Start of the Spring Term

School goes back tomorrow. I’ve worked out what I’m teaching for the next five weeks and have something approaching a plan. Hopefully the children will cooperate and my plan won’t require too much modification.

Over the weekend I went to Wasdale with my dad for a walk. We arrived to mist and a traditional damp Lake District day, with the view across Wastwater (Britain’s favourite view supposedly) not being too impressive. However, in the morning we woke to a nice dusting of snow on everything and a bitterly cold wind. I had six layers on and just couldn’t feel warm enough, I think I need some thermal leggings or something.

We set off up the path to Sty Head Tarn, from the farm at the bottom where we were staying. The path began with some slushy ice but that soon thickened into nice, crunchy fresh snow. The dog seemed to enjoy it, joining in with an entertaining (for us) game of “roll snow down the hill and chase it”. I even worked out I can take photos while wearing my big mittens.

We’d got about 2/3 up the path when huge gales and stinging shards of ice and snow began battering us. Not anything too serious, but since we weren’t planning a day in the ice and had a small dog with us we turned around and went back down the path.

And while plodding back down the slippy path I made the fatal mistake people often do on the way home. I stopped paying attention to where I was walking. Slop! I trod onto what I thought was a patch of snow, but soon discovered it to be a knee-deep icy pool of mud. There was a few seconds of dampness followed by biting cold as the ice and slush found its way into my boot and up my trouser leg. I used to go jumping into cold rivers, and it felt not unlike that. My foot did what it usually does in this type of situation and went numb so I gave up bothering about it.

I’ll upload a nice picture of Wastwater and write about it on my other blog in a moment.

Tags: blog365, Cold, Lake District, school, Travel