February 2023

The snowdrops are out, always a sign that it will not be too long until spring is properly with us. The birds are starting to sing and the woodpeckers are drumming on the trees in the woods.

It is also time to open the Cottages for the 2023 season. January has been busy checking everything, decorating, cleaning, replacing where necessary and making sure that everything is in good working order. We had our annual VisitEngland inspection in November, the inspector was very happy with everything and we retained our Five Star rating with Gold Award in all cottages scoring an important 100% on cleanliness.

It seems a little while since I last wrote anything although I had made a few notes and lined up some pics from walks. The most recent was yesterday when I saw the first frogspawn on the track up Mosedale en route for Melbreak, no more pics from the day as the clag was down.

It was rather different the day after New Year’s Day when I had my first picnic of the year by Derwentwater.

Two weeks later we had a fall of snow and you just couldn’t miss the opportunity of walking on the fells. Here is the view from Darling Fell across to the aptly named Whiteside.

Later in the month I had a rather different walk with some local friends. We followed the coffin route from Workington to Camerton described by Alan Cleaver in his book ‘The Corpse Roads of Cumbria’  It was fascinating. The start in Workington is marked by two stone crosses built into a house wall on Cross Hill and then follows down to the river via Workington Hall and Mill Fields. The walk then continues along the riverside to Camerton church.

And to add to our enjoyment we saw two little egrets by the river – amazing.