Lady in Red in the style of the Sex Pistols

Glen returned to Borrowdale last week with tales of his travels, & a suntan definitely not belonging to the Lake District. He was telling us how the best thing about the Canary Islands was the oranges. "I've never tasted anything so good!" I immediately asked what they tasted of, and was somewhat disappointed when he replied, "erm.......oranges?!" I felt a little sorry for Glen when he found out that he was on an evening kitchen shift with me. But he was most grateful when I was able to offer him some expert culinary advice...."make sure you don't pour custard on the rice!" He looked rather bemused until I explained that that was something I might do by accident, and I didn't want him to suffer the same fate. The soundtrack to our evening was non other than Dolly Parton's greatest hits. I shared my interesting Dolly Parton fact with Glen...."Did you know that Dolly the sheep was so named because she was cloned from breast tissue?" 

"What?! They cloned a sheep from human breast tissue?" 

"No." 

Once we'd finished for the evening, we wandered through to reception where Tref sang Lady in Red to me, this time in the style of the Sex Pistols. 

One day when I was working a split shift I got out in the afternoon for a road/trail run & a skinny dip. It was a cold day, with the wind chill taking the temperature below zero. The water was so beautifully inviting though, & I swam about for a good few minutes. Running back to the hostel I saw a car that was clearly lost. As I stopped they wound down their window, & asked if I knew where the YHA was. "Funny you should ask that....!" & we struck up a bit of a conversation. He commented on the weather, & mentioned the colour of my legs being so red wearing shorts. 

"Oh yes...I've been swimming as well." 

"In the river?!" 

"Yes!"

"Oh! & I thought you looked really sensible!" 

He then started enquiring as to whether all the people who worked at the hostel were mad. 

"Yep! & they are all worse than me!" 

Cleaning is not everyone's favourite thing, but I usually find it pretty fun. Especially when good timing allows a real life 2 minute game of Hungry Hippos with Simon (usinf Henry the hoover, 1 & 2). It's a bit difficult to tell who the winner is, but it does result in an immaculate stretch of carpet in no time at all. Glen told me on one such cleaning shift that I was excessively happy. "I don't think you can have an excess of happiness.....although, there was an occasion in Scotland when I was cycling around Loch Leven, & I felt so happy I just had to stop and sit down for a while. & then, when I carried on, I saw a Billy Goat Gruff at the side of the road." Glen was pretty much lost for words, but that didn't stop him playing the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff on YouTube when we finished work.  

At the end of the week I headed over to Eskdale - Mick & Rachel were going away on holiday, and I had been drafted in to look after things (most especially the dog!). I'd been looking forward to it for a while, and not even Harry (from the Woolpack) suggesting that we would be going for a 25km trail run could dampen my enthusiasm. When I arrived on Saturday afternoon, it was to find that Rachel still hadn't done any packing. "I don't know whether I'll be allowed to take my binoculars in my carry on luggage, and I haven't really been able to get past that yet." Mick quietly asked what she would need binoculars for whilst on the aeroplane, to which Rachel muttered something in reply about wanting to see a whale.