheer and wished as many people as we could a Happy New Year. When the TV began playing Auld Lang Syne we all joined hands in a really wonky circle, that went out into the hall and back through the dining room, and accompanied the TV singing with our own, less tuneful, version of Burns’ ditty. There then followed a few minutes of mass kissing and hand shaking and hugging until Sue announced the fireworks were about to be lit.

As the hordes trooped outside to where the fireworks were being lit, I caught up with Sue and asked where our coats were, she told me they were in the front right and bedroom. I went into find them and was startled to see the backside of a guy moving rhythmically in a pumping motion towards the proffered rear of a woman who was bent over in front of him, holding on to the dressing table. I could see both of their faces looking startled at me in the mirror and they both craned round to witness my retreating form waving our coats aloft in one hand and calling, “Sorry! Just getting our coats for the firework display. Sorry!”

I reflected that maybe Mary-Ann had just found her future Mrs Bank Manager’s husband.

I decided not to tell Laura about her friend getting a swift bit of doggy.

The fireworks were a wow. They had several of those multiple shot display types and masses and masses of rockets. Each guest was given a packet of sparklers and we [well I did, anyway] felt like little children again for a while. I thought the rockets were the best things, they had nearly fifty altogether and we spent an age firing them off into the 2014 sky.

Back inside I swapped the Savignon Blanc for several glasses of hot mulled wine. It was delicious. I somehow got put in charge of the tureen on the cooker and kept having to refill it with fresh wine, then another sachet of Mulled Wine Spices and more chopped fruit. I actually enjoyed doing this so much I surprised myself. When M-A came to get a glass she said, “Please don’t tell Laura, will you?”

“Tell her what?” That was me in diplomatic mode, BTW.

“Oh, right… Thanks.” And she was gone. Maybe to get some more doggy with another guy, who knows?

As happens at these things, a large proportion of the guests vanished about 1pm and a small nucleus squeezed ourselves into the living room furniture as best we could. M-A had vanished [and Tina, too] although the guy who had been vigorously hiding his sausage inside her was still there but with another woman sat on his lap! I had been hoping to sit snuggled up with Laura but I ended up stuck between Sue and Gilbert, three of us on a sofa designed for two! I think Gilbert must have washed himself in his aftershave, or deodorant or whatever it was. The smell was really over powering.

Sue asked me if Loll and I wanted to crash in one of the kids rooms for the night but I explained we couldn’t abandon the dogs for the whole evening, who knew what kind of mess we would get back to find? She asked how we were getting back to Dad’s and I had to admit I didn’t have a clue. She thought this was very funny but then heaved herself off the sofa and, almost crushing my knee in the process as she used it as a levering point, said, “Don’t go away. I will sort you out a Pumpkin and four mice!”

I took the opportunity to slide further from the pungent Gilbert into Sue’s place on the sofa and almost had my mulled wine sent flying from my hand as Laura plonked herself down on my lap. We had a swift snog, which may have lasted a few days, and then she whispered “You see the guy with the woman in that hideous green dress on his knee?” I nodded. “Well, I found him coming out of the cupboard next to the by the toilet followed by a different woman.”

“Bloody hell. What did you do? What did they do?”

“I was so embarrassed, I said I was looking for the toilet. He sort of leered and said, ‘Well so we were but we found the vacuum cleaner, mops and dusters instead.”

“Did you say anything?”

“I didn’t. I closed the door of the toilet. When I got out they’d gone. It definitely wasn’t the woman in the green dress.”

We didn’t have time to conjecture on who the woman was when Sue reappeared telling us that Esther and Paul were just about to go home to Bridekirk if we wanted a lift. We accepted with alacrity and within a few minutes were being rushed through the West Cumbrian countryside by another pair of strangers. They seemed nice enough and, of course, they knew Dad and who I was even though I had never actually met them. [This happens to me a lot, with Dad.]

The pups were ecstatic to see us again and I just slipped on my walking boots to take them for their walk up the hill. I must have looked really comical to anyone who saw me. I guess at 2.30 am there wasn’t much chance of that.

In bed we Laura and snuggled up and chatted about the party. I debated to tell her what I’d seen but decided discretion was the best course of action. We gave each other our first Os of the New Year before finally pushing the zeds at about 3.30.

Wednesday January 1^st 2014.

A few years ago I would have gone through my cheque book writing the new year number onto the date section. How things have changed, eh?

Fucking Yahoo answers have suspended my account again. The bastards! I put a quote from a Monty Python sketch as one of my answers and even cited the source in the name your source box and the fucking bastards said it was “violence and hate speech”! You bloody arseholes; it was Series One, Episode Two of Monty Python’s Flying Circus you cretins! I am seriously thinking of not using Y!A any more. What a set of c*nts they are!

Speaking of which…. No, that is rude… Had the New Year’s long Skype with Australia this morning [UK time] and Peter had found out from Annabelle that I had won $1250 by betting against England! Oh, bloody hell. He gave me so much grief. It was quite funny actually. I claimed I was simply an excellent sports pundit and knew that England’s Hubris would lead to their down fall. Dad was disappointed in me [he claimed] but could see that I had a point. I just hope that they lose 5-0 and that will cover almost two Business Class flights to Australia this coming summer. The final test in Sydney doesn’t start until tomorrow [UK time] but I wouldn’t be surprised if England stuff it up big time again. Friday morning’s look at Cricinfo will be revealing.

We had a stroll round the local villages today with the dogs rather than drive off anywhere as the weather was predicted to be grotty. We took them down the bridlepath to Gilcrux and then back up the road / track that leads to Tallentire Hill, from there we strolled into Bridekirk and then back to Dad’s. It was surprisingly longer than I expected. I will have to take Dad’s Land Rover round the route to check the mileage. Actually I am an idiot, I could just measure it on my Ordnance Survey map, couldn’t I? The rain held off until he very last bit where we rejoined the road that leads from the village to Cockermouth. It started to drizzle and by the time we had arrived back at Dad’s it was as though someone in the clouds was just emptying vast buckets of water on us!

This wetness continued for the rest of the day. So we did the usual trick of bank up Dad’s wood burner and just chill out. Loll got a phone call from Mary-Ann to find out what happened to us at the party and they gossiped for hours it seemed. M-A had zoomed off just after the fireworks display, it turns out. She didn’t explain why.

I called Mum and got her answer machine, so I phoned her mobile and got her answer machine again. So I phoned Phil and Jane and she was there. I should have guessed. They’d had a fairly quiet New Year and were doing the same as us – dodging the dreadful weather. Phil asked if I thought Dad would mind if they came up for the weekend and spent the last few days of their holiday at Dad’s, with us. I thought it was a great idea. They are coming up tomorrow morning sometime; which will be fun. Even better, they have persuaded Mum to bite the bullet and come and stay too. After all it used to be hers and Dad’s house until the divorce, and with Dad away I can’t see a problem with the idea.

Thursday January 2^nd.

Arriving in the morning were Phil’s words yesterday. They were here by 9.30!

They must have been up in the dark. [Angela moaned that they were and she was still asleep really.]

After a second breakfast for them and a first one for Laura and me, we sorted out rooms. Phil and Jane had Dad and Louisa’s. Mum had Suze’s old room, Peter had Phil’s old room and Anglea the guest room. She did want to sleep with Laura and me on the daybed in my room but we were able to convince her that we were very noisy sleepers; we both snored like chain saws, and she decided the guest room might be better. [We don’t snore, BTW.]

After sorting out rooms we went out into the fells. I took them up Vicki’s Fell. There was a window in the weather it seemed. It had been clear and dry since dawn so we took a chance. The view from the top of My Fell showed that clouds were heaped up south of Great Bourne looking ready to sweep in and give us a drenching, so we didn’t hang about too long.

On the stroll down Angela came up to me and slipped her gloved hand in mine and we chatted about Christmas and her presents; about what they’d been doing since I last saw them and the like. She stunned me by saying, “I wouldn’t have stopped you and Laura kissing if I’d slept in your bedroom!”  WTF? She is 7. Where the hell did she get this from? I asked her what had made her say that and she told me that Peter had said we had “nookie” together. Luckily, she assumed nookie meant kissing. Peter needs a good slapping. Fancy telling a seven year old about stuff like that? Even if she has got hold of the wrong end of the stick, it doesn’t seem right some how. Even more worrying I guess is how does an 11 year old boy know about stuff like that too? I guess he must be searching for internet porn or something?

At the car I told Laura about our permission to have nookie and she thought it was a hoot. Apparently she and her sisters used to tease their brother, Stephen, about things sexual quite a bit when he was younger. I am obviously a Nun in disguise, as I found this a little bit worrying. I kept my gob shut though.

I had phoned through to the Kirkstile Inn to book us a table for our lunch and as we drove there, from Lanthwaite Wood NT Car park, I was able to leave the dogs in the back of the car to dry off rather than take them into the pub. Lunch was delightful and even more so when Philip paid! Rah rah rah. The downside was the pub ended up being packed with bloody southerners. They have these loud, snobby voices and have horrible children with names like Algernon and Estella. They wear “designer” outdoor gear that looks lovely but on the fells would be as useful as a chocolate teapot. In fact the nearest most of them have been to a fell top is driving round the bottom of one in their crappy Lexus 4x4s which are worse than useless as an off roader.

I don’t mean to sound bitter but these types claim to love the fells but never climb one! I have no time for hypocrites.

Back home we played games with the kids all afternoon and watched aghast as the weather broke down again! At one point we had a hailstorm for a few minutes! Because we had arranged their visit yesterday I had cooked an old family favourite for our tea – meat and potato pie with a suet crust top followed by home-made Lemon Meringue pie. The latter was one of mine but it was one I had made much earlier and frozen for Dad, luckily for us he hadn’t got round to eating it!

Sadly, after the meal, the TV got switched on, for the first time in days and we watched the usual drivel instead of talking to each other. I won’t get started on why I hate TV I promise.

The kids had an early(ish) night and we ‘grown ups’ sat around for a while, finishing off the 2^nd Rioja we’d opened with our tea!

Mum came with me on the dog walk, she was still a bit concerned about being here at all. I did my best to assure her it would be alright. I reminded her of something she’d once told me, which has ruled a lot of my subsequent behaviour: “It is easier to ask forgiveness afterwards, than to ask for permission before!” She was gobsmacked that she had ever said any such thing; I had to reassure her that those were her very words. She tried to convince me they were my father’s words not hers. I was able to remind her she had said them after I had tried to paint my ceiling dark blue so I could stick my glow stars onto a proper background to show the constellations properly. I had got paint everywhere! [Mainly on me!]

After some nookie with Laura, I slept the sleep of the righteous.