New Year saw us staying in Winton, near Kirkby Stephen, on a working dairy farm. This suited me as I could ask questions about their cows, although I had forgotten about the taciturn nature of Lakeland / Yorkshire farmers. I did get one chance to chat and found out what type of cows they had, a breed I didn’t know and whose name I promptly forgot. I asked about Dexter cows, these being the preferred choice of the smallholder, and he harrumphed, saying there weren’t many about. Mainly, he added, because they were ‘nobbut a hobby cow’. This made me laugh to myself, the idea that keeping a single cow is, to a dairy farmer with a full herd, something that only part-timers do.
That aside, we had the most wonderful break. We spent New Year’s Eve in a small and almost empty pub, sat by a log fire, playing dominoes and drinking real ale, while the hippy-rasta barman crocheted to pass the time and where, at midnight, six small rockets were set off. Once they’d exploded, the silence descended again, to bring in the new year as it has done for centuries.New Year’s Day took us to Borrowdale valley and a walk up Castle Crag. The fog of the previous night had gone, leaving hoar frost on plants and trees and a white cover over everything. At 11.30, when we got to the car park, it was already full and I only got the last space by asking someone to move their car a little.
On the Friday we woke to find a dusting of snow and drove the short distance to Ravenstonedale and followed a walk from the local paper, cut out by the landlady of the B&B. Although a gentle walk, it was made more difficult by the 44 gated stiles that we had to get through. Designed for people with very long legs and no bum or belly, they involved plenty of both stretching and breathing in. As we reached the halfway mark, we noticed a cloud bringing snow heading our way and I kept an eye on it nervously until I realised it wouldn’t overtake us and envelope us in a blizzard. 
Finally, on Saturday we headed home via Glenridding and a hike up towards Helvellyn. Bitterly cold in the wind, over paths covered in sheet ice, but terrific views. Slight nervousness when Agnieszka’s knee went, giving her another bruise to match the one she got from a tumble on a slippy path, but it seemed to be ok and we got back to the car park without further mishap.
Over Kirkstone Pass and through Windermere took us back to the motorway and it was dark before we reached the M6. A clear run and we were home in an hour and a half. As we approached the Manchester area, the light pollution was really obvious, especially after three nights of almost total darkness. The following day in Farnworth, the notion we were back in a city was reinforced by the piles of crap littering the streets, the graffiti and the track-suited inhabitants of our adopted town. Welcome home, to 2009.*************************************************
As a small aside, to see out 2008 it was decided to add an extra second to the year to allow for the slower rotation of the world. This involved, in the case of Big Ben, adding / removing some of the piles of old pennies used to regulate the pendulum. Technical eh? Some radio air-time was given to discussion about how this time could be spent although, for me, it was easy: I used it to kiss my wife. What better use of an extra second could there be?
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