Summerhill Sedbergh

The house is available to rent over the Christmas week as we'll be away skiiing in France from 22nd - 29th December. Do get in touch for more information. 

All the rooms have now been taken for the weekend of the OMM and we have a couple of friends coming who will be sleeping on the floor. Ellie and Adrian are aditcted to mountain marathons, do about 5 each year and are always in the prizes in their mixed veteran class. 

Friends from Plymouth are coming to stay on Saturday as well, so its going to be quite a weekend! 

The Original Mountain Marathon comes to the Howgills this year.

Back in the days of the KIMM, I had some good runs with my partner Carol McNeill, winning our class three years in a row. After that, I decided I'd stop and quit on a high note.

Now I'm in the position to offer very comfortable beds, good food and hot baths to people who want some luxury either side of their mountain marathon experience and dont need to dash home on Sunday evening. 

• Bed and Breakfast on Friday and Sunday nights 
• 3 course meal on Friday evening with wine or beer
• Early breakfast on Saturday morning - whatever type of food suits you best
• A few extras such as local knowledge / spare gear / my special flapjack 

Just had an account of last Octobers course on the Sportsister website, written by Gemma, one of the women:

 http://www.sportsister.com/2012/01/10/introducing-fell-running-for-women-%E2%80%93-october-2011/

For this years dates, have a look on the Courses page

I've created a very unique programme for women who want to learn how to increase their enjoyment of being in the fells and be safe at the same time. The programme dates are 15th - 18th July and 22nd - 25th October.

Its going to be incorporating a variety of different ways of increasing skills and looking at individual motivation - very leading edge stuff and you can read about it on the Courses page of this website.

I'm offering a free place to one woman, through the Sportsister website, www.sportsister.com - have a look on the Features page.

A new venue has been added to the Civil Weddings register. Yesterday a wedding was held at Sedbergh School Cloisters with the guests enjoying the wonderful views of the fells in the sunshine. This is the first time anyone other than Old Sedbergians have been able to use the school's fabulous facilities for their wedding.

The very popular folk festival, which used to be in Dent, is now held just out of Sedbergh. Its enjoyed wonderful weather in the last two years and is growing bigger and bigger.

This year, 24th - 26th June,  they have American Folk legend Judy Collins and the hugely popular  Eliza Carthy Band. If you want to go and camp in the field, you'll have a  great weekend of music, theatre, food and atmosphere

If you want to book a bed, note that the town gets full very quickly. We still have one room available over the weekend.

Sedbergh Gala - 21st May

The Sedbergh Gala was held last Saturday on one of the Sedbergh School playing fields. It was an impressive sight, with several large marquees,  two rings  and lots of small stalls.

It begins with the town band walking through Main Street, followed by the Gala Queen, (one of the  Settlebeck School pupils), floats, groups and individuals taking part in the fancy dress competition.

There was a mixture of  traditional -  Maypole dancing, display of shepherds crooks and  cumberland wrestling -  and contemporary - a man with a chainsaw creating large animal sculptures. The tent with 4 rescued owls was really popular as people were able to hold and stroke the birds.The

The beer tent, with supplies from the local Dent Brewery,  the cake stalls, with produce from all over the town, Kendal Creperie, hot dog stands and candy floss stalls kept everyone well catered for.

The day was notable for a huge amount of work put in by a lot of people in the town, for the benefit of the town. The income raised by the Gala is put back into the community, going to pay for a bonfire and fireworks and a childrens party.  

Next year, the Gala will be even bigger as it will be combined with an international mountain event,

We spent 4 nights in the Cairngorms over the half term holiday. Hoping for some good ski touring but the wind was monstrous for the first two days so we were really glad we'd taken the mountain bikes as well.

On the third day we managed a good tour in excellent snow, but the cloud that had been shrouding the plateau remained, so we had an' interesting' bit of navigating. Met a fellow Eagle Ski Club member in the car park,  teamed up with him  and got to know each other as we skinned up to the summit of  Cairngorm. I have to say it was delightful to walk past the queue of skiers waiting at the bottom car park, for the bus up to the lifts, as we were able to start skinning immediately.

It was really interesting to stay at someone elses B&B. Both were the nicest I could find in the area  - Moorside at Boat of Garten and Eagle View at Newtonmore. I loved the first for the spaciousness of  the Edwardian villa-style house and the second for the amazing decor. There were more beautiful table lamps and pictures than you'd find in Laura Ashley. Also, they served the most wonderful fresh smoked salmon fillet for breakfast.

So, what does it mean for Summerhill?  I'm going to find someone to supply me with a similar smoked salmon. And I've instigated a 'smarten up for Spring' campaign with a  couple of new paintings for the porch. The  sun had rendered the original ones into an unrecognisable image in a frame. In replacing them, I found the sun had  bleached the wall as well. So Sunday was spent repainting and re-varnishing the porch and hanging the new paintings.

Today, the new carpet was put down in the sitting room, to complement the re-uphostered chair and settee. It turns out to be a different colour that the one I thought I was ordering!!! The learning is not to rely on my memory, but go to the shop and say 'this one' rather than use the phone. Given the quality of wool and the colour, it'll probably last forever !

Steve and I have always had very different opinions about what makes the ideal settee. The male 'dark leather' approach vs  the female desire to sink into down cushions. Having enticed him into stores in foreign cities and brought home brochures of interesting local finds that could replace our green settee, we'd reached stalemate.

When something is right under your nose, its often not so obvious, so it took us a while to realise all we needed to do was get the exisiting settee recovered.

I had a roll of material, intended for curtains in the same room, so it seemed an ideal solution.

I reckoned I could make the loose covers but knew I'd take a really long time and probably twice as long as my first estimate, due to unpicking and re-sewing the mistakes I'd knew I'd make, so I was steered away from that task!

The decision made, it wasn't easy to find anyone in the south Lakes / Dales area willing to make loose covers  - everyone who used to do such things seems to be  retired or in possession of a broken sewing machine.

It was a great coincidence that in the process of doing some work in Bury, I realised the area  was the last bastion of industrial sewing.  I found Steve Taylor of Bury Loose Covers, housed in an old mill, and gave him the existing covers.

A week later, we had a new settee, that both of us like - unbelievable!