Cancelled Cancelled Cancelled (A Negative Version of Mrs Doyle)

Hiking – what’s it all about? A load of men wandering about in big beards.
Clearly, I seem to be developing cabin fever.
Me and LTD were supposed to be at the TGO Challenge Annual Gathering at the Snake Pass Inn this weekend, but the wind changed, the roads filled with abandoned cars, somebody bought ALL the bread and most of the milk in Crook Lidl and it snowed, just like it used to do when I was a mere lad of twenty-three.

Anyway, Snake Pass closed and the hills became sugar-sculptures. The A68 closed (my route to the A1, which was closed) and somebody in Crook’s toaster broke down from overwork. A Facebook group wot I joined called Weardale Road-Watch reported multiple people stuck in places they didn’t want to be, huge snowdrifts on car roofs, or in the case of Nenthead, on roofs and upper-floor windows. Much digging was done.
Not only could I not visit the Snake Pass and various lovely bits of Derbyshire, but neither did it seem like a good idea to get the car out at all, so a visit to mid-Weardale where the car parks are still full of snow, was also ruled out.

I drank tea and ate butterred fruit-loaf (did I mention that somebody nabbed all the bread? eh? I mean ALL the bread. There were flocks of starlings on snow-blasted lawns with more bread than at Pietowers) Yes, I ate fruit-loaf, sometimes toasted fruit-loaf. Fruit-loaf with Wensleydale cheese (too exotic for Crook-style panic buying) and sometimes with peanut-butter (also quite exotical and a bit colonial)
So, I’ve mainly been wearing wellies and LTD has had is red coat on and we’ve been bashing our way through various drifts on the hills above Crook. LTD has enjoyed this, and so have I. But the snow is slowly melting and some of the icicles have fallen from the Pietowers battlements, so, it’s getting close to the time when venturing out beyond Harperley roundabout seems to be on the cards.  I have to get the knipemobile out anyway because it’s booked in for it’s MOT.

We have plans. Me and Dawn have beds booked in Worcestershire somewhere (must find out where it is) and I have reccies to do on the far side of Killhope Cross and Hartside and in Teesdale. And my March 17-mile TGO training plan walk… the list just goes on and on. In the famous words of Dave Pendleton, Manager of an East Lancs small town sewage facility “Things are really backing-up here”
Will the drifts have melted sufficiently for a decent walk next week?
Dunno….

Its a great shame about the Snake Pass Inn cancellation because, apart from all the work that Alan Hardy puts in to organise the event, it’s usually a right good do and a chance for lots of pre-TGO gossip and stuff like that. And they allow the dog to go. But the conditions were exceptional and there was no road access to the hotel, so we missed out on this and also me and LTD’s annual trundle with The Crowthers and their pooches.
All pics from this week’s snowy doggy walks, apart from the one below – TGO “do” 2016 when the road was closed, except that it wasn’t.