Wolsingham Wayfarers Christmas Weardale Wander

We’ve been on a Wolsingham Wayfarers walk before haven’t we?

On Saturday we met up with 17 other peeps and four other dogs (although Lucky was cunningly disguised as a butterfly) (unfortunately we put his wings on upside-down) in Wolsingham city centre for a quick photo-call.

It seems that Wolsingham Wayfarers have just been awarded  County Durham  Environment Awards for “Voluntary Group Of The Year” for their sterling work on the public rights of way around Wolsingham. And rightly so. This is  proper award,for actual stuff,  not like the ones recently dished out willy-nilly by a certain outdoor magazine.

And so, eighteen of us, four dogs and a butterfly with antipodean wings wandered off up the Weardale Way to the Efelent Trees – a Weardale landmark – or, possibly, treemark so well loved, visible from everywhere in Weardale – and up the sides too  and often visited on this very blog.

The day was sunny and cold and things were either frozen or covered in snow or both, including the dog, so my lovely santa hat came was a boon for the scalp.

Here, at the Elephants,  whilst shivering violently in the nithering breeze coming off a nearby ice cap, we partook of some hot mulled wine and several mince pies. This was good. In fact, normally I’m not usually a great fan of yer mulled wine having been put off it at one of my kid’s school  meet the teacher “do” back in the late  1980’s where it reminded me somewhat of the nasty medicine I once had to have when I was seven years old. Yes, these things go deep, folks. but the Wolsingham Wayfarers brew was really very nice and warming.

Having celebrated briefly, and cheered up no end by the hot booze, we were lead back down the hill to the Black Bull at Frosterley where we allowed ourselves another brief period of celebration.

A couple of miles of field paths later and we were back in Wolsingham with just sufficient time for me to go off to the Black Paw brewery to collect my Christmas beer and to fill up my loyalty card before being collected by Mrs Pieman in her jallopy. This was essential a) to remain within the law and b) to transport 20 litres of Black Paw IPA (which I am gear-testing at this very moment) You may detect a certain theme here….  It is, after all, the season to be merry.

And, talking of awards – may I just draw your attention to Old Mortality’s Blogger awards….The Bloggies.   The man obviously has good taste and not  a fashion tip to be had in any of the blogs mentioned. [koff]click here to read  the bloggies   Its nice to be a bloggy and I’d like to thank my mother,my Aunty Mary, Mr Dolphin the Springfield School (Earby) caretaker in 1958 for his representation of Father Christmas,  the emergency services who do a wonderful job, the nurses and doctors, but specially the nurses, the coastguard, the scouts, the Ramblers and our postman who is not quite brave enough to come into our garden when Lucky is loose. Do I get a badge, I wonder?

Lucky’s not speaking to me at the moment due to the fact that he’s just realised that he’s been dressed up as a fairy or something.

The walk was just a bit less than 11 miles.