A Soggy Christmas – Or – My Stick’s Longer Than Your Stick

Well, it was a bit wet and windy over Christmas, wasn’t it?

We were determined to enjoy it though – after all, the doggies are waterproof and we’ve got Paramo……….

Hawes was our destination for the fortnight. There’s something about that whole area; when I was young (back in the 60s), we spent many holidays both there and in Ingleton, winter and summer, in our tiny little 10ft long caravan. Luckily, I’ve managed to convince Geoff of the magic of the Dales, too.

Despite the wind and the rain, and the wind and the rain, and the wind and the rain………we battened ourselves down and got out a-wandering every day. I’ve think we’ve now walked every public footpath that radiates out from Hawes, leading to the fells all around the town. Geoff even got out on his mountain bike three times.

One day when we got back from a walk, our mate Bernie was there waiting for us. He’d motorcycled up for the afternoon just to say hello – which was nice.

Another night, Geoff’s daughter and her boyfriend came over and spent the night with us. We put a tent up for them next to the van (a Wild Country Duolite), and a pole promptly snapped in the supposed 70mph gusts of wind we were having. Actually, I was dead impressed, because not only did Geoff manage to repair it with one of those metal sleeve things and copious amounts of insulation tape (Geoff never goes anywhere without insulation tape – usually black), the repaired pole then proceeded to stand up to the 70mph gusts for the rest of the night, no problem. So hopefully now, if one of my poles snaps out wild camping, I’ll know exactly what to do! (Must put some more insulation tape in my rucsac.)

And then on another evening, @FlintyRich (from Twitter), called in for a beer and a mince pie on his way back from a Great Shunner Fell circuit.

I’d also hoped to meet AndySurfnslide, as he was staying in Ingleton for the first couple of days of the holidays. However, I only realised that he was going to be there, right at the last minute as we were leaving home, and by that time it was impossible to communicate with him due to the absolutely abysmal Vodafone coverage that seems to exist generally in the Dales and the North Pennines.

Anyway though, all in all we had a great time. And we did manage a few photos.