School today...?

waiting to hear if the school is closed or not......winter (as you may have gathered) has arrived in Cumbria!

Souther Fell photo's...

http://picasaweb.google.com/simon.bigair/SoutherFellWithClaire#

Change of plans...

Claire and I were hoping to go to Newcastle this weekend with Mum and Peter away to keep their nice open fire company.....however the recent snow and a glorious forecast for tomorrow have kept us in the Lakes.....lets hope the weather is going to play ball!!!

Attempt on Newlands...

we ummed and aahed a lot on Friday night - at one point even thinking of going away for the weekend. However we elected in the end to get up early Saturday and try Newlands Horseshoe on the grounds the weather stated it would be better to the west....

....a good early (ish!!!) start then occurred and we had a good drive to Keswick; followed by a lovely sandwich for breakfast and buying some good trousers for Claire. We then got to the parking spot to find far too many cars for my liking in residence...however it was a glorious day as I hope the pictures show http://picasaweb.google.com/simon.bigair/MaidenMoorAndHighSpy# and we set off up. Unfortunately the weather deteriorated and by the time we reached High Spy we were deep in cloud. There were also lots of people around; including what looked like a university group one member of whom was on about going onto Great Gable that day......so the decision was made to drop to Dalehead Tarn and follow the road back down the valley and the car. This was not the greatest decision on earth as the path was quite slippy in places. However, the cloud was still low and the rain started when we hit the car so we would not have seen much anyhow...and there was still time for a gear fix and a cake!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/simon.bigair/MaidenMoorAndHighSpy#

A quieter weekend....

after a truly fantastic walk in the Cheviots last weekend - pics on Picassa of what was a truly awesome autumnal day; one of the best I've ever had in the Cheviot range - Claire and I are taking it a bit easier this weekend.

We went to the Levellers concert in Kendal on Fri night - a very small venue for such a big band; but the tour was to celebrate 20 years from their first album ' A weapon called the word'....probably a bit too small and a bit too loud for Claire.

A long (ish) lie-in at mine followed and then we came back to Carlisle. However we got an afternoon walk in yesterday and a run before breakfast this morning and we are going for another run later. The holiday has been paid for and insurances booked so its really just do some training and make sure that all is ready on the exam (Claire) and interview (me) front - I have the PGCE interview in Newcastle on the 22nd....its very competitive but here is hoping...

A wild night.....

Claire finished early in Manchester and so got an earlier train - which meant collecting her at Oxenhome (nr Kendal) rather than Penrith....the drive back over the M6 at Shap was as bad as I have ever seen it....

hope the weather picks up for the weekend..

New pictures from a glorious day in the Cheviots...

full description soon..meanwhile

http://picasaweb.google.com/simon.bigair

So...what have I been up to...

Sorry for the long delays in posting - I know I have not really caught up with the Italy stuff yet but things have been hectic here. Claire and I have booked a holiday to Morocco at xmas to do a winter ascent of Mt. Toubkal and we have been training as much as possible for that. This is in between Claire trying to study for her exams; my applying for various courses; going back to work at the school and trying to sort out the flat.

Training is going ok - Toubkal is over 4000m so its difficult to train for in this country. We'll be carrying light packs and Imlil, the village we start in, is over 1700m so hopefully this will help. It would be lovely to have some good weather on this trip, especially after the summer trip to Italy, and for Claire to experience the beauty of the Atlas that I saw last year. Christmas in Marrakech should also be neat - and probably a lot warmer than Britain will be :-)