We should ‘try living in the real world’, said our detractor, via the Letters page of the Cockermouth Times and Star, winding up for his punchline. ‘In a city!’ Clearly it was heart-felt. And aimed full square at me and my co-contributor of many a letter to our local paper, regarding our on-going concerns about…
Category: Floods
Stormtroopers and sandbags
Our newish neighbours, across the way in what used to be loosely called ‘the view’ from our living room window — essentially wild green verge, hedgerow, field and cows, in that order — last week erected what appeared to be an eight-foot stormtrooper in their front bay window. As in shiny white-panelled foot soldier of…
Traffic snarl-ups, road closures, potholes and slurry: just another day in the country
Look. I know I live in the countryside now – far from the stuttering flow of newly ‘smart’ motorways, the lung-busting air pollution, the hanging veil of dirt my once-suburban self was accustomed to. But it’s not perfect. We still have our crosses to bear, a level of discomfort. Sometimes, though – okay rarely, but sometimes…
Secretary of State says ‘maybe’
Given that nuclear war hasn’t yet commenced, despite a further attempt to launch Mr Kim’s deadly KN-08, and that Orange Bloke just generally being one, this week I’m back focusing on Strawberry How. Well, if we’re not about to be nuked any time soon, may as well concern ourselves with pasture-pillaging property magnates closer to home. And there…
Developing a taste for Cumbria
Given that the walking weather app that is the Gremlin had been delivering almost hourly gloomy updates along the lines of ‘12.00pm: 90% chance of rain. 1.00pm: 40% chance of rain. 2.00pm: 60% chance of rain’ (you get the gist), we fully expected the Taste Cumbria extravaganza to be a little washed out, to say the least. As…
Secretary of State says no
Finally, something to write home about on the planning front as Allerdale planners refuse permission for a new retail development on Low Road in Cockermouth. They had been ‘minded to turn down the plans for two retail units on vacant industrial land‘ but were unable to do so because the Secretary of State had received a…
Cows and cack
We’ve never been good with cows in our family. I blame my mother and one long-ago sunny, childhood day (I seem to recall a button-under-the-chin swimming cap and a salmon pink, ruched and waffled swimsuit were still the order of the day. I know, I know. Don’t say a word.) Why mention this now? Well, I was put in mind…
Markets and marketing
You can’t beat a bit of creative marketing. And our decision, following last year’s floods, to delay the Big Day until our hotel of choice could accommodate us, has certainly opened up a range of marketing opportunities – some not quite as obvious as others. It’s the law of unintended consequences at work again except, on this occasion, the consequences are all good….
Weddings and water
‘Customers!’ The simple, heartfelt greeting from one very excited bar man, as the first of our friends to check in to the Trout Hotel for our Big Day, strode into his bar. His first of the day. In fact, the first two guests to check in to the hotel at all since 6 December 2015. Now here they…
Footpaths and tea pods
First they came for the birds. Then the otters. Now, it would seem, they’re after our footpaths. Hackles were high again last weekend, up at Strawberry How, as dog walkers discovered their way barred – on a path, across the field from Tom Rudd Beck, which some of them have been wandering for nigh on forty years. I risk…
Flood rescue
Talking about floods… it was two weeks into December before dastardly Des had quite done knocking seven bells out of Cumbria and, very soon after that, evil siblings Eva and Frank took up the bludgeon, and headed for York. (As an aside, is it just me, or were these storms ever as bad before we started giving them human identities?) Somewhere along the…
Cockermouth floods
Christchurch, Cockermouth, on a sticky Monday evening, and tensions are definitely running high. Not unlike the gravel. His own pre-presentation, warm-up man, Andy Brown – from the Environment Agency – tells a great tale about his father being a man of the church. Growing up, Andy recalls, his father would stand pretty much where he stands now, facing the…
Hackette on the How 