Minnie’s Musings

Today we knocked an item off my personal bucket list. We are up t’North in pursuit of football and seeing friends and relatives. Skirting round the copious Christmas/New Year rail replacement services I hit upon the marvelous idea of parking ourselves in Leeds for two nights, from whence we have sallyed forth to Carlisle to watch said footie.

This involved taking the famous Settle Carlisle Line – rescued from railway cuts a couple of decades ago and lovingly restored. I have longed to do this since we first dragged the children up to the Dales on some random caravan holiday. You miss so much of the beautiful landscape from behind the wheel of a car.

And the train did not disappoint. It took the best part of three hours pootling through glorious countryside, as the landscape morphed from the mill towns outside Leeds, through the Ribble Valley and on up to Westmorland. We were blessed with blue skies and sunshine that threw the colours of the dales and moorland into vivid relief. I could go on for hours…

Of course the flip side of clear skies and glorious sunshine is that there is no cosy blanket of cloud to keep us warm. Hence we are making the return journey through the pitch black in a freezing train carriage. Best Beloved has put his coat back on. His Nibs didn’t bother taking his off. I am finishing here as the tips of my fingers are about to fall off. I am debating whether I can risk going to the loo as I fear I might stick to the seat if it is metal… Should not have had that last bottle of beer before we left…