After the VINCE 2020 rerun I was planning to go back to Spain with Alexander to do yet more trail riding, but he had just started a new job so that was cancelled. Instead I decided to head back to the UK with Dougie in his van to visit my brother Chris who had recently broken his leg and fallen behind with his very long list of jobs.
Having arrived at Chris and Corinne’s place the first job was to get out one of his “big boys toys” and move some telegraph poles that are destined for use as fence posts.
The job list was very long and prioritising seemed to be difficult. As Chris said when sitting in the breakfast room you can look in any direction both inside the house and out of the window to see jobs that need doing. In fact we started with the job that was at our feet – there was a gaping hole in the floor which needed filling, after first re-plumbing the radiator, fitting insulation, floor boards and finishing off with oak flooring.
While I was staying at Chris’ I wanted to try to keep up my exercise regime. For the next stage of the trip I was planning to visit my sister Sara in Preston who had just retired and had a wild idea of running a marathon. Despite the inclement weather I managed to find a few routes from the farm that weren’t too muddy and explored some public footpaths that didn’t look like they were used much.
One of the biggest tasks on the job list was to make some progress with the loft extension. The builders had raised the roof of the bungalow to create a massive additional space – they had installed the new roof trusses, fitted windows and tiled the roof, but all the interior work was down to Chris. He had already fitted flooring boards and done a first layer of insulation in between the trusses. Then he broke his leg…. The next stage was to fit a second layer of insulation and then plasterboard the whole space.
The insulation pieces needed cutting to fit in between the joists/rafters and because the joiners had done a less than perfect job, the spacings were not equal so every piece had to be measured before cutting.
The job took two weeks to complete and throughout we were kept well supplied with food and tea by Corinne…
After completing the plasterboarding of the loft it was time to head off to Preston and see what Sara had planned. We had originally talked about renting a cottage in the Lakes or North Wales and doing lots of walking, but the weather forecast was not looking good and she had a couple of rental properties that needed work. The idea of the marathon seemed to be fading but the daily routine involved either a 14 Km run or an even longer walk each day. In terms of food, her children had recently organised a combined birthday/retirement party with lots and lots of food so the fridge was overflowing when I arrived, plus the special cakes that her daughter Zoe had made.
One retirement goal that Sara was keen on was to complete the “Yorkshire Three Peaks” – in terms of distance this is equivalent to a marathon, but with three big peaks to climb. We had heard that it takes 10-12 hours to hike the route which meant we didn’t have enough daylight unless we could run some of the easier parts – we decided to give it a go anyway…
We started off full of enthusiasm and made good progress up the first hill, but as we neared the summit the wind picked up and it became bitterly cold…
Having made it up the first hill we set off on the long trek to the second, but just got colder and colder. We stopped for a break out of the wind and my fingers were so cold I couldn’t do up my laces so we decided to call it a day rather than risk being exposed on another summit. But we were determined to come back and do more…
On the way back we passed a pub with a special weather forecasting stone hanging outside…
Sara has one day a week (sometimes more) of Grandma duties and looks after Rory. We decided to take him to the seaside at Lytham and for once the sun was shining…
One of the rental houses needed a new door mat so we called in to a shop to find one. Unfortunately Sara got distracted by the Christmas decorations and bought a Christmas tree which had to be installed as soon as we got home, despite it being November.
Sara’s other children came round for a walk and dinner one day, for which Zoe had made a special bonfire cake…
The gruelling exercise regime continued each day with long runs or walks under the usual Preston tupperware skies, but feeling quite autumnal.
One of the routes we used took us to a Starbuck’s, some of which allow dogs, which allowed us to indulge in a coffee and fruit toast. This didn’t last once we found that said toast has 450 calories, before you add the butter and jam…
This wouldn’t be a blog post of mine if there wasn’t a mention of cars or motorbikes somewhere. We came acoss this bizzare contraption on one of our walks…
And so it was that we decided to have a second attempt at the “three peaks” – this time we were better prepared with proper cold weather gear. But the weather turned out fine so the cold wasn’t a problem – our goal was to tackle the two peaks we had missed last time.
We managed to climb both Pen-y-Ghent and Whernside without too much trouble, but the conditions were very good and nothing like we had experienced the first time.
Back on with rental houses and now under time pressure as the new tenants wanted to be in before Christmas. Sara was tackling the painting (I couldn’t be trusted with a brush!) while I sorted out the DIY issues, one of which was a non working dish washer.
By now we had almost finished the left-overs so ventured into Preston to look for more provisions and especially the cheeses from the specialist stall at the indoor market. And I met Gromit outside the shop…
Despite being retired Sara had agreed to continue working as a consultant for one day per week, my job was to take Charlie out for a walk. Called in to see Tim and Helen a couple of times, but was banished to the conservatory with Charlie to avoid getting dog hair and mud through the house…
While in the UK I took the opportunity to visit Felicity in Manchester and catch up with my grandchildren, before heading down to Sussex to see Lucy (and more grandchildren) – we also had time to go and visit Nanna.
Bella had a tooth come out during my visit and was very excited at the possibility of the tooth fairy making a call, but she lost the tooth ! All was not lost as she wrote a little note for the tooth fairy which seemed to do the trick..
Apart from getting up to Durham in Dougie’s van at the start of the trip and Chris/Sara doing a car relay to get me to Preston, the rest of my trip was using the train. I was a bit concerned at the general lack of mask wearing in the UK but seemed to escape uninfected (we had to do a Covid test before being allowed to see Nanna). Generally the train service was very good, although I had a couple of cancellations which introduced some minor delays. I took the Eurostar back to France, which was a first for me and worked very well. Then across Paris and train down to Limoges to be reunited with Hebe – fortunately she still recognised me.
Alexander kindly lent me the Focus to get back, but did mention that it needed a service, new front brakes, new tyres and a cam belt change. Oh yes, and the front windows have stopped working. Should keep me busy once I have defrosted the house – it was a bracing 8 degrees in the lounge when I got back…