Happy New Year 2010

This is a view from Latrigg on the way down towards Spooney Green Lane on Christmas Day. It was very icy and we passed a man with an ankle injury whose friends were giving a 6 digit map reference to the girl at the ambulance hq with little success. We said just tell her its Spooney Green Lane and they will understand and do you know 2 minutes later the ambulance was turning into the lane and coming up it. What a superb response, so I just want to end this year by saying thank you to all those people in the armed services, the police, ambulance, mountain rescue, fire brigade, doctors, nurses all of you and all of you I have forgotton to add. You know who you are - thank you for making our lives safer.

Lastly, I want to say a special thanks to all our many fans for coming on the walks in 2009 and I hope to see you again in 2010. If you are already here then please be safe on the hills at the moment you should not venture out without crampons and certainly take an ice axe if you are doing anything like Halls Fell on Blencathra which Pete, Bella and I did on Monday. Sorry no photos coz we forgot the camera but not the essentials mentioned.

Have a very Happy New Year and good health, peace and prosperity to all of you.

Have a good one.

It is getting late on Christmas Eve and we are going out for a quick drink, then a Carol sing in the Market Square. So it only remains to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Its snowing

Well it was a few minutes ago when I let Bella into the garden for a wee.  She shot down the bottom of the garden and fairly belted back in and her little nose was covered in fresh snow. We took her for a walk in it today and at one point she skidded on some ice and landed on her back! She was up again as quick as a flash though.

Today Pete took some photos of me doing my extreme sewing. We had racked our brains for somewhere to go to do this but a) had no spare time to go far and b) my sewing machine is new and heavy and I did not want to carry it far in a rucksack. In the end I sat up in bed and had sudden inspiration; this is the result.

Yes its our mountain tent and its pitched in the snow at NY 271 232 for any of you map reading buffs who want to find out where I was. The ground was so hard that the tent pegs were bashed in with a mallet.
So this is the photo I sent into the competition, I tried to encourage Pete and Bella to have their photo taken with the machine but it was hopeless. I thought of extreme sewing on the Keswick Launch but was afraid the machine might fall off into the lake....not good for them. So terra firma won my choice of locations. I did contemplate going off  and doing a hike with the machine in the rucksack but only for a few minutes before I came to my senses. Anyway, I have now to put up the christmas cards in the lounge, something I don't do until a fair few are in a pile, as only one or two look forlorn.

Those of you following the Radio Cumbria broadcasts can still hear Pete on the link to the right of the blog, but you will need to hurry as they will only be available for a few more days.

What did Bella do last week?

Heck, Bella and I were still decorating and I have not done the extreme thingy because I had no spare time. Now that the weather is better and I actually have my sewing machine sitting here next to me to remind me, we hope to go soon.  We had a busy week working on the house and other things like arranging to send our daughter's pressie off to California and that means I usually make her a surprise because I have always done it since she was a bairn. Phew, it was touch and go to finish it and get it to the post office in time for the last airmail date to the US.

Now to Rambles matters, we have at last decided on the between Christmas and New Year walks and they are as follows:-

Sunday 27th Dec  Blencathra Traverse with Pete, Bella and me at £12.50 per person.


Monday 28th Dec Grisedale Pike with Cathy Colam at £12.50 per person.


Wednesday 30th Dec  Dolly Wagon, Nethermost Pike and Hellvelyn with Pete, Bella and Lyn at £12.50 per person.

We will not be doing the usual waiting at the Moot Hall because we will need to arrange these walks more around sharing car transport, so the idea is that you contact us if you are interested.

BOOKING THESE WALKS
You can book by commenting on this blog, you can email us at the address on this blog or you can telephone us on 017687 71302.  Make sure you give your name, contact telephone number and how many would be coming on the walk. All bookings will be confirmed by us.

If you need more information don't hesitate to ask and lets hope the weather stays just like now, cool and crisp and even....................brightly shone the moon that night though the frost was cru   el...

Extreme ironing & Radio Cumbria Broadcast

I don't know who this guy is or where he is but he is doing extreme ironing. I found him on another blog I follow which has set up a challenge for what it calls 'extreme sewing'.  Now not only do I love walking but I also sew a lot..  So I have it in mind to accept this challenge. I just need to take my sewing machine somewhere extreme......and then take a shot and send it into the competition.

I will of course keep you all informed on this blog how I get on. But if you have any ideas, please let me know. However, I reserve the right to ignore all requests from you to put my sewing machine in too much danger.....

Those of you who do follow my other sewing blog will know that I was 'discovered' by a presenter on Radio Cumbria who asked me to do a 5 day blog to be broadcast on what is aptly named 'Little Cumbria'. It's like a snapshot of 3 people's lives for a week. Anyway, I took up that challenge too, the upshot is that next week starting on Monday until Friday, I am on the Ian Timms show at approx 5.45pm for a few minutes. I will put links to this blog for those of you who must listen to me.....

Of course Pete was also asked to do a blog spot.  His is very amusing and his will be broadcast the week after mine. So what do you make of that then? Your two friendly neighbourhood ML's blogging on the Radio. If you like what you hear you can text them and comment, I don't know the number but I am sure you can find out. So a brief moment of fame awaits us both......But don't expect us to wax lyrical about mountains because our brief was to describe our week and both of us have not been out on the fells for a while now. We are beginning to plan the extreme outing though.... I wonder if we can take a photo of Pete with a sewing machine? Or even better if we can persuade Bella.