Our furry friend....

 Delight of delights....one of our furry friends needed a walk and wanting a walk ourselves, we were delighted to oblige!

It's another chance to discover some of the area and get some furry practice in for when our new arrival joins us.

We decided to walk through Nenthead mines as far towards the quarry as we could get in an hour....all climb!

These are some of the scenes along the way.....

 

Didn't it turn out to be a lovely day?

We can feel the Autumn is in full swing and getting cooler, we are looking forward to some snow this winter!

Toodle-ooo

Nora

xxx

Proud Mummy & Daddy moment...

 ...yes, lump in the throat stuff....that moment when you realise that your little one understands the world a little better than you thought.

Today is the day Little Woo has her hair cut in order to donate it to The Little Princess Trust who make real hair wigs for children who have lost their hair due to cancer treatment or other illness.

Here she is before.....

...and the moment when her beautiful locks were cut.....

...and there it is.....an amazing length of beautiful hair to be donated to a little one who has none.  And from the warm heart of a little girl who understands how lucky she is to have it, but how much better it is to share ....

So here she is with her new (slightly windswept) haircut......

And that is why we are the proudest parents.

With a warm and fuzzy bye-bye

Nora

xxx

Penrith

 ...that's where we went today!

What a lovely place.  It has a market square and lovely church in the centre and quite an impressive array of shops.

But I'm ahead of myself.

Penrith is south west of Alston.  We have to take the road to Hartside and down the mountain, this was the view.....

sorry about the blurry foreground but you can't stop here!

Really lovely despite the moody sky.  The sense of space is quite incredible.  But sadly with the murk, no view of the mountains around the Lake District today.

Penrith has a great shopping centre, this is the heart of Penrith although not the Market Square....

There is a lovely mix of old style, traditional shops and the usual high street offerings.  My photo of the old outfitters doesn't do it justice, but I'm sure you get the idea.....

This one is also very lovely.....

We walked around the outside of the churchyard and gardens, it was so peaceful, just a stones throw from the hustle and bustle of town.....

Then after shopping, the hours journey home.

This is not mist or fog, but cloud!  At over 1900 feet this mountain climb is quite often sitting with its head in the clouds.....

The black and white pole to the left is for guidance in the snow.....

So there's another little snapshot of life in the rugged beauty of Cumbrias North Pennines.

Back soon.

Nora

xxx

Teesdale to Weardale via Langdon Beck

 As you can probably work out the fells are the hilly bits, the rivers run through them and this combination is known as a dale, in this case the rivers are the Tees and the Wear.  Some of you (especially all those Scouts from the late 1980s) might also have heard of Langdon Beck, the Youth Hostel, it is often used by Scouts and similar groups as a stop off when journeying the Pennine Way.

Between the two dales is a small road about 5 miles long, over the top of the fell separating them.  On our journeys here we often take the Teesdale road and pass this turning and for some time I have wanted to take that road and see where it comes out.

Today was that day!  Yay!

It might seem a little sad to some folk that anyone could be so hoppy-skippy-smiley excited about a drive out, but believe me, the sheer scale of these dales and the enormous beauty they hold is jaw-dropping to someone who has never been anywhere soooo BIG and sooooo open that you can watch the clouds pass over the rugged terrain for long, mesmerising minutes at a time.  In fact, the skies are so moody and wild, you could sit all day and watch the skies and the fells change.  It is stunning.

Anyway, the following photos are our little jaunt from Alston along the Teesdale road to a turning just before Langdon Beck marked St. John's Chapel, which is in Weardale. Then along the Weardale road past the Killhope Lead Mining Museum, over Killhope to Alston. 

Incidentally, the road over Killhope holds the equal honour (with Hartside, the other side of Alston) as the highest paved (or tarmaced) pass in England....hence our blog name!

Enjoy!

On the Teesdale road, this is Yad Moss the local Ski Lift!

Looking down the dale

  

Over the top and down into Weardale

  

The Killhope Lead Mining museum

Killhope Cross looking towards the mining museum

Killhope Cross

Killhope Cross looking towards Garrigill

Killhope Cross is where Cumbria meets County Durham (note the gradient sign!)

Shadow of cloud on the hills

Just before Alston we found some woolly friends - you have to 

be careful on the roads around these 'ere parts!

I'm hoping to upload a short video of the drive down that....erm....interesting gradient (if I can load it up!)  It is an amazing drop!

Til then, take care....bye!

Nora

xxx

The view from our kitchen window......

 Short and sweet....but lovely to share.

The River is the South Tyne flowing north.

So sorry about the date mark!  I'll work on that!

See you soon!

Nora

xxx

Settling in to our 'student digs'...

 It's our pet name for the rental.

It's not awful, just not home.... we are very grateful to have secured it and to have the opportunity to start our life here.....but it does remind us of times past where living in rentals is an experience!  The fab thing is that being in town we are convenient for the shops too....and despite being a town...it's so quiet.

Anyway, after Woo's fab first day at school, the rest of the week continued with school runs, catching up with friends, visits to the park to meet and make new friends after school and the unpacking of odd boxes and the inevitable cleaning... the flat was a bit grim despite the promise of a deep clean!

So nothing really to report of our week or weekend, and actually it flew by.

The next major event in our lives was some time together for an explore.  We walked a 4 mile circuit out from the tiny backstreets of Alston called The Butts following the River Nent to Blagill and the up and back across the tops and down alongside the Nent and into The Butts again.

The scenery is stunning, the river bed amazing...like someone laid slabs for the river to trickle over , the structure of the stone, the waterfall or Force....and on the tops, the wind was phenomenal!

So here are a few pictures of our lovely walk....

 

Walking upstream along the River Nent

 

Nent Force

 

Looking towards Blagill with Nenthead in the distance

 

Blagill Bridge

 

Beautiful rock formation

 

Top road between Blagill and Alston looking towards Alston

 

Alston nestling in the moors

 

 

 

The beautiful rock formation on the river bed

 

The low level of the water means you can walk up the river!

So, that's a little more scenery for you.

Until the next time, 

Bye

Nora

xxx

Shopping trip....

 ...and sadly not a splurgy trip for treats, but, having acquired a fridge, we are food shopping!

We live in quite a remote area so in order to shop on a fairly decent scale, we have to travel over 40 minutes whichever direction we choose to go.

Today after mulling it over, we decided to head to Hexham, what a beautiful place.  Lovely market, beautiful Abbey and interesting independent shops.

Nothing really to tell....its a grocery shop, it's just not that interesting!  But here is the beautiful St. Andrews Hexham...........

Next time, somewhere different.

See ya!

Nora

xxx

It's a fridge! (I know...it's a picture of a chair!)

 ...and said in a very excited voice!

Yes, today was the day for the fridge delivery.

We had put off ordering one because we didn't know if we would be in our house by this time.  But we aren't, so we ordered one.

This means an impending shopping trip.

It also means we can't venture far today as it may arrive.

We did stop off for a cuppa with one of our lovely friends who came to find us at the school (hearing that we were finally here and wanting to catch up).  After that we ventured to the local library, which amazingly is open every and I mean, EVERY day of the week.  And we also went to look at one of the local crafty haunts, The Cane Workshop, which, as the name suggests mainly repairs cane furniture and sells kits for cane work like this....

(sorry, picture quality is awful, follow the link to their gallery)

They also have crafts from local artists, they sell amazing Rag Rugs, recycled wool clothing from The Woolly Pedlar.......

Hawthorn Handmade needlefelting kits.....

locally grown and woven willow baskets and tweed covered hip flasks to name but a few......They're a talented bunch here!

So, the fridge arrived.  Oh, the simple pleasure of a fridge.  Life was a little more difficult without it and we shall certainly appreciate cold milk on our cereal from now on!

Tomorrow is a shopping trip, not sure where to go yet.

Until then,

Bye

Nora

xxx

Wakey, wakey, rise and shine!

 At 7.10 this morning a small figure appeared in the bedroom doorway.....

Daddy asked...."Are you ok Woo?"

The reply came....."Can I go to school this morning?"

We thought she would be tired from the journey and the sickness, not yet back to normal eating after the bug....WRONG!

She was raring to go and SO excited.....how could you say no.

So we got up, found school uniform, conjured a packed lunch and got ready for school.

We were all so excited, it is such a warm, welcoming place.

She was so keen, we arrived early.  And we had to have the obligatory 'first day at school photo'...

She had a wonderful day, as we left her there and walked back to the car her friend bypassed us without even a good morning as she was so excited to get into school to see Woo....sweet.

So we are here.....hit the ground running....now to unpack and settle for the few weeks we are going to be here, in our little rented home.

Til the next time....

Nora

xxx

What tomorrow bought!!

With both Little Lady and her Daddy in bed with gastroenteritis, I wasn't expecting anything else...but you know what its like....it never rains, it becomes monsoon season!

So on top of the almost empty house that needed cleaning and 2 sicklies in bed...yep...we now have headlice.

2 souvenirs from France.....gastroenteritis and headlice....not the sorts of souvenirs you want!

Little Lady was so poorly that I just couldn't ply her with lotions and potions.  She did rally later in the day and managed a couple of crackers.  Luckily hubby is challenged in the hair department, so no worries there!  Haha!

So another day cleaning and packing....and hoping that tomorrow would be better.

AND...it was......

Tuesday morning had them both up and back in the land of the living, in fact so much so that despite deciding that we would travel overnight when it was quieter that we would slowly pack the car and leave as soon as we could that day with the aim of being off of the M25 by 4pm.

We did it.

We left after lunch, popping into friends and family along the way to say goodbye and eventually made it to our new, temporary home at 8.45pm....phew.

We agreed that we wouldn't make any special effort to get up in the morning as we all needed time to recover.

So there we are, all of a sudden somewhere we weren't this morning and....

...our new life has begun!

See you very soon,
Nora xxx

New Life on Hold!

Today was the day....or maybe that should say THE day....

...to move the last few bits to our temporary home 400 miles north....

I've had images of our car looking like this......

We've planned, waited and worked so hard towards today.

Today we should have started our new life in the wilderness....BUT.....sadly our Little Lady has contracted gastroenteritis and after a visit to the hospital this morning to check her hydration, we have been told she mustn't eat for 48 hours.  Bless her heart.

She has been so good, no complaints, no tears, no moaning....when that starts, we'll know she is well again!

This afternoon Daddy joined her in our airbed....he's feeling coldy and has a dicky tum...he's dosed up and cuddling the hot water bottle.

So our escape to a better life is on hold a few more days.

A few more days on airbeds camping out in our house in the South of England.  A few more days until we take the l-o-n-g drive north.  A few more days until Little Lady can start her new school.

But what's a few more days.....

More days to enjoy the sun here, more days to spend time with friends, more days to relax and recharge, more days to leave the house looking lovely for the new owners.

Time for a cup of tea before bed and we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Nite nite....
Nora xxx