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.

Hi Hoooooooooo!

 My Xmas week is over and I had to take Kieran back to his mums this morning so I dropped him off on the way into the office.

It's always a sad day when he goes back, however it's New Years Eve so I imagine that tonight I won't be my usual 'Kieran has gone away' miserable, or if I am at least I may be very drunk when doing it!
There has been a fairly large amount of rain over the last week which has led to the ford on the river being higher than usual, luckily this isn't the way out of Garrigill, but that isn't to say that the drive this morning didn't

involve various flooded roads and bridges. It kept our interest when every time we turned a corner there was a bit of a splash. It makes the journy more fun anyway.

Earlier in the week the hills got a touch of the white stuff, it was a surprise when it didn't work it's way lower but yet again we seem to have escaped. 
The morning drive in is getting noticably lighter too as that extra 11 minutes a day starts to add up.

At work I have hung up my new calender. This year I will be treated to the dream of a VW camper van every new month, and meanwhile Akasha keeps painting things that remind me of summer....and driving around in a VW Camper.... Perhaps one day!
It has been a fantastic week, one of the best christmas's for a long time.
I'm feeling all warm and content, must be the new hats...or the company I am now keeping
:-)

A Man of Many Hats

The shortest day may have passed but it is still very much winter.
In the summer this place may become an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) but right now in the dead of winter it truly is the Arse End Of Nowhere, and as it has different types of rain, hail, snow and other cold wetness falling from the sky, you really do need a variety of hats to deal with them all.
I have mentioned in the past 'ways to tell the weather' in the AEON and another one of the ways is to look at the types of hats that the locals may be wearing when out.

Most people have some sort of leather or oilskin fully waterproof for the torrential downpourings and after that you go into hats of various stages of wet weather and warmth right through to summer ones for eye and sun protection.
A quick look out of the window at any time and as long as you can see through the lashing rain at the hats you can always tell just how much it's raining and how cold it is.

This year I received many hats as Christmas presents as my stock of various weather hats is low. This is because I am still a newbie out here and I have yet to set myself up fully for the various weathers that I see out of the window. hats and gloves and various coats are much needed and very well received, but by far the most talked about and best hats this year were a present from Karl, Sue and family over in the USA.

Without any prior knowledge of the importance of headwear to this very climate sensitive area they sent us matching AEON hats which have gone down a storm in the George and Dragon.

Yes, in a place where hats are a way of life (or death) a good hat is a conversation piece and our new hats have really gone down well with the friends.

Over the last few days there have been a few flickerings of power and once or twice we have wondered if we would be plunged into darkness for a day or four.
It hasn't happened yet, but we are expecting it, probably at the time when the snow is deepest and the logs for the burner are low.
You can tell I'm an optimist eh?

So far it's been a damned easy Christmas. We have not been snowed in, not once! The rain has fell in buckets, but this is the place where all rivers start and so we don't flood, all the water from here usually ends up around the cities causing problems for those who don't live in the wilderness, so we may have to have very fine hats of various types, but we leave the choices of waders to the people in the lowlands.

The lights just flickered again! I am told if the power goes off that the village meets in the pub!
I'm not sure of there is any reason for this other than the ale is hand pulled and they have a huge log fire for warmth it may even be because everyone checks that everyone is ok. I imagine it's the former as that seems to be the better reason, and everyone here likes a reason to meet up so perhaps losing power is a sure time to arrange to meet your mates and have a laugh about the power going off.

Whatever the true reason is, I don't feel (being a newbie) that I should try and change a schedule brought on by years of power loss and community spirit.

It's winter! It's cold, and this is the Arse End of Nowhere!
I have a hat to prove it. I'm not about to fight tradition so if those with more experience think a trip to the pub in the dark is the way that things should be, who am I to argue,  because for sure you can't argue with a man who knows the right headgear for any circumstances, no matter how foolish he looks.

Ready Steady...

It's raining in the Arse End of Nowhere. It's been raining pretty heavy for many days and thanks to the time of year every droplet carries that icy winter sting that feels like a freezing pin prick on contact.
None of this really matters of course because it's close to Christmas and also because as Billy Connolly once said "There's no such thing as bad weather...just the wrong clothes" Out here we all have the right clothes and these usually include some sort of neck and hand warming device, various hats (of which there will be a blog soon) and multi functional coats.

It's only a few days until Christmas now. I have one more day at work tomorrow and I am picking up my son on Christmas eve from his mum and I have him for the whole week :-D

Everything is ready here, the attic room which was storage has now been made into his room, all presents are either hidden or wrapped and there is about four days worth of dry logs stacked around the fire ready to add the colour, warmth, smell and atmosphere that only a log fire can bring.

 We managed to get a mix of the old and new which suits the cottage quite well. There was a search for holly, which would you believe is quite hard to find in the middle of the english countryside, do we have a national holly shortage or something? However in the end we managed to find some which went very nicely onto the fire held in place by the skulls and the coca cola santa clause's :-)

Those who used to read my old blog will remember that I don't like to cut tree's for Xmas so last year I sprayed a dead twig and hung things from it. I think that may be a Xmas tradition that keeps going with my wonderful new life. This year we went out with the dogs and found a piece of Hawthorn that sprayed up lovely and looks damn fine. It's a bit quirky, but as we keep getting told we are both 'just the right amount of strange', and for the second year running I can happily say that "no tree's were harmed in the making of this Xmas"
It's going to be a very good Christmas in Garrigill, family, warmth and the company of nice people from the village so in the end, who cares if it rains?

Meanwhile the local metropolis of Alston (population 1.800) brushed up the cobbles and set the lights atop the market cross which on dark nights ensures that no trucks drive into it. I'm not quite sure if it would be seen from Google maps though.

See how the road is wet in that picture.....raining.....!!!

Tis The Season

In 7 days it will be Xmas day. It's a strange sort of christmas but one that I am looking to enjoy because I will be with my youngest son and my girlfriend for a whole week. We are spending it in Garrigill in the cottage and we are going to have a traditional christmas with joy & laughter, pressies, home cooked christmas dinner, log fires and I hope a smattering of snow.
I don't usually get into christmas early, and I can't say I will ever be one of these people that puts the decorations up in November or early December. For me christmas usually starts when we have the works christmas party and that was just a few days ago.
This one was better than the last couple of parties were for me because I went without a companion to the last two. This year, not the case :-) This year I am with someone sociable who dances and joins in and my eldest son also works with me so he and Kasha got to do a bit of mad dancing together when my feet gave out.

I always had a good christmas as a child. I am lucky that I have lovely parents who always did their best and tried to make things special. That magic sort of goes away for a few years in youth when you spend christmas away or alone but it soon comes back when you have children and they make the magic happen all over again.

My youngest is 15 now and I imagine in a few years that he will be making his own Christmas without me and my christmas day will become more sedate, and quiet but at least not lonely.
I was thinking back a little earlier, last year was quite a bad christmas day. Since the end of my marriage we have passed Kieran about on Christmas day, and last year I woke to an empty house because he was with his mum until lunch time.
At that time I was a month out of another relationship and I felt pretty low counting the minutes until he walked through the door with my mind wandering to other places and wondering what it was like to not be sitting there with nobody. Of course I wasn't the only person in the world that was going through that, and at this time of year the media doesn't help with the adverts of family and friends and people together. The sharing message is not what you want to see when you are 'not through choice alone'.
My...how different things are just a year in the future.

I am looking forward to going home tonight, I have a box of decorations that will be placed in special places around the cottage, I will laugh as someones face goes grumpy and grimacy (in fun) because she likes a pagan christmas, but I will find crowns of oak and holly and we will mix evergreens with Coca Cola santa and bouncy snowmen and see what comes.

At least this year I have access to a real chimney which is always important for the leaving of the mince pie.

Relax

It's nice to have a very well used village hall, and Garrigill does have one that it both well used and well supported not least thanks to some individuals in the village who do lots of fundraising.
What this means is that if you need the hall it is quite easy to get use of it and last weekend it was used for an 80's night with much dressing up, lots of retro 80's dancing and overall a massive amount of fun.
As usual most of the dancing was done by the girls, but the whole atmosphere and dress up was fantastic, and as I dribbled more wine into myself and with the extra help of a few G&T's supplied by a new friend even I started to jiiggle a bit by the end of the night.
Next time I want a flourescent wig...

49 Years in the post.

 Weather seems to be having a small effect. On Tuesday the North East had 2cm of snow, a pitiful amount that brought traffic to a standstill and had me driving 3 hours to get to the AEON, 2 hours of that on the A1 doing 1/2 a mile an hour.
Then on Thursday the snow decided to trick me as we had chilly rain all the way apart from the one section of the road that sits at 2000ft up which decided to have 8 inches of snow in just one single 2 mile section.....on a slight incline. Believe me, a Ford Focus without socks gets a bit slippy slidy in fresh snow, and didn't it just have to be on the bit with the highest drop over the edge. It's all exciting stuff, but I had to get to Garrigill as there was a long weekend arranged for Kasha's birthday. I arrived back to see her fretting over a painting while I fretted over the lack of snow socks for the car, this snow sock thing may be a recurring blog entry until I get some. Xmas is coming, perhaps I will get socks in my stocking?
On that thought, I learned the lesson a while ago that women don't think like men at Xmas.
Men, and by that I mean proper men tend to be functional and we don't mind getting presents that we need in order to do a thing. Screwdriver sets, saws, things for bending pipes...all of these things are good as Xmas presents. However..... a woman may go on for ages about a slow cooker or special pans or other functional stuff and other such things not kitchen related, but if you buy one as a present you end up wearing it. It's a concept that for men is hard to understand and often painful to learn.

Which moves un on quite nicely to the birthday girl. There was a promise of breakfast in bed, but in the end it was decided to have breakfast downstairs while watching the rain through the AEON window. Then on to the opening of the cards.

The highlight of the morning came when on just the right day (birthday) the postman dropped a big package through the door that had come from America.
There was much excitement as the packet was poked and prodded, shook, sniffed by the dogs and then exitedly torn open.

There has never been a brother at birthday time before and so this was and exciting moment.

The top was off, the nose was poked in and what emereged was one of the lovliest birthday thoughts I have ever come across.
If you don't know the story read the blogs earlier in the month, but to summarise Kasha knew she had kin through her fathers side but never knew who or where and we found her brother a few weeks ago. For the first time in her life she has family beyond her mum. 

And then she had birthday cards.
One for every year of her life that she and Karl had missed.
49 hand written birthday cards, each with a special message relating to what was happening in the year it should have been sent.
There were smiles and tears, and weepy warm bits at some of the messages. There were 49 years of laughter and joy and sadness and sharing, it was lovely.
Of course now Karl can say that he never ever missed a single one of his sisters birthdays and Kasha has a set of cards to remind her of that, and they will be treasured forever. There is already a search for a special box to put them in.

I like happy endings