New Year

We head up to the Lakes today and leave the snow behind as we do. There’s none of the white stuff beyond Stoke and in the Lakes it’s raining.

We have booked a cottage for three nights in the same settlement of Garnett Bridge in Longsleddale just a few miles north of Kendal.

In the evening we head to nearby Staveley although it still involves using the car along some great narrow roads. We have a drink the Duke William, which isn’t the most upmarket of pubs although they do allow the dogs in before moving to much more plush Eagle and Child. They would also have the dogs in but it’s a bit too busy to unleash our two tonight.

There’s no chance of getting food in the Eagle and Child, so we have another drink which is luckily Snecklifter before heading off with a four pint take out of said Snecklifter to find a takeaway to take back to the cottage. That isn’t an easy job either. We fancied a curry but could only find restaurants and no actual takeaways. The first restaurant we try is too busy to do us a take away but the second one, the Eastern Balti, does do us one.

We have a not so wild night at the cottage as we can’t get much reception on the TV so can’t even tune into our usual Jools Holland’s Hootenanny show. We end up in bed before midnight.

(Wednesday 31^st December)

Childhood Memories

It’s still icy so I drive to work again but with it currently being just a fifteen minute trip it means longer to linger in bed before I leave.

After work I head off to the match where Derby beat Leeds 2-0. My parents and I have a right problem finding anywhere for a post-match drink. Our usual haunt the Navigation in Thulston is shut, so we carry on to Shardlow where the Dog and Duck is also shut. We end up in Aston-on-Trent’s White Hart. A place I haven’t been in for years in the village of my childhood where my folks still live. I was barred from here once for being underage when I wasn’t... 

(Tuesday 30^th December)

Year-End Figures

Christmas is over and I’m back at work today. It’s a bit too cold and icy to bike, so I take the car to work. This takes a mere fifteen minutes rather than the usual one hour plus.

It’s nicely quiet at work, around half a dozen of us in but it’s well cold after being empty for four days. Even I turn my heat on.

L’s in work too, on her own. Her boss was put off joining her the moment she cough, cough, splutter, spluttered down the phone to him.

It’s so quiet at work I can take an extended lunch break to sort out my tax return. L also does her year-end figures e.g. weight, overdraft, alcohol units, books read...

My jaw hit the table at one of the numbers she quoted at me. 54 books! That’s more than one a week and more than I’ve probably read in my entire lifetime (slight exaggeration perhaps).

I swim after work, although I’m half convinced the pool won’t be open. L points out that I should have took my gym stuff, just in case but I haven’t. Unless they’ll let me workout in my speedos.

However the pool is open and it's so quiet. Even my Russian rival isn't there. If it was this quiet all the time I’d go every day. I meet L afterwards, whose been in the gym and I let her scrounge a lift home.

(Monday 29^th December)

Its Usual Self

We’ve had Daughter home for a week but it doesn’t really feel like it. Today we take her back to Manchester. Considering the fact she’s had way too many Christmas presents it would be impractical, although amusing, to send her back by train.

Oddly when we get past Stoke, there is no snow at all. Manchester is its usual dank and drizzling self. We go for a meal in the Woodstock Arms before turning round to do the return journey home.

(Sunday 28^th December)

Not Winning At Bingo Again

This morning L does the Beeston parkrun and manages it without ice skates. I’m not sure I could have done. Not that I can ice skate either. I drop her off and watch them start before I head off to the Aston on Trent village walk. L’s parkrun is on but all her Pilates classes are cancelled presumably do to the gorgeous seasonal weather. Why am I not surprised that the council has cancelled something indoors when everything outdoors is going ahead.

There is actually quite a lot of snow around and even on the main roads. The A52 is only clear in one lane. The village walk is another ‘tradition’, more for its opportunity to meet people who I haven’t seen since the previous year’s one than for the actual walk itself and its accompanying bingo game which is quite tedious.

L opts out and I don’t blame her but I get to touch base with an old school friend and more importantly his new dog. Our pair both participate and Doggo skips around the whole 4.4 miles, which I think he later regrets. It's all very pleasant in the sun and the snow. It’s so alpine it makes you want to get your skis out.

Naturally I don’t win anything at the bingo. I have done this walk most years for the last forty years and probably won something twice.

We meet my parents and my brother before heading off to the Dog and Duck for lunch. I have a Snecklifter and a sandwich that is bigger than most people’s meals.

In the evening, L and I head down to Canning Circus for a few beers, in the Falcon, the Borlase and the hand & Heart. 

(Saturday 27^th December)