"Heroic Postie Rescues Rabbit."

Rachel and I have had a falling out. She has renamed Chris de Burgh 'Crusty Burger', and threatened to add him to the Monday evening menu. She then tried to make it up to me by putting a leaflet in my shoe. This leaflet had pictures of white horses and elephants on the front, with the title 'You will be with me in paradise'. It was a lovely thought, but on reading the small print it transpired that we had both missed the meeting and so we remain eternally damned. I'm not giving up, though. I'm trying to drum up some excitement for a staff pilgrimage to Millom. Which, Rachel's friend John has described as the arse end of nowhere. Rachel has a lot of friends called John. She can think of four without even trying. But they might not all know that they are her friends, though. Anyway, I think I might be the only one walking to Millom. Rachel would prefer to go to Drigg to look for dead things on the beach, and then eat ice cream. She told me that she once found a decapitated (dead) porpoise there. 

On my afternoon off I had an interesting trip to Whitehaven, via Singleton's nursery. The weather was foul, and not at all tempting to go for a walk or to sit down by the river. I'd asked Mick if there was anything he needed, and the response was 100 litres of perlite for Gary (who is currently building an amazing outdoor clay bread oven). So, he marked the place on the map, said the roads kinda look like you're at the end of the world, but it's easy enough to find. Turns out that he'd marked its location incorrectly, and I wandered about this little village in the pouring rain trying to find someone to ask for directions. Eventually I found the place (with the help of a local), and was greeted by a woman wearing an empty compost bag tied with blue string as an apron, and a black cat called Zak, who walked back and forth across the counter. It was slow going, and at times scary, as I made my way to Whitehaven. The Selafield traffic had descended, some coming towards to me, most going the same way. I had heard about this phenomenon; that they drive like maniacs and stop for no one. I suppose when you work at a nuclear power plant all day, it's either that you want to get away quickly, or that driving so quickly doesn't even register as being a risky occupation. Eventually I reached the town, and saw a newspaper board with the headline, 'Heroic Postie Rescues Rabbit." And, as that was the highlight of the journey, I'll leave it there. 

Fiona has been away on an archery course this week, and it just hasn't been the same here without her. That didn't stop us taking bets on whether she would accidentally (or not) shoot someone, though. Or, more likely, go off with a Robin Hood lookalike never to be seen again (save for in the gossip columns of the Cumbrian press). There was a genuine fleeting moment of concern when we got a phone call from Fiona at Langdale (where the course was being held). But thankfully, it was a different Fiona. Phew. Life will be back to 'normal' tomorrow. 

The weather did brighten up for the rest of my time off, and I made it up Harter Fell (at the second time of asking). During the first attempt the cloud came down really quickly, and I didn't much fancy trying to find my way up there, and there would have been nothing to see anyway, so I turned back. The following day was glorious though, and it was amazing to be up in the hills. I hope I'll never take it for granted that I can be out the front door and walk up a mountain without even having to drive anywhere. Harter Fell is probably the one mountain above all others that I wanted to walk up when I knew I was coming to Eskdale. And it's for extremely childish reasons! When we were younger, my mum had these placemats of various mountains in the Lake District, and one of them was of Harter Fell. It caused us endless amusement (perhaps not for my sister) to swap the first letter of each word around. I'm really hoping that all my brothers and my sister will come and stay at some point, I love them all to bits, and taking in the scenery alongside them would make the world here look even more beautiful.