For me, the last two months of every year tend to be a bit fickle when it comes to getting in some hill-time. Factor in a bunch of birthdays, the inevitable Christmas shopping, the trips out to deliver pressies and the staying in to accept them, and there's precious little time left for getting away. It's not as if I can snatch the odd half-day or just bugger off one evening, overnight in the hills and then return the next morning - living in England's rotting industrial heartland means that any decent mountains are many hours of driving away, so any venture has to be long enough to provide a good return on the investment.
This year I'm taking a different approach - I've booked a weekend away, the rest of life will just have to STFU and fit in around it. Coniston beckons, a few of us have answered the call. Hopefully we'll find the right conditions to christen my new snooshows, maybe we'll even tick off a few more Wainwrights, but if we don't it'll be fun all the same.
Of course, while I'm away, somebody else will have the job of tidying up those loose ends. Here's a quick snapshot of the cause of the disorder:
Even though the two-week claim period hasn't yet expired, we couldn't continue looking after her without giving her a name. That process in itself was an ordeal - we'd made a long-list and couldn't agree, so we whittled it down to a short-list and still couldn't agree.
Eventually we put the names in a hat and Anna drew out the winning entry (which just happened to be the name that she put in... hmm...). Even now, we can't agree - the name is Elvy... or is it LV? Of course, now that the mog's been named it'll be hard if we have to let her go, despite her infuriating habit of chewing through my boot-laces and draw-cords!
Here, have a few more pics:
awww great shot
My little Lily loves chewing shoe laces, but she really loves chewing inflatable sit mats (two ruined now..) plastic bags and never, ever leave waterproof stuff sacks lying around...