50 Shades of Cumbria

I thought I'd give you a break from my inane ramblings for a day and instead turn this blog over to some of Steve's amazing pics.  So sit back, relax and enjoy 50 Shades of Cumbria - and only one of them's grey.

Alcock Tarn

Kent Estuary Sunset

Avocet at Leighton Moss

Barrow Dock Museum

Kewsick Mountain Festival

Blencathra

Blind Tarn Ghyll

Brocken Spectre on High Crag

Coniston Jetty

Crinkle Crags

Local Wildlife

Rainbow over Grasmere

Gummers How taken from Windermere.  Literally - in it.

Queen's Jubilee Beacon, Hampsfell

Haweswater & Harter Fell

Hikers Shelter, Helvellyn

Sun & snow on Heron Pike

Inside the Hoad

Skelgill Horse

Hampsfel Hospice

Local Woodwork, Hutton Roof Crags

Kent Estuary at Arnside

Kentmere 

Kestrel on Foulney Island

Spring lamb.

Levers Water

Garden spring in flood

Essential supplies.

Place Fell.

Rannerdale Bluebells

River Kent nr Kendal

Skelgill Bank

View from Sca Fell.

Three Tarns

Sedbergh Daisies

Skiddaw

Path from St Bees

Striding Edge

Hampsfell sunset

Thirlmere

Ullswater boathouse

View from Black Crag

View from Coniston Water

Walney Island

Wast Water

Moon over Wetherlam

Windermere Sunset

Winter Inversion

Winter Hiking

North Face of Yewbarrow

We don't need another cup holder.

Not the best view of Cumbria.

Question:  What do you do when you have family visiting on Bank Holiday Monday and the rain is blowing horizontally across the windows?  Answer:  You give it your best shot but end up spending most of the day peering through the misted up car windows at the blurry green hills in the distance.  Whilst it was fun, in its way, it made me realise how inadequately equipped for the traditional British Summer most cars are.  In the past I've come up with some ideas for outdoor clothing manufacturers, so now here are my ideas for the boffins who design our cars.

An utterly impractical picnic space.

1.  We require adequate space for a picnic, especially on the driver's side.  I mean c'mon, us Brits have been having picnics in our cars pretty much since the day cars were invented.  And before then we probably ate them in stage coaches while the rain soaked the horses outside.  You know the routine; drive to a suitably picturesque spot and then contort yourself as you try to juggle sandwiches, crisps and a flask of hot(ish) tea in a ridiculously confined space.  Cup holders are utterly inadequate in these situations, what we need is airline style fold down trays in every seat and a detachable multi-function steering wheel which, when flipped, doubles as a serving platter. And no more sloping dashboards, they may look attractive but they are utterly impractical for the serving of sarnies.

2.  A high tech, heads up windscreen display.  This could be plugged into a smart phone so that, when parked in your soggy spot of choice, your position can be determined by GPRS and your windscreen can then download a picture of the view which you ought to be able to see if only there wasn't a monsoon in progress.  Maybe birdsong could be played to drown out the sound of the rain thundering into the roof of the car to make the effect complete.

Lemme out!

3.  A door to roof awning.  The awning could be stored in the roof lining and on wet days a simple switch at the top of the door would attach it, so that when the door swings open it unfolds to provide a small dry area just big enough for you to clamber in and out of your walking boots.  Having seats that can revolve through 90 degrees would also help a lot.  To complete the effect boot brushes could also be stored in the bottom of the doors and flipped down when required to get rid of the worst of the mud.

4.  All car boots MUST be easily accessible from inside the car.  This should be a legal requirement.  Just look at the picture above; with a car full of four people the only room for picnic stuff is in the boot, and that means some mug has to brave the horizontal deluge and stand knee deep in a puddle, which is inevitably in the exact spot you need to stand, in order to get to the goodies.  Madness.

A "perfectly good road" according to my Father-in-Law.
I beg to differ.

5.  All cars should come equipped with 4 sets of cushioned gloves.  These are to be worn whenever you attempt to clamber in, or out, of waterproofs inside the car.  Granted, they'll make the fiddly stuff a little more tricky, but there will be far fewer personal injuries caused by shooting your arm down the sleeve and accidentally concussing your fellow passengers with a deft upper cut to the jaw.  Or perhaps boxing style head projectors would do the job just as well.  Whatever, some additional protection is clearly required.

6.  Never mind parking sensors, we need puddle depth detectors for bumpy tracks to hidden away car parks.  How deep are the puddles in the photograph?  And how am I supposed to find out without grounding out either the exhaust or the door sills?  Following the tracks of a previous car may be of some use, but not if that was a 4x4 and you're in a clapped out Ford Focus.  Some sort of sonar device should do the job nicely.

Maybe some forward thinking manufacturers have already included some of these in their designs, if so, please let me know as we're going to be getting a new (well, second hand) car in the next few months.  I'm also pretty sure there are many other things I've missed, so do feel free to add your suggestions below.  In the meantime I'm off to have my lunch now, sat outside in the sunshine, just to prove it doesn't always rain up here.

My Life in Quotes (and the start of Part 2)

I'm the one with the 1980's bouffant hair. Jim's the cool
one in the sunglasses.  The photo was taken in a basement.

Jim, a good friend of mine, has a dislike of inspirational quotes which has inspired me to write this blog.  When I say good friend I mean one of those people you were great mates with at Uni, swore you'd never lose contact with, lost contact with, regained contact with and then lost it again before Facebook meant there was no longer any excuse (or escape) from remaining in contact.  Either way we've sort of known each other for around 25 years now, and that makes me feel very old indeed.  And anyway, he doesn't dislike them all, just most of them.  The only one you'll catch him quoting is Samuel Beckett: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No Matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."  Not bad, but I need more choice.

"Don't Worry, Be Happy" (Bob Marley)

So help me if I hear one more person complain about the weather.  I've never really been one to whinge and complain about things I can't change. I try to stick to a simple philosophy; if I can't do anything about it then  worrying about it is pointless and if I can do something about it then it's time I got off my backside.  That's how we ended up up here living this amazing, if everso slightly crazy, life.  I think Mr Marley oversimplified it somewhat with the implication that if you're worrying then you can't be happy.  Or maybe I'm over thinking things.  My love of words makes me do that sometimes.  Either way you can still have worries and be happy.  And I'm betting you're going to have that tune stuck in your head all day now.  Sorry.

"Whether your believe you can or you can't, you'll probably be right."  Henry Ford

Wintery caravan site from the top
of Arnside Knott

In the past week I've had 3 different (and entirely unrelated people) say they wish they were me, or had my life.  Well, we didn't get here by wishing for it.  We convinced ourselves we could do it and we did it.  Last night me & Steve were recalling some of the conversations we had with people before we headed up here in Delores and many of them went like this:

"So, you're moving north.  Do you have a house up there then?"
"No."
"Oh.  Have you sold your house down here?"
"No."
"Oh.  So what will you be living in?"
"Delores"
"Delores?"
"Yes"
"You do know it's January don't you?"
"Yes"
"How long do you plan on living in her?"
"Well we get kicked off the campsite in 3 months."
"So you'll have a house sorted by then?"
"Hope so."

Looking back it's no wonder they thought we were slightly mad, but we believed we could do it, so we did it. (Note for R Kelly fans: Not all quotes about beliefs should be taken literally.)

"Life is a Journey, Not a destination." Ralph Waldo Emerson

There's always time for daisies.

Some quotes are so overused they're in danger of becoming cheesy, and this is one of them.  But it's a great quote.  It's important to chase dreams so long as you're also happy with the here and now and not one of the "I'll be happy when..." brigade.  We've come a long way and it's not all been fun but we've tried to see the bright side of everything and I like to think we've succeeded. Mostly.

It's also a useful quote to remember next time you're racing from A to B.  I was working in Burnley again this week and mentioned to someone that I preferred to take the pretty way home and stop off for a picnic along the way.  They were amazed that I didn't just steam back along the motorway.  The whole world is in such a hurry.  Take the pretty route sometimes - it gives you more time to think.  Although Steve might argue that's a dangerous thing in my case.

"Feel the fear & do it anyway." Susan Jeffers

My favourite campsite from our
Great North Adventure

I'll be honest, I've never read her book, but the title is enough for me.  In my professional life I run assertiveness workshops and often hear people say that confident people don't feel nervous.  WRONG.  Remember End of Part One?  Well part two has just begun and I'm more than a little nervous.

On 16th November I will be leaving my perfectly good job to become completely self employed.  Our plan goes something like this:  I'll work a few days a month as a freelance Learning & Development Consultant (website here) and I'll also try and make some extra cash from writing.  When I'm not doing either of those things me & Steve will be working on some business ideas we have related to photography and the outdoors, giving us a legitimate business need to head off in Delores at every available opportunity and have more adventures.  Will it work?  Who knows but as Wayne Gretzky said "Statistically speaking, 100% of the shots you don't take, won't go in." So we have to at least try.

Most people write about what they've done after they've done it but I think it's more fun to write about it was we go along.  That way I'm less inclined to edit out the lows and give a false impression of how fabulous life is.  I'm sure it won't all be plain sailing, but we'll work something out and get there in the end and if we don't well, we'll end up somewhere else won't we?  Either way we plan on having fun.  I like to live my life as Bill & Ted suggested: "Be most excellent to each other, and party on."  And you can quote me on that.

Herdy Rides Again

A wistful gaze that would be the envy of Prof Brian Cox.

Fresh from his triumphant win on the Champs Elysee and exhausted from his gold winning endeavours in London, Herdy Wiggins headed north for some serious R&R in the Lake District.  Pausing briefly to give his regards to those lovely folks at The Herdy Company in Kendal he made his way south to the Riviera of Cumbria: Grange-over-Sands.

"Ain't about the, ba-bling ba-bling."

His goal was simple; a little peace and quite and maybe a spot of cycling, the fells would be but gentle hillocks compared to the Alpine climbs of a few weeks ago, plus no-on would make him wear the jersey that clashed with his sideburns again.

The Frogs were still after him...

His hopes of blending into the crowd were dashed when he realised he was at least 2 feet taller and 40 years younger than most of the residents, though some of the ex army types could give his mutton chops a run for their money.

Far from the Madding Herd.

Realising that Cav was possibly still somewhat miffed about not getting an Olympic medal (again) Herdy decided to blend in by drafting a peloton of unsuspecting tourists - surely one more sweaty backside wouldn't be noticed on a busy Bank Holiday?  Unfortunately old habits die hard and he stormed up Kirkstone Pass, overtaking 2 coaches and moped.  He then nipped down to Ambleside via the Struggle and whizzed back up for a pint at the inn "just for fun".

Now happily settled into his new home all it lacked was a decent throne, perhaps those nice folks at Herdy would consider whittling one up for him?

"Ewe lookin' at me?"