The end of the world is nigh.

Well, maybe not for a few trillion, trillion, trillion years or so, according to the lovely Prof Cox, but it's on its way.  Kind of makes you wonder why you bother when we'll all eventually end up as atoms in some sort of entropy driven sea.  Maybe RBS will have replied to my fax on their "Emergency Completion Line" by then.  It's possible I suppose...

View from top of Ingleborough

So, house move dramas aside, what have we been up to for the past week or so?  Doing our best to explore our surroundings and making the most of the gorgeous weather, that's what.  On the W/E of 26/ 27 Feb we pootled around locally on the Saturday before hiking our way up Ingleborough on the Sunday.  Whilst the weather was good for hiking, no rain and not too much sun, the wind on the top was like nothing I've ever experienced before - I could genuinely lean into it.  Steve nearly lost a glove when the wind whipped it out of his hand but luckily he managed to sprint after it and pounced just in time.  It's a good job I'd had a hearty lunch else I could have been blown clean away.  And just to be sure for next time I had a hearty dinner too.

Work has regularly been taking me to pastures new and this week I found myself in Skelmersdale.  I have no wish to be disrespectful to the good folk of Skelmersdale so I'll just say it looks like a very practical town and has a nice co-op.  If you ever go there though don't plan on having a nice picnic lunch on a local park bench - they removed them all such was their popularity with the local youths.  Nice to know the young folk like to get out and about in the evenings.

This weekend we have tried to distract ourselves and on Saturday this resulted in a bit of an epic (for us) hike.  We set off with me in charge of the map - not that I ever get us lost, more that I have a hugely optimistic idea of how close together places are.  12 miles and about 5 hours later we staggered back to the site, but we'd had a fabulous time and even found some fairy steps.  Rumour has it that if you can climb the Fairy Steps without touching the sides you'll see a fairy.  Let me tell you the only person likely to be able to climb those steps without touching the sides would be Kiera Knightly, if she'd gone on a crash diet and held her breath the entire way up, at which point the halucinations she'll be more than likely experiencing will probably include fairies.  I was begining to regret my hearty meals from the previous weekend...

The Pepperpot

Which brings us to yesterday and another glorious day.  Steve had, rather sensibly, confiscated my map so we toddled around Silverdale and spent a lovely hour or so up near the Pepperpot  which was built in honour of Queen Victoria, though I've no idea how a 20 foot high pepperpot connects to our longest reigning monarch.  We passed the time  admiring the fantastic views down over the Kent Estuary to the Lake District and across Morecambe Bay to, well, Morecambe.  Later on, having enjoyed a lovely, if rather nippy, barbeque, we decided to head back to the Pepperpot to watch the sunset, equipped with a flask of tea and a packet of Jaffa cakes.  The sunset was as gorgeous as ever so we hung around for another hour or so to watch the International Space Station go over.  We passed the time by practising our owl calls in an attempt to attract owls.  We failed.  How come assoirted members of the Famous Five, Secret Seven and Swallows & Amazons have no problems with this?  The best I managed was a rather pervy sounding wolf whistle which, if anyone else had heard it, could have given them entirely the wrong idea about our intentions on top of a lonely hill after dark.

And that's us all up to date again.  The waiting continues and, with fewer than 4 weeks remaining on the site, our focus is sharpening by the second.  We're still convinced we want to stay up here and we know it won't be as smooth sailing as we'd hoped - certainly not for the first couple of years anyway - but we'll make it, and I'm sure we'll have some great stories to tell.  Most of them involving really cheap nights out and frugal weekends away...