It’s always fun when the Six Nations comes around. Ellie supports Ireland, Bianca supports Wales, and I support Scotland. No one seems to give too much of a damn about England - which was probably a good job this year. A friend of mine had 2 tickets going spare for Wales V Scotland at the Millennium Stadium. They messaged me the day before the match. Bianca & I cooked up some mad plan to get down to Cardiff, but I was in work from 7am-4pm and my friend who had the tickets lives in Portsmouth. There was nothing to be done about it this time. Instead I asked Chris if I could finish a little bit early if it was quiet so I could watch at least the 2nd half on TV with Bianca. He said it was absolutely fine, as long as it wasn’t mad busy or some big disaster hadn’t occurred. Feeling the need to qualify, chris thought about my question for a moment before replying, “a flock of sheep in the building.” I enquired whether this was likely, had it ever happened before? “No. But we once had a whole load of sheep in the grounds and they covered the place in poo. I guess you’d be cleaning up all evening if they ever got inside.” There was no way I was taking this possibility lightly - so I briefed Kate and Glen on the state of play. “The absolute priority today is making sure that no sheep enter the building between now and the end of my shift.”
“What about afterwards?”
“No problem at all.”
They did a grand job.
Given the result in that match though, I think a few Herdwicks in the bar might have been more bearable to witness.
A few weeks later it was the big one. Scotland v England at Murrayfield. The last time Scotland won the Calcutta Cup I was only just out of university. That’s many years of hoping that things might turn out differently this time. My dad is, and always has been, a big Scotland rugby fan. My mum showed me tickets she kept from when they were living in Pitlochry and went to see Scotland play Australia at Murrayfield. They cost something like 63p. A lot has changed since then. My decision to support Scotland in the rugby came about in my late teens. If my dad had supported Wales it would have been Wales. I’m English. It had nothing to do with nationality for me. It was simply to have something in common with my dad, some shared interest, some connection. There had been none of that since he left when I was 6/7, maybe not even before. That’s not really a judgement on anything - it’s just the way it all worked out. You can’t take away even one single moment of your life - it’d be unrecognisable. So what started as a love for my dad, has since become a love for Scotland rugby, too. But whatever the result, my favourite thing about the match is exchanging a few messages with my dad. There’s always something beautiful about creating something that wasn’t there before.
I don’t think it will be a rugby game I’ll ever forget. I had it on the TV in the staff house. I was the only one really watching it. Bianca had to go into work partway through, and Ellie was in the middle of a cake baking mission. Charlotte and Adam were in the living room, though. They were doing some sort of crazy hardcore workout routine. Adam had a bottle of water next to him, Charlotte had a bottle of wine. At one point I asked Adam if he could do some push ups with Charlotte lying on his back. He could. That was a funny thing for Glen to walk in and see. They didn’t seem in the least bit bothered that I was jumping up and down, and yelling ‘Come on Scotland’ at the TV. Maybe because I was cheering for them, too. Charlotte said she was exhausted, it was the hardest work out she’d ever done. I said she should think about supporting Scotland. She didn’t disagree.
Around that time the Winter Olympics started, and I’m pretty sure that Glen became something of an expert in it all. He seemed to think that I would make a good ski jumper anyway. This based on his observation that I could balance really well on the wobble board that lives in the middle of the living room floor. Claire came in around about that point, and hearing us talking about jumping she recounted her nightmare at school of being made to do the hurdles on sports day. “I knocked down every single one. I’ve never been able to jump, still can’t now!” We couldn’t really believe this, but after Glen insisted she jump as far as she could on the rug, we realised it was pretty much true. Glen on the other hand was quite good, but this was ultimately to his cost. He went beyond the rug and collided with the sofa.
I had a few minutes left on my break one morning - just enough time to watch a world record being broken in the short track speed skating. That was all the motivation I needed for the rest of the day, even if my mopping of the drying room was hindered by my pretending it was an ice rink. I was even more excited though when I got to do some vacuuming, and I asked Chris if we could turn the corridor into a curling arena temporarily. I’ve always thought that the vacuum is a little bit like those brushes they use. Chris wasn’t so keen on the corridor idea, but suggested that the lounge would work much better. He placed a doormat in the middle of the room as a target, and then went off to get a beer keg which he would try and roll into place (as I ‘swept’ with the vacuum). Kate was brought in to film the action, and so I now have about 10 pretty ridiculous videos on my phone. Mostly because Kate couldn’t work out how to record too well.
You wouldn’t have to have known Kate for too long to be surprised by that, though. One thing about Kate - she’s a damn good runner, goes out most days, sometimes on epics, always exploring. She’s been in Borrowdale for quite some time now, since mid summer. However. For months and months she couldn’t find the Langstrath valley - “I always seem to end up somewhere else, and you all talk about it but I can’t find it!” It’s an understatement to say that from the hostel it’s much more of an achievement to have never been there. Kate was getting quite upset about the whole thing, to the point where she almost believed it possible that we could have made the whole place up. Especially when one day she asked me where it led to, and I replied, “heaven.” Truth is, we were all pretty certain that she had been there but just hadn’t been aware of it. After all, it’s not easy to say where something like that starts exactly.
There’s seemingly no end to her running related stories. Sometimes not even what you’d think of as a complete story, sometimes just a line or two. “Johnny gets a bit frustrated when we go running together. I have to stop and eat a sandwich. But if he eats anything he just pukes.” Another time she was telling me about an afternoon run into Keswick....”I called in at Booths and found that sweet potatoes were on offer. I bought as many as I could fit into my little backpack. It was such a lovely day, and I was so happy about the potatoes that I just had to run up Latrigg. But I had tried to cram too many potatoes in though, and I was halfway up the hill when my bag burst open, and all the potatoes rolled and bounced away.”
One day she put a note under my door to thank me for some stale rice cakes I gave her (she like the stale ones best). On it she had drawn a picture of a moth, with the words ‘this was meant to be a drawing of the flowers on my windowsill but I got distracted.’ Kate is one of the most astoundingly cheerful, enthusiastic, and kind people I know. She’s also utterly crazy. In a good way. She wants to create a multi-sport event over the Lake District fells which involves running, bum sliding, and finishes of by paddling across Grasmere on an inflatable swan. I said I couldn’t believe no one had thought up that idea before. She replied, “I know.”
There are some folk here who have a seemingly more measured approach to life, though. They’ve got a system, they’ve got it all worked out. Take Tim, for example. Lives and works at YHA Honister (at the top of Honister Pass). Has done now for quite some time. In the winter months he will do some shifts down at Borrowdale. He doesn’t have a car, so over the winter when the bus isn’t running he will cycle up and down, or walk or hitch depending on the black ice situation. If you ever want to hear a collection of near miss black ice stories - Tim’s the one you want to talk to. Also anything about cricket, or Katmandu. He was telling me a bit about a recent trip to London - how he was pretty tired when he arrived, so he went to the public gallery in the House of Lords, sat down in the comfy seats and had a sleep. One evening Charlotte and I were sat around in the living room when Tim came in to eat a pizza on his break. I’m not quite sure how we got onto the topic of conversation, but Tim mentioned that he needed to cycle to Penrith to buy some white chocolate. “I’m pretty sure they sell white chocolate in Keswick, Tim?” I replied. Penrith is quite a bit further to go. Apparently though the chocolate there is too ‘touristy’, and what’s more, the library in Penrith lets you use the internet free for two hours. Most places it’s only one. “The best bit is that I can take books out there and return them in Keswick, so I don’t have to cycle that far every time.” I kind of felt like I was hearing some great secrets of the universe, and that I had a long way to go before I had anything figured out.
