Yorkshire Girl's Midlife Diary

Happy New Year!

And I do genuinely mean that. Although I have to admit I am to New Year a little bit like the Grinch is to Christmas. For some reason I don’t like it. I have tried so hard to get excited about it but to me it’s just an arbitrary date, the date after 31st December! I’m not so much of a Grinch that I suck the mood out of everyone else. I did put a smile on my face and go up to the packed local pub. It was Karaoke which was enough to put a smile on anyone’s face as it just gets funnier and more painful to listen to the more alcohol is consumed! But at just after midnight, I’m done with it!

I can actually feel quite down about New Year and I don’t know why. I don’t know whether it’s because I get so excited about Christmas and New Year is a bit of an anti-climax; whether it’s because I’m sad because I see it more as an ending to 2022 and all the good things that happened in the previous year; whether it makes me think of people that are no longer with us; or whether I just feel under pressure to do something different and make a new start even though I’m quite happy to continue 1st January just as I ended 31st December. You see, for me every day is 1st January. I like to think I live every day as if it’s my last. I like to look for opportunity, be thankful for what I have, and if I see something aspirational, I’m not likely to wait until 1st January to start my quest to achieve it, I’m a bit more of a ‘doer’ than a ‘going to do’ and I like to live my life like a bit of a magical mystery tour…………I still don’t quite know where I’m going but I hope it’s exciting and full of mystery, love, adventures and surprises.

Today I’ve been fed up and I guess this post is about the fact that it’s ok to be so, and a little bit about the importance of water in my life. I guess I don’t really mean fed up, I think a better term might be ‘over stimulated’, and that might be partly why I don’t like New Year. It’s when I get to that point when I need to be on my own. I think I get so excited about Christmas and do so much stuff, then there are all the demands from the students at home that you thought you’d got rid of, then I’ve worked for two days to try and keep on top of everything at work, then I’ve been running training and racing and then along comes New Year. There’s only so much any girl can take! By 1st January I’ve had enough! Today I’ve escaped and I’m going to share with you where I’ve been, some very inspirational words from a wonderful author, and something you might like to try when you’ve ‘had enough’.

So, first things first. It’s ok to have had enough and want to be on your own. Those close to me know I’m ok, there’s nothing wrong with me, I just need some space to think, reflect, be thankful, and reset. I’m not depressed, I’m not sad, I just want to be alone with that fantastic person I discovered on my Camino………me! And today I’ve had some quiet, calm, peaceful, reflective time, been thankful for everything I have, thought about all the lovely people in my life (you know who you are) and now I feel so much better. So where have I been………..up on the windy, wet moors wild swimming of course!

It’s been a bit of a cold wet one today. Not much sunshine yet again but there is something magical and healing about water that I want to share with you. Today I’ve been to this lovely remote spot. The water temperature was 18 degrees today so very fresh on entry but lovely once you are in and moving around.

About that author, his name is Roger Deakin. Sadly, no longer with us, Roger was an English writer, film maker and environmentalist. The only one of his books published in his lifetime ‘Waterlog’ founded the wild swimming movement. He lived at Walnut Tree farm in Suffolk, his own little wild swimming paradise. In a couple of his most poignant quotes, for me he perfectly sums up the power of water over the human mind and spirit. Here are some of my favourites of his and a few pictures from today. The quotes may explain why I do what some might think is a bit of a mad thing to do on New Year’s Day.

“I can dive in with a long face, and what feels like a terminal case of depression, and come out a whistling idiot. There is a feeling of absolute freedom and wildness that comes with the sheer liberation of nakedness as well as weightlessness in natural water, and it leads to a deep bond with the bathing place”. – from Roger Deakin, Waterlog.

Now I can’t speak for the nakedness! Roger was a Speedos at the most kind of guy but at 18 degrees I’m a full wetsuit type of girl, including shoes, gloves……and yes, the bobble hat stays on! But certainly, the weightlessness and freedom were felt and I do always come out a lot calmer and happier than when I went in. The nakedness will have to wait for summer, I’ll let you know then!

“When you swim, you feel your body for what it mostly is – water – and it begins to move with the water around it. No wonder we feel such sympathy for beached whales; we are beached ourselves at birth. To swim is to experience how it was before we were born” – from Roger Deakin, Waterlog.

A bit of an odd comparison? The definition of beaching is when something is stranded on land and the outcome can often be death from dehydration, collapsing under own weight or drowning. Perhaps not that odd then, because in life you can sometimes feel a little bit stranded, drowning under the weight of everything and I guess that weightlessness of being in water does make it all feel better for a while. There is something soothing about it and perhaps that floating about in water all those years ago in the womb is still somewhere in the subconscious and gives rise to that comforting feeling.

“Swimming is a rite of passage, a crossing of boundaries: the line of the shore, the bank of the river, the edge of the pool, the surface itself. When you enter the water, something like metamorphosis happens. Leaving behind the land, you go through the looking-glass surface and enter a new world, in which survival, not ambition or desire, is the dominant aim.” – from Roger Deakin, Waterlog.

So very true, for a short space of time it is like being in another world. It’s cold, that all over body tingle and that slowed down breathing and those natural ‘survival’ reactions that make you feel alive, that’s the only aim at that point in time, nothing else.

“Most of us live in a world where more and more things are signposted, labelled, and officially ‘interpreted’. There is something about all this that is turning the reality of things into virtual reality. It is the reason why walking, cycling and swimming will always be subversive activities. They allow us to regain a sense of what is old and wild in these islands, by getting off the beaten track and breaking free of the official version of things”. – from Roger Deakin, Waterlog.

What a very, very wise man. Did he have a crystal ball into the future? Roger died in 2006, that’s 17 years ago this year. Roger thought, 17 years ago, that we were living in a world where more and more things are signposted, labelled and officially ‘interpreted’. Fast forward 17 years and we have a label for almost everything, are told exactly how we should think and to a certain extent have lost some of the freedom of speech that we once had, sometimes for the better, sometimes the worse, I can’t quite decide. But yes, he’s right, all three of those activities offer an escape from reality and the “official version of things” if that’s what you want to call it.

So, in short, today I’ve escaped from reality, experienced that feeling of survival, floated about wild and free and feel a lot better for it. I trudged back to the car across the moor top, past the ancient stone circle where I did a little dance in the middle for good measure to request health and good fortune for you all in 2023. Not sure whether it will work but it warmed me up. Then on to the café for a much-needed bowl off butternut squash and chipotle soup with chive crème fraiche and a coffee. I’m ready to take on what I hope will be the magical mystery tour of 2023 now!

In summary, the message, in addition to Happy New Year, is it’s ok to feel over stimulated and need to escape. And if you are feeling brave you could even try the benefits of cold-water swimming. But just remember: Acclimatise, be safe, wear the right kit, no diving, know your limit and warm up slowly. If you are new to it, you can always go somewhere quite popular amongst wild swimmers as there will always be someone else there. You don’t have to talk to them if you’ve gone to escape. They’ve probably gone for the same reason, just a quick “Hi” will suffice. Try it, you might be surprised.

In our house I’m used to being the butt of everyone’s jokes and that’s just fine, I am quite capable of laughing at myself and must admit I have done some pretty crazy things since the start of my midlife crisis when my body is getting older but my mind is flatly refusing to accept it and keeps telling me I’m still a spring chicken.

So, I thought I’d save my latest bit of news until Christmas Day, and just as I expected I was mocked and ridiculed. “I can take it!” I thought, “You’ll all be laughing on the other side of your faces on 28th December!”

Back in September I joined a running club as I don’t like running on my own over winter as it’s always dark when I go out. I thought it would also encourage me to keep going over winter when it’s cold and wet. I’m really enjoying it so I thought I’d enter a couple of events for which I needed to join England Athletics. Not a problem I thought, I can do that. Then my e-mail came through to advise me that I’d been enrolled with the role below!

Yes, that’s right……………’Competitive Athlete’.

I thought I’d share this e-mail and news on Christmas morning when I opened my present to myself, a new running top. Now I get that the title is a bit ironic as the two things I am not are ‘competitive’ or an ‘athlete’ but I did expect a little bit more support and less laughing than I got. One could not get any words out for laughing and the other pointed out that I’m nearly 52 and don’t I think I’m “a bit late to the party”. I pointed out the fact that I felt extremely proud and grateful to still be able to make it to the party!

I saved the best bit until last when I told them I’d entered the ‘Ambles Revenge’ on 28th December! “You’ll never get round that!” was the general consensus. However, when the Yorkshire Girl in the middle of a midlife crisis sets her mind to something she’s pretty driven, and laughing and ridiculing me will only make me more determined.

What is ‘Ambles Revenge? Well, as it says above it’s a cross country fell race of just over 8 miles (12.9km) with absolutely loads of uphill, the most unbelievable amount of mud, as it’s been raining for days, and more walls and stiles to jump over than I could count. It’s not an easy race and is over my usual 10k distance that I like. One of the household has run it in the past and pointed out to me that I was really going to struggle, particularly after everything he pointed out I’d eaten and drunk on Christmas Day! I then got even more worried when I went to running club and everyone who I spoke to had the same response, “I ran it once and once was enough, I marshal now!” I was starting to wonder what I’d let myself in for but not wanting to be defeated I thought I’d just turn up, have a nice little trot around and enjoy myself. I had no idea how fast I was going to be able to run it but had a secret little personal target of 1 hour and 30 minutes which I kept to myself.

I got up this morning and was all smiles. I felt good and was actually proud to pull on my team vest for its first race and my first run as a ‘competitive athlete’! 😀

I managed to get a lift in the car to the race headquarters (the local pub) on what was an absolutely foul morning. The sun has not been out all day and it has rained non-stop. Despite being laughed at for three days I was also quite surprised to see two students emerge fully dressed. When I questioned whether or not this was an apparition they both announced that they would not miss an opportunity to come along and cheer me on. Aaaww how sweet I thought, perhaps they are secretly proud, either that or they just want a good laugh at their Mum on a wet and windy morning! I was still smiling when I got to the start line despite spotting the Mountain Rescue vehicle which always puts me on edge at the start of a race as I think ‘please don’t let it be me they have to rescue’.

I always feel so nervous on the start line and I have no idea why, I think it’s just adrenaline. This is very much a run for the running clubs and there are some really fantastic athletes with the winning men’s time usually being well under one hour. I happened to comment on how some of the runners looked ‘gazelle like’, which to me they do; tall, long legs, no fat, just built for speed. So just to build my confidence my cheering on team thought they would liken me to an animal. I’m sure it was just to calm my nerves but it really doesn’t help when I get ‘Lion’, because you have lots of reddish hair and shout a lot, and ‘Sloth’, because that’s how fast you’ll be!! You see, they even carry it on all the way to the start line, this is what I have to put up with!

Anyway, what followed was just over 8 miles of the most difficult race I have ever, ever run. It poured it down with rain non-stop. I lost count of the times I nearly lost my shoes in the mud and while I was running it, I cannot 100% say I enjoyed every minute. I had cow excrement and mud up to my knees and there were moments when I could just have cried. However, there was no way on God’s earth was I giving the cheering on crew something to laugh about, I was under no circumstances not going to finish this race. I was actually quite amazed and could have actually cried when I spotted the cheering on crew at the side of the road shouting ‘come-on Competitive Athlete!’ in two separate places on the course. They had actually driven round the course to offer their support, in addition to being at the start and finish. Anyway a few pictures and snippets from the race. They are in chronological order and I look gradually worse as they progress. I look like I am slowly dying and that’s because I was! So here we go.

Smiling so must be near the beginning or the end!

I can tell you exactly what’s going through my head on the one above as I remember it well. It’s the look of pain. I’m looking up thinking “Shit, when does this end, where is the top of the hill, it just goes on for ever!”

The ‘is this a road or a river’ action shot, just so much water!

Trying to make up some positions going uphill, I like uphill really. Digging in deep despite the growing amount of mud all up the back of my legs.

Nearly at the top on this one and still pushing on.

A little video now of the cheering on crew coming to check if I’m ok. Desperately trying to keep it going uphill and make up some places despite the driving wind and rain for 6 miles. Only about 2 miles to go now!

And finally, the end! I thought it was never going to come. Just look at the time on that clock though!! Damn it!! Where did those 22 seconds come from. Absolutely gutted to not make it in in less than 1 hour 30 minutes but secretly a little bit proud to have finished it at all so I’ll not be too hard on myself. So exhausted I did not even see the cheering on crew stood next to me at the end!

188th overall and 7th out of only 14 V50 females attempting it today, so bang in the middle where I normally am. And, I’m still smiling at the end look. Which on that note, I’d like to say a big thank you to the gentleman that came to find me at the end to tell me, “Love, if there had been a prize for smiling you would have won it hands down! I was on the last marshalling post and you were the only one of the day still smiling when you got to me!” So there you have it. I might not be that hot at running but I get the smiling prize! Thinking about it, I think I’d rather have that than the 22 seconds!

And just to make myself feel a little bit better about the 22 seconds I always like to have a little look at my stats below. So what’s the summary:

So what did I do then. Well, I spent half an hour laid on the shower room floor until someone came to help me get my tights off. I’m now sat with my feet up resting and reading, because everyone has gone out and deserted me and I can’t move. But best of all, I’m calculating which of the Christmas leftovers I can eat that would equate to 977 calories. I reckon I can get at least a turkey sandwich, bowl of trifle, cantuccini and glass of Vin Santo and maybe a slice of chocolate log if I cut it thin. Yum!

So all in all not a bad day for the Sloth! I do actually believe I have two very proud boys, although there is absolutely no way they are going to admit it and tell me to my face!

Today I have laughed so much my sides hurt.

So where in the world on Boxing Day would you find teams of crazy people negotiating freezing waters in a home-made raft race……….Matlock in Derbyshire of course!

After half a day slaving over a hot stove making Christmas dinner and then the other half of the day stuffing myself with food and drink that I really did not need I was desperate for some fresh air and exercise. The sky was sunny and blue but running is out of order this week as the final training run was on Christmas Eve and I’m now resting ready for my own crazy event on Wednesday (all will be revealed in due course)!

Where better to go than the Matlock Raft Race. It was freezing, so I got myself wrapped up like a Teddy Bear and off I went in search of a good laugh with the one son who could be bothered to get out of bed, and laugh we did, we were not disappointed. Anyone can take part in the Matlock Raft Race. The only criteria are that you have to be fearless, water loving and slightly bonkers. The second two I would definitely pass and perhaps the first one most of the time so you never know you might find me on a raft one year, but this year I went as a spectator.

The race is an annual event. It has taken place most years since 1961, always on Boxing Day, and is held to raise money for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). It takes place on a 3 mile stretch of the River Derwent starting at Cawdor Quarry and finishing at Cromford Meadows. There are over 20 rafts enter each year and over 100 crew from all over the country. However, the raft has to be entirely home-made, from whatever materials you can rustle together and it has to be made by the crew of each craft only, with no external assistance allowed. It’s not compulsory, but it is the norm for your raft to have a theme and fancy dress is optional.

The river bank is lined with spectators and the river is dotted with around 30 emergency rescue kayaks in case of mishaps, of which there are always many as that is the whole point of it and the joy of the event! The River Derwent is no sleepy meandering river at this point. The course of the river here is fast flowing, curving and has a perfectly positioned weir with what is described as 30 metres of cold, deep, turbulent rapid white water! So where better to spectate from than the bottom of the weir. So I do apologise for the slightly poor quality of the photos and the twigs in the foreground as I clung onto a tree branch on the edge of the river trying to ensure I didn’t end up taking part in the race!

There were some excellent entries this year and after a good few days of rain and snow melt over the last few weeks in the area, the river was perfect for lots of mishaps and hilarity. Fortunately, no-one appeared to be too badly injured, just extremely cold. Here’s a look at a few of my favourites from this year.

The Vikings were one of the first down the weir, cheered on by the emergency rescue kayaks at the top and bottom, so get my vote for bravery.

However, coming a close second for bravery was the lone crew member who braved the entire 3-mile course in a converted fairground dodgem car!

Best fancy dress in my opinion this year should go to the Spice Girls, 3 grown men in their ‘Girl Power’ craft dressed up as Emma Bunton, Mel C and Geri Halliwell (complete in Union Jack Dress) and a home-made Mel B strapped to the front of the boat.

Best original theme I would give to the Peter Pan raft complete with Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Mr Smee. The crew from Ghostbusters come a close second but did not negotiate the second weir quite as well, resulting in a couple of craft members bobbing about in the river.

Best recovery of the day goes to the ‘BoAT out of Hell’ who despite a full capsize and the loss of all crew members managed to get back on their craft and get their flashing lights and stereo working and recommence their journey.

But for me the overall winners have to be the Vikings for today’s best capsize of the day. The only craft with a non-rigid bottom. The onboard celebration at having negotiated the first weir was soon replaced by dismay as the movement and wobble from the second weir and the force of the water was just too much to prevent the loss of a number of crew members into the water. Here it is.

A customary visit to the Fish and Chip shop to warm up was required and ended a lovely day with lots of laughter. I must remember – rigid bottom for the boat – just in case I decide to have a go one year, you just never know!

I love food, I love sharing food, I love traditions and I love Christmas. I’m almost ready for tomorrow! The table is set, sprouts peeled, turkey ready for the oven, prawn cocktail sauce made, wine chilling and all those other Christmas Eve foody preparations complete. I even have time for a cheeky little visit to the pub later.

Last night I went to the pub to sing in Christmas with the local Brass Band. This is called the singing of the ‘Sheffield Carols’ and it is local tradition in South Yorkshire from mid-November to Christmas. Each village pub has its own carols and music and it’s such a lovely tradition. It gets louder and more raucous as the evening progresses and more Yorkshire ale from the local brewery is consumed, and it always gets me into the Christmas spirit.

When I go anywhere, I’m always eager to learn about the traditions and culinary customs of an area.

I did not realise how ‘Yorkshire’ I was until I moved out of Yorkshire at the age of 22. It wasn’t until then that I also g0t a perception of what the rest of the world think to people from Yorkshire either. I moved down South, just outside London, chasing a career in banking.

In summary, people from Yorkshire are proud……we call it ‘God’s Own County’ because we say he created everywhere else, learnt from the mistakes and then created the perfect county……Yorkshire. Yorkshire people, although you might not be able to tell what we say when we switch to dialect, are renowned for being welcoming, funny, friendly but straightforward, we’ll tell you it as it is, we are quite direct. We also have the most glorious countryside, moors and coastline. People from down South can find us a bit uncultured and unsophisticated. I beg to differ, we have lots of culture, and are very sophisticated, but I’ll agree some of our traditions and customs are a little bit odd and can seem very bizarre to someone not from Yorkshire. But it’s these customs that I love and keep going hoping that my boys will continue them as it’s so important not to lose them.

My ‘Yorkshireness’ all became apparent when I had my first Christmas down South when I suggested to John, the Assistant Manager at the Bank that we have a ‘fuddle’. Now John looked absolutely aghast as if I’d suggested something completely inappropriate and to this day, I can’t decide whether he was relieved or disappointed when I explained that a ‘fuddle’ in Yorkshire is a pre-Christmas work lunchtime celebration where you pool food, and nothing else. So, for example, someone brings the cheese and biscuits, someone else the crisps, nibbles, sausage rolls, sandwiches, quiche, salad, desserts etc. etc. until you have a lovely little buffet. Apparently, ‘fuddle’ is only a Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire word and concept, but I didn’t realise that when suggesting to my line manager that we have a ‘fuddle’ together in the office. So, continuing this tradition, last Wednesday lunchtime was the school Christmas ‘fuddle’.

Then there is the Christmas Cake. Christmas Cake I know is a British tradition, not just Yorkshire. It is a very dark, rich fruit cake containing, if made properly, a fair amount of brandy. However, how we eat it in Yorkshire is deemed very odd. The correct way to make a Christmas Cake is months in advance. I made mine at the very beginning of October, almost three months before Christmas, and it takes an entire day as you bake it on a very low temperature for around 4 to 5 hours. Then every week I ‘feed’ the cake with brandy until the week before Christmas, when I decorate it in the traditional way with marzipan and royal icing and some decorations. It’s quite a laborious process which has to be done in stages and I was in a bit of a rush this year so it has just had some sugar frosted rosemary, holly and dried fruit placed on top but it still looks quite effective. The only thing is, in our house, there is only myself who likes Christmas cake. So on Christmas Day it gets cut, I keep my little bit, and then I distribute and give the remainder away because it’s huge. But Christmas would just not feel like Christmas if I did not make one.

However, in Yorkshire we eat our Christmas cake with cheese. This tradition is frowned upon elsewhere in the UK, but I did not realise this until I was observed with much amusement, down South, peeling off my icing and marzipan, placing it at the side of my plate and then proceeding to eat my Christmas cake with cheese. Not only that, but us Yorkshire folk are quite particular about what cheese we consume with our Christmas cake. Ideally it needs to be Wensleydale, made in Yorkshire. Wensleydale is creamy-white coloured cheese with a crumbly, moist and flaky texture made with milk from the farms in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire. It is made from a mixture of cow and ewe’s milk and goes perfect with fruit cake. At a push we will eat white stilton or white Cheshire with our Christmas cake if we can’t get Wensleydale, the key is it needs to be sharp, tangy and crumbly to complement the cake. I managed to find some Wensleydale earlier this week on my visit to Chatsworth Farm Shop so all is good!

So, these two, the Christmas cake and cheese combo, and the ‘fuddle’ are the two Yorkshire Christmas food traditions that I always have to observe.

Then there is the broader British tradition of the mince pie! Christmas would not be Christmas without the good old British mince pie. Christmas mincemeat has nothing to do with meat. It is a blend of dried fruits and spices in ruby port and brandy placed in a little sweet shortcrust pastry pie. I’ve made my third batch of 24 this week as they keep disappearing before Christmas but no-one is owning up to eating them!

Then my final English Christmas tradition is the trifle. A trifle has sponge cake in the bottom soaked in alcohol, usually sherry or another fortified wine. It’s then layered with fruit, custard, whipped cream and toasted almonds. Now, it’s each to their own but to me a trifle should never contain jelly. For me, the presence of jelly in a trifle absolutely ruins it. For me it has to be sherry too, to soak the sponge, and a proper Spanish manzanilla, so it’s not strictly speaking an English trifle, it’s part Spanish and the good thing is when you’ve made the trifle you can then drink the rest of the bottle with tapas or whatever else you fancy. It’s also traditional to make it in a cut glass trifle bowl. My bowl I’ve inherited from my Grandma and it reminds me of Christmas buffets at Grandma’s complete with trifle.

So, we have the Yorkshire food traditions, the English traditions, a bit of Spanish Manzanilla, and next, a tradition from my other favourite part of Europe……..Italy. Christmas would not be Christmas without home-baked Italian almond and pistachio Cantuccini. Some people call these Biscotti which is not strictly speaking correct. Biscotti translates as a more generic term for any twice baked biscuit or cookie, whereas Cantuccini are quite specifically oblong, dry biscuits studded with nuts, and at Christmas I also put orange zest in mine. These are good because all that etiquette you are taught in England about it being a bit rude and uncultured to dip your biscuits in your tea goes completely out of the window with Cantuccini, they are made for dipping!! That’s the reason why they are dry, so when you dip them in, they soak up the liquid. However, what’s even better is that the tradition in Italy is not to dip them in tea but to dip them in Vin Santo, an Italian dessert wine made predominantly in Tuscany. It’s a little hard to get hold of at the moment, none in the supermarkets, so I had to have it posted but it arrived just in time yesterday!

And last but not least, a little bit of Germany with the gingerbread Lebkuchen, so easy to make and definitely one for dunking in your tea. Eat the icing off the top first though or it just ends up floating in your tea!

So that’s the Christmas food traditions sorted. I’ll think about the diet in January. For now, I’ll eat my way through Christmas Yorkshire style with a bit of the rest of the UK and Europe thrown in for good measure! And with true Yorkshire generosity I will force everyone else who crosses my threshold to share my Yorkshire foody Christmas as it’s so much better when it is shared with friends and family.

Merry Christmas!!

There are certain things I just have to do at Christmas and one of these is my little annual jaunt to Chatsworth House, home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. Chatsworth House is a Grade I listed property built in the 17th century and it is just in the most gorgeous setting with the grounds landscaped by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. It is often voted Britain’s favourite stately home and it’s easy to understand why. On a sunny day like yesterday there is no-where else quite like it to get you into the Christmas spirit and it’s only 50 minutes away from my home, which is not quite as grand! It’s been used as the film location for films such as Pride and Prejudice and The Duchess and you can see why.

I even managed to drag a student along. It was a 9am set off but he’s easily bribed with the promise of an English breakfast in the café on arrival.

We parked up in the delightful little village of Edensor on the Chatsworth Estate where the Edensor Tea Rooms are located because firstly, they do a good English Breakfast, and secondly, the walk over the estate from Edensor to Chatsworth House is lovely on a sunny day and you get the most glorious view of the house. Even my little companion, the architecture student, said it looked impressive, and being 19 he does not get excited about many things!

After breakfast we had our walk over to the house itself and into the stable courtyard where they have a lovely little Christmas market every year. The smell was gorgeous, mulled wine, German sausages a fire pit to toast marshmallows. I was allowed to look around the gift shop and guess what I found?!………..Baubles!!!………and lots of them! All gold, shiny and sparkly, and then some delightful little felt ones of little garden birds. Did one find its way home with me? Of course it did! The student does not like looking around shops so the, “I’ll wait outside for you Mum”, was all I needed to choose a bauble, pay for it, sneak it into my handbag, get it home and hang it on the tree without anyone being any the wiser. Where there is a will there is a way!

Anyway, the main reason for my visit at Christmas is not the breakfast, the baubles, the market or the house itself………….it is the Chatsworth Farm Shop. A large part of my Christmas revolves around food and traditions. I’ll do a separate post on my ‘odd’ Yorkshire Christmas food traditions later this week. They are not ‘odd’ to me but to anyone not from Yorkshire I have been told they are quite amusing and mark me out as Yorkshire through and through. For one of these traditions, I need Wensleydale cheese……no other cheese will do, I’ll explain in another post. Chatsworth has the most amazing Farm Shop and a cheese counter with over 100 varieties of cheese. It is like cheese heaven and is one of my pre-Christmas shopping trips. It was a successful trip…..I found the Wensleydale……..and also bought some Devonshire Gold (blue cheese) and Snowdonia Black Bomber, a very very mature white cheddar from Wales, it’s so mature it makes your toes curl but I love really strong cheese. I love Stinking Bishop too, which they had, but I’m banned from buying that as the smell has the ability to permeate the kitchen even when it’s shut in the fridge in an airtight container!

They also have the most fantastic vegetables and another staple of the British Christmas dinner are Brussels Sprouts! It’s not a Christmas dinner if it does not have Brussels Sprouts on it. So, I bought my sprouts on a stick all ready for Christmas day much to the disgust of my youngest who absolutely hates them. They are a bit of a love them or hate them vegetable and it still infuriates my sons that I insist they have one sprout on their plate otherwise it’s not a Christmas dinner. I’m not that cruel that I make them eat it but I just can’t serve a Christmas dinner minus the Brussels Sprout!

It was a lovely Mum and son day, the apocalypse in his bedroom was not mentioned once, I am so chilled about it. I am determined he will get fed up of it before I do.

Oh, my goodness…………they are back from university and don’t I know it!! I got one back on time and the other three days late due to the industrial action on the railways…..but they are here.

This post is for all those Mums out there whose worlds, and houses, have been turned upside down, quite literally.

You don’t realise how much you get used to having a nice quiet, tidy house with just yourself to look after…….it just becomes the norm. I miss them so much though and go into overdrive just before they come home, and I know speaking to friends that the same happens to them. I can only describe it as ‘nesting’ behaviour. If you look in the dictionary the definition of nesting instinct, which all women have apparently and is not irrational but a behaviour stemming from our evolutionary past, is the burst of energy women often get in the last few weeks of pregnancy that leads them to clean and organise the house in preparation for baby’s arrival. The only issue is that I still get it every time they return from university for the holidays! This urge to tidy and have everything just right for them.

The bedding is washed, rooms tidied, welcome box of beer in place, Percy pig sweets (their favourites from when they were little) and a chocolate bear nestled in a Christmas stocking hung on their bedroom doors! It’s like a bit of a “Welcome home, I’m so glad to see you!”

That nice fuzzy feeling soon wears off though, because holy s**t I’ve got up this morning and I thought we’d had intruders and been robbed in the night. It’s taken the grand total of 24 hours to turn from the above to this! How do they do it!?!? I don’t think I could make such a mess if I just stood there tossing things around the room for 24 hours. You can’t even walk from one side of the room to the other……….both rooms!! This, added to the fact that one of them has announced he’s not here for two weeks, but possibly five! FIVE whole weeks…………….oh my days!!

So, what did I do…….well, not what I would have done a year ago. A year ago, I would have had a mini meltdown and we would have fallen out. But there would only be me getting wound up, they just stand there looking at you as if you’ve got two heads and are behaving irrationally. Not any more though. When I went on my Camino in the summer one of the learnings I brought back was the knowledge of what was truly important. I decided it was love, friendship, shelter and food. Anything else is not as important. I was spending too much time worrying about stuff that really in the grand scheme of things did not matter. I decided the new me was not going to ‘sweat the small stuff’ any more.

There are terrible things happening all over the world; wars, people without food, people without homes, children without love………..so in the grand scheme of things, the apocalypse occurring in my two bedrooms, I have decided is not that great an issue. It’s not me that’s got to live in it for five weeks. I’ve not got to find my clothes in the pile on the floor and I’ve not got to negotiate a way to get into my bed. So, I’ve casually turned around, closed the door and left them to it. I will make a judgement at the end of January as to whether I need a hazmat suit to enter and clear the aftermath when they’ve gone back or whether just rubber gloves will do.

Instead of sweating about the small stuff at the start of my Christmas holiday I’ve been out for a little run, done some baking, read my book, done my Italian and Spanish homework and had a lovely day! I’ve also been shopping and stocked up the fridge which reveals my other Christmas ‘students at home’ coping mechanism.

There are all my healthy proteins on the second shelf down, eggs and low-fat meat, next shelf down are the 0% fat yoghurts. In the bottom tray loads of fresh vegetables, the fridge of someone who likes to eat quite healthily. Then what’s that that can be spied on the shelf above the vegetables?!?!?………all those little blue cans………the secret’s out……..it’s the tonic for my gin! If you drink gin, you stop worrying about the mess in the bedroom, and if you drink enough you get to a point where you can’t even see it.

So, if your student quite literally turns your world upside down when they return for Christmas, my advice would be; don’t sweat the small stuff, just close the door, and drink gin! Cheers and Merry Christmas to all those Mums with an untidy student or two!

My Christmas excitement is now reaching fever pitch and we’ve still got over a week to go. I’m so excited I think I might burst before Christmas! I’m expecting my boys home this weekend, possibly two days late due to a train strike, but hopefully I’ll have them back for Sunday! I’m not that sure why I get so excited about Christmas, I think it’s because I like to have everybody together and I love giving presents. It’s certainly not excitement about my presents……….I know all about my one present…….I’ve bought it, wrapped it and even wrote a nice message to myself on the tag. No, in all honesty I have requested no presents as I think students in a cost of living crisis have enough to deal with and I love to give at Christmas, I can never think of what I want anyway.

However, why do children seem to instinctively know when you’ve completed your Christmas shopping and wrapped it. For the best part of a month I’ve been asking what they want. Then today, when I’ve already bought and wrapped things thinking no request was going to be forthcoming, I get the request. Fortunately one of the items I had already bought as a stocking filler…….climbing chalk. The second request I had a little laugh at………you know they’ve seriously run out of cash when they ask you for contact lenses for Christmas. Even though I’ve already bought lots of little bits and bobs to open on Christmas Day I just don’t think I’ve got the heart to leave him visually impaired at Christmas!

Now, a little story about my baubles…….the ones you hang on the tree! I love trimming the house up for Christmas. I am a bit of a collector of what my boys call ‘tacky’ Christmas decorations. However, I beg to differ and I think that most of my decorations are extremely tasteful and of good quality, apart from one that I will come onto in a minute.

Christmas to me starts with the decorating of the tree. It has to be done whilst watching the greatest ever Christmas movie, Polar Express, and eating ‘Celebration’ chocolates. Therefore, Christmas started last Friday with the transporting home of the tree, the movie and the chocolates. I love a real tree as I adore the smell of Nordmann Fir, but I always buy it from the local plant nursery as they grown their own so I know for each one that’s chopped down, another is planted and it’s only travelled as far as I’ve transported it in the car. Now this is an ordeal in itself as I have no spatial awareness. I cannot picture how big something is in relation to something else when the two aren’t side by side. I cannot tell you the number of times I have brought home a tree which I have then had to chop the top off to make it fit below the ceiling. Anyway, I really excelled this year as no decapitating of the tree was required.

Now, my baubles! I have an absolute obsession with tree baubles. I have so many and I can tell you a little story about each and every one and can remember where I got most of them from as I like to collect them on my travels. I’m quite sentimental and each one reminds me of a special person or place. They’ve sort of been added to through the years to the point that I have been banned from entering Christmas shops and buying any more as I do not have anywhere to put them. I would argue though that a girl cannot have too many baubles! I even bring baubles back from my summer holidays. One of my favourites is a tiny lace angel I bought in Dubrovnik. It was July, thirty five degrees and I was buying Christmas baubles. Every time I look at it though it reminds me of beautiful Dubrovnik. I have a lovely sun shell bauble sent over to me by my Great Auntie Betty in America for my eldest’s first Christmas twenty-two years ago and a bauble from Disneyland bought for me by my late mother-in-law. I have an owl which is nothing to do with Christmas but represents the fact that I’m a secret fan of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club (The Owls), even though I no longer go to watch them. I have various Father Christmas baubles as I just love Father Christmas! I have pretty glass baubles, sheep with wings, fluffy stars…………. and many more. Then I have my porcelain angel for the top of the tree. This I got when I bought my first house…….a one-bedroom maisonette when I first left home to work just outside London when I was twenty-two. The flat was tiny but I even managed to fit a tree in there! So, the tree is up, presents wrapped and I am so excited. So the message is…..if ever anyone moans about you buying baubles, ignore them, because baubles are like shoes, you can’t have too many, there is no such thing as too many baubles.

I will however own up to having one tacky Christmas decoration. Yes, he’s out, resplendent and fully erected in the front garden for the world to see. I bought him on purpose. There’s something pleasurable about being an embarrassment to your children as you get a bit older, it’s almost like it’s payback time. When they roll their eyes at you it’s almost like encouragement to be even more embarrassing to them. It’s like when I pick them up from the train station at the weekend all dressed up in my Christmas jumper and Father Christmas hat and they see me waving frantically to catch their attention. That look on their faces as they try and pretend that I’m not their Mum.

I have to get this decoration out before they come home though because I love to sit there silently when I pull the car around the corner onto the drive after collecting them from the train station and see the look on their face when they spot their favourite (not!) Christmas decoration sat in the front garden. My light up reindeer! He even has an unfortunately positioned electric cable coming from his underside which makes it look like he’s having a wee in the garden. But I love him!

So excited…………………..just a few last minute finishing touches to do at the weekend and then I’m ready!!

Well, what a lovely morning this was. I’m starting to feel really Christmassy now. It could be because I work in a school and it’s nativity play week. It could be because I have heard ‘Little Donkey’ so many times I’m singing it in my sleep. Or it could be because I’ve seen Father Christmas. Yes, the big man himself! It’s quite embarrassing really how excited I must look. Out of an entire crowd of people, other than to the children, I was the only adult that got my own personal wave and a shout to ask if I’d been a good girl! I of course told him of my exemplary behaviour all year, my need for a new dressing gown and put everyone else a good word in too. I must try to stop looking so excited because to my grown children I am an absolute embarrassment but you know what I say……….you are never too old to believe! If you don’t believe he does not come!

I love making things and for a few years now I’ve wanted to go on a floristry workshop to learn how to make one of those beautiful natural looking Christmas wreaths but by the time I get around to booking on one they are always fully booked.

So, this year I organised myself and booked early and on Sunday morning I went to the very pretty village of Hooton Pagnell to a workshop that was held in the church. It was the perfect setting for a Christmas wreath making workshop. There was a little bit of snow on the ground and it was cold and crisp.

We’d been e-mailed a couple of days before to tell us to layer our clothing as churches at this time of year are very cold, even with the heating on and it hasn’t got above zero degrees now for almost a week. It was freezing and I kept my down jacket and scarf on all the way through but that did not matter as it somehow made it feel more Christmassy. The church was all lit with candles and Christmas carols were playing in the background.

The workshop was run by the lovely Hannah who owns her own floristry business called The Garden of Evie. Hannah is an eco-florist focusing on sustainable floristry. She only uses British grown flowers that are in season and all natural materials wherever possible, so no plastic, no florist’s oasis foam etc. A lot of the flowers she grows herself in her own cutting patch and the rest of the materials are foraged from the local area where possible. Some of the items she uses in her designs are just so effective and I would never have thought of using………..dead flower heads, pheasant feathers, seed pods, twigs………..some really unusual stuff. There are some pictures of her work on her website here and if you like natural flowers and floristry it’s well worth a look:

https://www.thegardenofevie.co.uk/

So off we set to make our wreaths. We had two hours to make a wreath of our own design using any of the materials she had brought……..and there were lots to choose from. First of all, we covered our wreath ring with sphagnum moss and then we set to work on making individual bundles of foliage and decorations to securely attach all the way around the ring. It’s not that difficult a thing to make once you know how and follow all the tips from the expert. The most difficult part was choosing which colour velvet ribbon I wanted to attach to it. I’m hopeless when I’m given too much choice and Hannah had just so much lovely velvet ribbon to choose from in a multitude of colours and widths.

Then, as if the morning could not get any better there were refreshments………and I like refreshments……..especially when the refreshments include cakes!! There was tiffin, mince pies, cinnamon biscuits, flapjack and all sorts of other home baked Christmas treats along with mulled wine, coffee and tea to drink.

There were around eight of us doing the workshop and it was lovely to meet and chat to such a lovely group of ladies and get into the Christmas spirit. So here it is the finished wreath! I was actually quite proud of it for my first attempt at wreath making. It’s not perfectly symmetrical but that sort of adds to its natural look (or that’s what I’m telling myself!). All eight of them looked fantastic and they were all completely different as they all reflected our own personal tastes.

The only slight problem I had was how I was going to attach it to the door when I got home. I’ve got one of those new composite front doors which you would not want to start knocking nails and hooks into and the wreath is really heavy. You can’t use one of those over the door hangers either as the door won’t close. But I had an ingenious idea. If I made another wreath of the same weight on my own at home, I could have one on the inside of the door too and just hang them over the door like a pendulum and the ribbon would be thin enough for the door to close. So, a little garden centre visit on the way home for another wreath ring and a trip down the woods to get some foliage and I was soon on with wreath number two. I did worry slightly as to how this one would turn out without Hannah’s expert guidance but I actually think I’ve got the hang of this wreath making and it’s just as good as wreath number one. Just look at the mess I made though! It took me the best part of an hour to tidy up after myself, but so much fun.

So, if you like doing, making, Christmas and mince pies like I do I’d definitely recommend a wreath making workshop. A lovely relaxing morning learning how to do something new away from the hecticness of Christmas.

What a lovely Saturday for a minus 4 degrees day in Yorkshire. It’s so cold! We had our first sprinkling of snow this week and every morning I have had to scrape the ice from my car. I’m not a morning person at the best of times but when I have to de-ice my car, I’m even less of a morning person. Added to that the fact that on Thursday morning I ran out of coffee beans, this week has not been the week of good morning starts for me and Thursday morning I was definitely better off being avoided.

Today though has been a lovely day. I have been treating a very special lady……..my Mum!! It’s a little bit of an annual ritual now is ladies treat day. For 30 years she cooked Christmas dinner and for the last 20 years I have cooked Christmas dinner, and Mum and Dad come to me. Anyone who is responsible for Christmas dinner will know it’s a bit of a stress. Lots of food to cook and lots of mouths to feed. So, I make a point, on a weekend a couple of weeks before Christmas, of taking Mum and myself out for our very special Christmas meal where we get pampered and waited on and don’t have to do any cooking or wash the dishes. Just us two!

When I was on my Camino, I had a lot of time to think. You realise how fast time flies and how you don’t really take time, or have the time, to appreciate a lot of the people and events in your life. I think it can be a little bit like that with parents. You sort of take it for granted that they will always be there and they never seem to get any older, then all of a sudden you realise that they do seem so much older and times are precious and limited. One of the things I promised myself I would do would be to spend more time ‘in the moment’ and appreciate the simple things in life that I sometimes take for granted, and that won’t be there for ever, and Mums and Dads are one of those things.

You can get a little bit fed up of turkey though by the time it gets to Christmas. There are friends to meet up with for Christmas dinner, work nights out for Christmas dinner, so this year we decided not to do traditional Christmas dinner.

So where have we been? We’ve been to lovely York……one of the best preserved medieval cities in Britain and the historic capital of Yorkshire.

Mum loves York and it’s a bit too difficult for her to get there on her own now. She loves the shops, the medieval buildings, the beautiful York Minster…………………and we both love Betty’s!

Betty’s, for anyone who is not familiar with it, is a great Yorkshire institution. It is a tearoom that was first opened in 1919 by Frederick Belmont. There are various branches of Betty’s now in Yorkshire but the largest are in York and Harrogate. Frederick Belmont and his wife, in 1936, went on the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary ocean liner and he liked the art deco interior of the ship so much that he hired the interior designers to fit out his tea rooms. So today we have been to the Belmont Room in Betty’s of York for the quintessential British afternoon tea, but at Betty’s it’s a ‘Yorkshire Afternoon Tea’. It’s a small fortune to go as far as afternoon tea prices are concerned but for a special treat it’s worth it and this special lady is certainly worth it……..my Mum not me I mean! It’s so eloquent, bone china tea service, silver cutlery, pianist playing the grand piano, attentive waiters and waitresses and the most delicious selection of finger sandwiches and cakes. It has a tea menu so long with loose leaf tea from all over the world, and being a Yorkshire girl, I love a good cuppa. At home it has to be Taylors of Harrogate ‘Yorkshire Tea’ but at Betty’s it has to be Golden Valley Darjeeling, no milk, just Darjeeling……perfect.

I couldn’t see Mum for half the time as I swear she is shrinking and the plate of cakes and sandwiches was so big I could just see her head poking over the top. It was delicious and was a nice change from roast turkey dinner.

They even box up what you can’t eat in a pretty little box to take home. This is Mum’s by the way. It will be no surprise to anyone that I managed to eat all mine!

Then we had a lovely wander around York and up to the Minster. It was so pretty with all the lights in the trees and Mum wanted to see the new stone statue to the side of the main door of the late Queen Elizabeth II which was unveiled by King Charles (I still can’t get used to saying that) in his visit to York last week. It was quite impressive but needs a little time to weather, it was so obviously new alongside the other stonework.

All in all it was a lovely Mum and daughter day and a nice relaxing start to what tends to be the busiest week of the year……….. the last week at school before Christmas, the week I really get into it at home and go a bit over the top with the tree and Christmas decorations and get more excited than a child on Christmas morning. I love Christmas!!! The tree has been purchased yesterday, that once a year trip that I try and squeeze a full size Nordmann Fir into the back of a Mini (I managed it yet again!). My light up reindeer has been extracted from the loft. The first lot of mince pies will be baked tonight. I still have presents to wrap, house to decorate, Christmas cake to decorate, tree to put up, boys to pick up from the train station next weekend and then I’m ready. Oh, and tomorrow I’m attending a very special craft class……..you know how I like a ‘learning to do something new’ class, so all will be revealed in due course. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

This Sunday I felt the need for a little adventure! So where better to go than the mighty Kinder Scout. For anyone not familiar with the area Kinder Scout is a moorland plateau around half an hour from home. At 636 metres above sea level it is the highest summit in the area. On a clear day you can see all the way to Mount Snowden in Wales…….but unfortunately not on Sunday. It’s also the scene of a very unfortunate accident on my part! This time I decided to walk, but last time I did a route in this area, in September 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, I ran it, on my own. I managed to fall quite spectacularly (nothing new there then) and gashed open the underside of my arm on a rock as I slid along the floor. I then had to drive myself to hospital one hour away, have a number of stitches and an x-ray, and later that week have the car cleaned of all the blood I had shared with the upholstery on the drive to hospital. On Sunday I thought I’d have another go, walking to see if I could remain upright.

Kinder Scout is described as offering ‘rewarding but challenging’ walks. You have to go up there prepared for bad weather, cloud and have the means to navigate as there are only a couple of ways down and you need to be able to find them. At this time of year ‘Kinder’ as we affectionately call it in the area keeps Edale Mountain Rescue Team very busy.

It’s also important to fuel for it and take food and drink with you. Now that can only mean one thing, an excuse for coffee and cake before attempting it. That however led to my sad discovery that Mike and Karen from Oggie’s Citreon Van cafe (in one of my earlier posts) are retiring! Oh no! What am I to do? Well, I’ve found a suitable alternative…………..the newly opened Castleton Coffee Co. in the beautiful village of Castleton, next to Kinder. Not only did it have wonderful coffee but my first mince pie of the year too. It does do breakfast too but I am quite capable of eating mince pies for breakfast…..I love them and I get really excited about Christmas when the mince pies start to appear.

So full of mince pie and caffeine I set off, past the houses and the river. I love some of the plants at this time of the year, lots of berries and some very pretty pink flowers on one shrub. This part of the world has some wonderful fields and hedges and I was really pleased to see a newly laid hedge in the traditional style as I left the village. These traditions and skills are so important to keep for wildlife and the preservation of the countryside and I think they look fantastic when they are done properly. That’s another one for my bucket list of courses…………I’d like to go on a hedge laying course, there are lots in the area on a weekend.

Then it was off up the Pennine Way and past Upper Booth Campsite and Farm. Now this campsite has very fond memories for me and I always take a picture of the sign when I walk past it and send it to the youngest of my two sons. The campsite is the scene of one his unfortunate events, he’s had many! We had just bought our first tent and were going on our first camping adventure, like you do when you have little boys. I took them here as it wasn’t too far from home but feels a million miles away as it’s quite remote. The campsite was quite basic and it felt like a bit of an adventure…….until he managed to lock himself in the toilets in the barn and could not unlock the door. I always used to say……”Don’t lock the door, I’m outside and I’ll ensure no-one comes in”. This is my inquisitive one though that likes to do the opposite of what you tell him to do. So what followed was an hour of me feeding him chocolate buttons through the gap in the door to keep him calm while everyone else tried to get the door open from the outside. We still laugh about it now and he’s nineteen.

Over the bridge and up over the stile (I’ve never been able to do this bit elegantly) and then you are onto the lower slopes of ‘Kinder’. I found a cow so all was well with the world! A bit of history about ‘Kinder’ now as it is responsible for a lot of what us walkers enjoy today in the UK. On 24th April 1932 it was the scene of ‘The Mass Trespass’. This was led by the ‘Young Communist League’ and was literally a mass trespass over privately owned land to highlight the fact that walkers were being denied access to areas of open countryside. There are varying reports as to how many people were involved in the trespass, from 100 to 3000. However, it led to violent scuffles with gamekeepers and the imprisonment of the organisers, but today in the UK it is remembered as one of the most successful acts of civil disobedience in history. It led to the National Parks Legislation in 1949 and the ‘right to roam’ on open access land. It also allowed the establishment of the Pennine Way, a 268 mile path from Edale to Kirk Yetholm near the Scottish border. So it is thanks to that act of disobedience that we get to enjoy these beautiful National Parks in the UK today.

You then start to climb the upper slopes. The view, with the sun trying to poke through the clouds, is beautiful. It didn’t quite make its way out on Sunday but it was trying. It was four season boots weather as it is always very muddy up there and they are needed for the terrain coming back down. There are also quite a few steams to cross on the way up and down so waterproof footwear is essential too. Half way up and my coat was off, even though it was quite cold, as it gets really steep. As usual I managed to go slightly off the path and ended up in a little peat bog, head poking up above the grass – if there is more than one way I can always be relied upon for choosing the wrong way! It’s common knowledge not to follow me on a walk. I’m either off in dizzy daydream land or that busy taking photographs I can very quickly have no idea where I am.

Eventually after around an hour you get to the glorious top. The views up there are fantastic normally, but not on Sunday as it was a little bit misty. I managed to find the ‘dragon rock’ and got the must have shot of having my arm chewed off, same picture just a different day but you just have to do it every time. Coat back on now, and bobble hat, as it’s always very blustery up there. Then a wander across the top of the plateau and across the peat bogs that it is so well known for. Fortunately now, to stop erosion, the National Trust and Peak District National Park have laid a path across the bogs, better for the bogs and the walkers! A few years ago, on a day like Sunday, you would have been up to your waist in peat.

Then the exciting bit……..coming down Grindsbrook to get off ‘Kinder’ and back into the Edale valley below. It’s not a walk it’s a scramble, there’s no walking involved for the first half mile, it’s just clambering and climbing down, using all four limbs and lots of splashing in the water. This is why they call it challenging and why it’s nice and quiet, because most walkers would not consider it a walk and would not attempt it. I love it though.

The approach into Edale is just lovely, through the woods, lots of sheep and as always on one of my walks……..the route ends at a pub! In this case the lovely ‘Old Nags Head’.

Only time for a quick visit to the pub though as my very special tea which I’d started this morning was on the timer in the oven at home and it was perfect for warming me up when I got in. Since I’ve come home from my trip walking in the summer I’ve really missed the Camino and that area. I love cooking too so when I got back from the Camino I bought some cookery books to recreate some of the lovely food until I return. My favourite is a book called Recipes from San Sebastian and Beyond by Jose Pizarro. Some of the ingredients are quite difficult to get hold of but this week my ‘El Avion’ Pimenton Dulce arrived from the food importers…….so time to try a new recipe perfect for today. Now I like a stew and this one is called ‘Sukalki’………… a Basque beef stew with potatoes, onions, peas, carrots and cognac (yes you get to flambe it……the best bit, and I managed to avoid the kitchen cupboards with the flames). It was delicious and I actually think my photo looks as good as the one in the book………..definitely a recipe to do again after a cold walk, it was delicious – Yum.

So all in all a lovely Sunday of adventure and good food. So if you are ever near the glorious ‘Kinder’ the route is up Crowden Brook, along the plateau, down Grindsbrook, and along the valley bottom, followed by half a beer and beef stew of course!