This was the weekend that was ..or wasn't

The weekend before Christmas , just as it started snowing in earnest , as I composed a mental list in the early hours , D became ill and we were unable to take up residence in a holiday retreat in Ambleside in the Lake District as we spent the day in the Emergency Department at the hospital instead , with me still composing mental lists , it being hard to switch off what you're doing , whilst eating surreptitious kitkats as advised by the porter whilst D was having CT scan after scan , and D was doing , well what he was doing .

So this weekend , dates all changed , we packed ourselves and two teens plus big not so skinny greyhound into the teeny silly little green ( "green" though really black ) car plus four small bags ( one each ) plus boots plus coats plus a miniscule bit of food and hardly daring to breathe ,off we sailed into the dusk of last Friday afternoon . Cats fed and watered and pigsters all done and dusted and munching on hay and squeaking to the neighbour who was popping in to tide them over till the arrival of sister at 7 30 am Saturday ( weekend break at the seaside for her ) .

We arrived at seven , guided up a steep hill by the satnav and wondering if the car and its clutch would manage its load up a 1 in 4 gradient with extremely sharp hairpin bends .... but all was well . Spectacles needed to manipulate and mange the key code box and pick our way across the Kirkstone slate slab steps in the dark though our hostess had put on as many lights as possible and our house was well lit and looked like a fairy tale house
twinkling over three storeys and set in stunning grounds above the mist hanging above Ambleside town. We ran around , chased by an excited greyhound eager to practise her cornering skills on the stairs , shouting to each other about the different rooms and places to explore . After dumping
bags and placing a fish and chip order D and I charged off down to the village with Alice to collect food and provisions . Low Carb? Who me? I ordered a chicken and mushroom pie and chips and back up the hill we raced . Nat BBPinned me ( this is so technical for me , I now have a Blackberry ,) saying "Are you far off? I have eaten Paige ...."

Never have carbs eaten round a table with mushy peas on a Friday night tasted quite so good . There is in fact nothing quite so good as sitting round a holiday table at the start of a holiday weekend .. when you have scoped out the beds and the duvets are of excellent quality and there is space galore and a spa day beckons and you are in your favourite place in all the world .

Saturday was Spa Day for me N and P down at Oxleys , part of what used to be and might still be the Satutation Inn , but we were far too excited to notice .

The highlight - skipping across the freezing slates to the Canadian hot tub , then boiling away to our heart's content with not a care in the world , then racing back into a menthol shower. The most fun .. eating a healthy lunch and knowing we had breakfasted on bacon and eggs ...

The treatments were excellent , back massage and facials our choices though P had a hand massage .

I dozed off in the relaxation area pondering the massage therapist's words that I should consider booking a massage at home in a local salon given the knotty state of my back and neck . ( Indeed , I have no objection , though it is fifteen years since I did such a thing . Fifteen years the age of my child . Thus was it ever ) Day Spas Lake District, Day Spa Cumbria, Health Spas Lake District, Spa Day Pa
The weather was stunning . D sunned himself on the patio with dog after their walks.. 2 in all . They ate steak pies and rested lengthily, at least I imagine dog did . D does not rest much . Later we ordered from Zefferellis and then drank Pinot Grigio , and watched a French film while the dog slept for England exhausted in front of the fire . The house was colder than ours so dog had to be covered by a towel as her ears were chilling in a slight draught . Couldn't have that .

Today we "did" Kirkstone Gallery and I contemplated living in Ambleside for ever . It would be good to live above the mist though , as we were , just a short walk down the hill to civilisation and
coffee and scones .

Again , again , as the Teletubbies used to say . Greycotes, Ambleside - a stunning holiday cottage in the heart of the English

Dream On .....

The Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food , if it still exists , entrusts me with certain responsibilities. Initially I am tasked with quarantining a number of heifers and dosing them with some medicine known as Drench via their heels of all places. This is a messy business , but accompanied by a couple of hansome pathologists in suits from the Home Office , not one that is beyond me. Indeed I am pleased to have new challenges , my responsibilities latterly having tended to the mundane.
There is also a series of new sheds to be inspected including various pens and heating devices and much paperwork to be processed , involving the conversion of currency for an international trasaction and that is beyond me despite my First in Social Statistics. Luckliy a stable hand is at my elbow to talk me through the process. Thus in dreams is it ever as in life !

Silence

Today after some twenty six or twenty seven days , I refuse to count them properly , there is the most amazing silence in my head . The silence that is the absence of pain and the noise that goes with pain . Migraine pain looks like sparkles and fireworks and zigzag lines and it creates a noise all of its own , incessant and coloured. I retreat into my own kind of misery , often into sleep but even sleep is no sanctuary . The noise can find its way into the deepest of dreams , worming its way in until you ache for a way out through a heavier medication .
So , twenty six days , many of them snow filled and with brilliant white lights outside adding to the pain . There has been sancutuary . Holidays . The ability to retreat from the world because of the weather .
But the relief of the silence today is beyond the description of words. The room is quiet . There is a complete nothingness in my head , a sensation of the falling of flakes of snow as an alternative to the frenzy of the past days .
Long may it last .

We have minus 8 on the beach

Alice trials her new coat from Silver Peacock .Silver Peacock - Handmade Greyhound, Whippet, Lurcher Long Neck Coats

16 year old dies

Whilst we are kind of revelling in the heavy snow falls and wondering just how long it can go on , we hear the news that a 16 year old in the year above Nat at school ( now at college ) has been killed on the roads just near Scotch Corner . Travelling with his mother by car it lost control and they left the car to go to safety but were hit by a waggon . JakeYouTube - That kid jake .. Dance Freestyle - Real talk-Outlaws was killed and his mother is critically ill . Jake was a dancer.

The school remains open .

8000 schools closed ...

....but our local remains open.
Nat scoured the schools website last night and the information remained the same . Almost all schools in the area closed bar hers, and indeed by 8 30 am this morning the information was getting worse . A text message arrived on my mobile which finally tipped things over the edge and profanities were utteredat high pitch..... " M***** High School is closed to years blah blah blah and blah but open to years ten and eleven today ".

I ushered her out of the front door reminding her of her responsibility to attend etc and headed back upstairs .

The dog spat out a mouth full of wet tissue as I entered the bedroom and sank down guiltily onto the duvet. The tissue box disintegrated beneath her in a wet flop. Caught up in the general air of tension and excitement she had slipped upstairs and engaged in her own private massacre. Shouting and barking not her strong suit but paper and card ripping in seconds her best game .

Big Fat telly

For yonks I have been resistant to the idea of those things that most men seem to long for , namely a Big Fat telly with a Big Fat Plasma Screen that they can glue themselves to and Watch other men kick balls at .
Mainly I have been resistant for reasons that make perfect sense to me , but not apparently to anyone else , namely that we have several perfectly good tellies , spread about the other rooms in the house , one in most of the rooms where people congregate or sleep ( though I have always refused to have one near where I myself sleep) and an extra one for good measure just in case. Since tellies do blow up with alarming frequency most of ours now seem to be of the required flat screen variety too , though of late the cry " but they are not Plasma" has become an issue , whatever this means ( nothing much to me, fortunately, since I now earn less and less) and I see people scanning my expression for signs of change when I am confronted with such examples in John Lewis or indeed glancing through their friends' windows.

But , despite today starting much as usual , at six am with a pot of coffee and a fairytale four inches of snow , it ends in defeat .
I CatCall on foot and all is well with the world . Indeed Star and Pip seem to know their family is back today and come down with me to help me wash up and prepare their food for the first visit of the fortnight , Pip happily pottering and Star moodily standing blocking the exit to the cat flap .The snow falls fatly outside and I watch wondering how the roads will be . I have left my car at home as the slush has frozen solid .
Later , after Alice makes it plain she is not keen to go far , D disappears and I know my time is up . I head off again on foot , and when I return an hour later , with a few pathetic paperbacks from the library , there intruding into the room is a 32 inch biggin . My feeble protest is lost .

Mainly on Foot

.. This morning I am mainly CatCalling on foot .

I wake at six am and the the New Year's Day silence is not just about holidays and lack of traffic down below.
Click on the photo directly above and you can see the cat hiding from the fox who was a few yards away at midnight.

For those asking , D is at home , better , but still with some pain and waiting for some tests (next week after the holidays).

Happy New Year everyone !