Covering Picture

It doesn't look quite as beckoning in the winter does it?
However....strange though it may be people do keep coming through, there may not be as many people who want to do the coast to coast either on foot or on two wheels but there are some who want to up the challenge by doing it in the winter.

The winter walkers tend to be better wrapped, more wet weather gear and with the addition of flares (which they don't have in summer)
I am guessing that you all understand that by 'flares' I don't mean the baggy trouser that was so common in the 70's...although saying that, it's quite hard to see what is under the wet weather gear and some of these people are a bit retro.

Cyclists however wear exactly the same skin tight lycra, perhaps there is such a thing as winter skin tight lycra and if there is I don't know about it.
But the cyclists all wear the same, in any season, in any weather.


A whole group of them have just cycled past my window as I write, short sleeved tight fluorescent t-shirts, skin tight shorts and a bright hard hat and shades and talking about how cold it is....

It's White Out!

Everything happens at the wrong time, usually the worst time, the time when everything was planned to go so well and what on earth could go wrong after all you have calculated for every eventuality....except SNOW!

For months I have been working on the migration to a new email server. Close enough to 200 employees, various groups and a business that is 95% reliant on email. I have been working on this for months, setting up the server (it's in the cloud don't y'know) getting the accounts set, checking groups, aliases, forwarding, making sure that the new server mirrored everything the old one was doing and even then I knew that come switch on I would be working until 2am on the Saturday night and in the office all day on the Sunday and then MOST IMPORTANT!!!! THAT I WOULD BE IN ON THE MONDAY MORNING BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE to make sure that nobody tried to log into the old server and that they were all aware of the changes to operation and then it would all be great.
Sunday night....I let the dogs out....no snow.... Monday morning....see above picture!
Crap!
Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapandutterbollocks!
You can quote me on the above!

I tried to get my car out, it went well backwards and then I tried to go forwards.....It didn't go forwards....I couldn't imagine reversing the 60 miles to work....
However...there was no panic, we have a plan for this, first we ring the 24 hour insurance line and then we get me on Kasha's insurance for Sissy and then I go to work through the snow aided by the power of the Land Rover Company.

This sounds easy doesn't it? It's 2012 and indeed Kasha's insurance company do have a 24 hour line. The 24 hour line is manned by a man called Jim, he is a nice man, his granddaughter is at Uni now, he has been manning the line for the last 12 years, he answers the phone to tell people that you have to call your local office because they don't have the ability to do anything for the full 24 hours. I think that it is nice that they provide a real live person to do this rather than a machine. It is good because as Jim says....he needs the work, and after the mills closed....or something like that. We get away as he starts to tell us about his ailments....

I need to be at work at 8am....the local office doesn't open until 9am, it takes me 75 minutes to get to work, and that is when we don't have the height of two large pixies (in pointy hats) of snow sitting on the ground.

At 9am we ring the local office, it rings and rings and rings. It is still ringing at 9:15 but at 9:20 we get a very breathless woman who has just fought her way through the snow. She hasn't got her coat of yet she says, we don't care we think but we remain pleasant and get my name on the documents.

This is great, I have never driven Sissy before and she is my girlfriends pride and joy and now I am taking her out for the first time ever in two pixies (in hats) worth of snow with ice underneath. This is a thrilling time for me but Kasha seems to want to chew cushions and wring her hands...women!!!!

By the time I get up the hill and into range of my mobile phone I have 32 messages from work....
Happy Monday everyone, it's white out!

Today I am in....

Yes, I know that the blog is called "Arse End of Nowhere" and that the question is are we really in the AEON or the AONB?

Today was one of those days when I found the answer.
I have been told many times by Mark and Louise about a waterfall just a few minutes from their house, so today Kieran, Kasha and I decided to drive up the valley, park at our friends house and wander off to find this wonderful place.
We were told to expect snow today, and so as we were setting off into the Eden hills you prepare for what may come so there was warmth with jackets and special hats and gloves and the correct footwear and all the other stuff.
Cold kills you out here. We may be Geordies and like all Geordies not need to wear more than a T-Shirt when wandering in and out of busy bars on Newcastle quayside in the dead of winter, but it's different here. In this place no one may pass near you for days, and cold kills you in hours. It's been an eye opener for me and my son since we came here, you may not need a coat for the few hours you are out, but you take one anyway.
And so kitted out..... we set off.

We were told that we would find a river and that we were to follow it upstream.

We traipsed through woodland and mud

And then....there it was.

It's the darker days right now, winter, cold and not very pleasant but even then the sight and the aura of the place just hits you. I can't wait to see this place in the warmth of summer.
I can't wait to spend long days here. 

We were told that you can walk behind the waterfall and so Kieran set off at a run.

 
Eventually the two of us got there














In case you ever wondered what it looked like to stand behind a waterfall.

Today I am in the most beautiful place in the world.


There is a reason they call it Eden.

It's that in between bit.

The first full week back at work never really feels right. It's that point in the year when you know that it is now 2013 but when writing the date you still find yourself writing 2012....and everyone agrees with you...

I am still buzzing and feeling great about what was a fantastic Xmas week and brilliant New Year. I had to take Kieran back to his mum New Years Eve, but he is back with us again soon and looking forward to being back at the cottage.

New Years day morning I got up and took the dogs out while Kasha struggled with the daylight in true vamp fashion.
Sweep has now discovered how to open the garden gate, luckily he still waits just inside for everyone which gives the other dogs a chance to catch up while also giving any sheep that have sneaked in a chance to slip out of the hole in the wall and back into the safety of the sheep field.
The dogs love a good runaround but we do have to keep them away from any livestock as farmers with shotguns really do shoot first and ask questions later.
We have had one of those 'busy' weekends where you really want time off but you have promised to do something. This weekend it was a promise to paint part of Kierans room so while he has been away that has been what we did.

After painting I managed to get up to see Dave the blacksmith who was working on a Saturday again. 
Dave is one of only 8 blacksmiths in the UK that is allowed to work on historic metalwork so he does things for many of the castles, historic building and historic organisations. It's always fun to go in there, last time I was in I was handling a 13th century winding mechanism (cranaquin) for a crossbow.
It has been a few weeks since I have seen him and there have been some changes down there.
Dave has been talking about doing weekend courses but he needed more than just the one forge. He had two others ready but not installed but when I went in today they were sitting in place ready, they just need the chimney vents in and that should be them ready to fire up.

Kieran has been talking about going into the forge and spending a day there learning how to make things, perhaps some time in the summer he will get a chance to do that.

I like the idea that the old village still has a traditional blacksmith and that he stands at a forge sweating, beating steel on an anvil and making things as they were always made in the way that it was always done.
It sort of feels right around here, Garrigill is like that strange nowhere space of time just after Xmas, it's a place that's old but new and seems to be sat in the middle. The in between bit.