New Year 2008

2008 is in a new blog ............
Life Outdoors 2008
Happy New Year and enjoy 2008

New Years Eve: Bowness Bay,Cumbria

A rainy night didnt put us off going to Bowness Bay along with heaps of other locals for champagne and fireworks on the lake shore to bring in the new year!

Christmas Lunch: High Carley, Cumbria

Today we had Christmas lunch at home with Wayne and Lois but with roast lamb instead of turkey - just for a change!

oh.... and yes the cat got in on the act too!

Christmas Lunch: Han Family, Surrey

Ian and I travelled down to Copse End on Boxing Day and today went to Tin and Liz's for another Christmas gathering this time with the Han family, we opened presents, ate lunch and drank champagne with Christmas cake.....

Christmas Day Morning: High Carley, Cumbria

Ian and I were up early thanks to 2 excited dogs who couldn't wait to open thier presents - mainly lots of squeaky toys and dogs treats.......

Luckily we'd decided to sleep by the stove so the fire was already going and the champagne was close to hand!

Christmas Day Lunch: Kemp Family, Cheshire

We travelled down to Marple, Cheshire to Ian's mum and dad's and had a traditional Christmas lunch with Ian's family - Ann, Cliff, Chris and Juliet.

Christmas Eve: Langdale

All I am going to say is it was beautiful....

Winter Solstice

The temperature here has been hovering between -3 and -6 for the last 10 days or so.

Looks very pretty.....

High Carley: Winter Woods

We went for a walk down to the woods today - very cold and frosty but with lots of sunshine......

the walk down.....

the view to the meadow......

The beck and deer in the meadow.....

very peaceful, very relaxing and just us!

High Carley: Winter Sunset

Winter Series 4th Race

It was a misty start to the race today but we all turned out in good cheer and santa hats for the pre-christmas race.

I was on main today Anthony and John on jib, Gerry on helm and Ian and Graham on foredeck, Antony and I flew the Spinnker on the first run and John and I on the 2nd.

The feeling of playing with the wind in the sails is very magical and one that is hard to describe unless you've done it!

We had a good start across the starting line and chased Flossie round the 1st 2 laps without gaining on her at all. Shamal was always just that little bit too far in front for us to overtake too.

On the last Spinnaker run Flossie pulled away from us with a good wind - which we didn't get and was halfway down the finishing leg before we rounded the mark. We had a good run, gained on Wizard, over took her, and caught up with Shamal and Flossie, crossing the line literally on Shamal's stern. We came 6th in this weeks race - a very good result and there were a lot of smiles in the pub afterwards.

Unfortunately for Tom he managed to break a finger when the spinnaker failed to launch properly on Flossie.

Race results:
Flossie: own class: 1st overall: 4th
Mojo: own class 2nd overall: 6th
Wizard: own class: 3rd overall 8th
Shamal: own class 4th overall 14th

Celtic Challenger: overall 15th

Jazz: overall 16th

Medieval Banquet

Tonight Denise, Ian and I went to the local Medieval Banquet - where the Knight Crusader and Damsel-In-Distress jived to the Beatles, King John did a solo rock movement to Bon Jovi, Maid Marien and her Merry Men danced to The Mavericks and the Medieval Babes rocked to Boy George!



It was (as Denise put it) very surreal - like being in a scene from Cadfael rocking to Queen!

A very merry night was had by all with an exceptionally good Hog Roast meal by Cath!

Sunny Howgills

A cold but sunny afternoon for us to go and explore a nice track across the Howgills - only to find it was a very long drive to a farm and nowhere else!!

The views, however, were fantastic.......

Dawn Walk High Carley

Ian's full of brainy idea's before work and I must be nuts to follow them up but when the dawn's looking as good as it did today it was worth getting out early with the dogs and crunchy frost on the ground to walk through the paddock and into the woods to watch the sun rising over the fells.

Winter Sun On Whinfell

It was blowing a gale and feezing cold on the tops this afternoon but the sun was out and the dogs loved it, they couldnt stop running everywhere. Me? well I'm too sensible to run up a fellside!

High Carley - Early Morning

and this morning's views to wake up with are......

The Christmas Tree

Our 1st Christmas tree at High Carley..........

Leadhills In Snow

Ian and I set off to go to Leadhills this morning in the sleet and arrived in snow.

We had a warming cuppa at Jo and Alisdairs before going to the pub and meeting Audrey for lunch.

It was then back to Audrey's for a cuppa, a dog walk and then several tumblers full of wine later we pulled ourselves away from the snug woodburning stove to go home.

A great day - thanks guys!

Winter Series - 3rd Race

After a night of gale force winds and howling gales today, come the race, the lake was as flat as a pancake and cold and wet too.

Celtic Challenger came 10th which was fantastic - the rest of us were timed out!

Muker, Keld and Reeth

Familar names to anyone who's done the Coast to Coast Walk and today Ian and I took a trip down memory lane visiting some of the nearby places we'd walked to...

High Carley: Misty Mornings

and we woke up today to this......

5 Years!

Ok - so Ian and I have been together for 5 years now - we went out tonight to The Cross Keys Inn for a very nice meal and came back to a log burning stove we just didnt want to leave so we brought the bedding upstairs and slept on the fouton along with (of course) the dogs and cats - who thought it was all great fun.....

I will be glad when we get the stove installed in the bedroom!

Yateley

Yateley is where my ancestors, the Hilton's, lived from at least 1750-1850 and on the way home from Copse End we called in to take a look at the church where so many of them got married and buried....

Winter Series: 2nd Race

Ian and I did not race today as we were travelling back from Surrey but MOJO came 16th - a good position for the 2nd race.

Gerry must have got the cat 'o nine tails out on the crew in our absence.

Race results:

Shamal: own class 1st overall: 1st

Wizard: own class 2nd overall: 3rd

Worra Suprise: own class 3rd overall: 5th

Flossie: own class 4th overall: 5th

Mojo: own class 5th overall: 16th

Celtic Challenger: overall: 26th