The snow is going and a bit of a moan...

An interesting few days to start off February. We finally had some of the snow that the rest of the country had experienced, John had a trip "dahn south," we finally got on the fells with our first walker of the year, and we showed an Irish journalist around Loughrigg Terrace and Grasmere.

Yes, it finally snowed here, but little sign of panic, although schools closed briefly, and pavements got a bit slippery early in the morning. A few accidents on the fells - you really have to well equipped in icy weather, and have some experience before venturing out in snow. Sure it looks great, but snow comes in several forms from the harmlessly picturesque to the icy and downright lethal, especially when it has been lying for a while. Anyway, now it has almost disappeared completely, and the temperature seems to be going up.

John had a trip down the "smoke" - and survived. He is perplexed as to why London seems to have pubs with no beer, often called "cocktail bars" and shunned these rigorously, although there does, on the other hand, seem to be plenty of places where a decent pint can be bought, albeit at sometimes eye-watering prices. His trip ended up with a 3.5 mile road walk across the Bedfordshire countryside carrying a curry as we couldn't get a taxi home. Good training though, and it worked up an appetite for cold curry!

He also had a trip through the Dales on the drive back to Kendal, and it was good to chat to the charming people who will be putting up our Dales Way self-guided walkers this year, not to mention an excellent sausage sandwich from the stall in the car park at Burnsall.

Meanwhile, Pete had been out on the Lakeland fells with our first guided walker of the year. We had 3 good days walking not too far from Ambleside where she was staying. Pete took her up Wetherlam, we had a day on Helm Crag, Calf Crag and Steel Fell (see below) and John took her up Fairfield, where we had a lovely morning in spectacular broken cloud.

Moan...whilst we were out on the Calf Crag, which is quite a confusing area, we came across 2 charming ladies with a map and route notes that they had acquired somewhere which were totally inadequate. They really didn't have a clue where they were. Now, obviously, we are biased here, as our living depends on offering a service to walkers so they don't get lost - either by guiding them ourselves, or by providing packs with maps, route notes etc. so that people can approach a day put in the fells with some confidence. As it happened, the weather was clear, and the ladies found sympathetic people on the way who could point them in the right direction...we dread to think what would have happened in poor weather, as they simply wouldn't have been able to find anyone at all, unless they were very lucky. Please, if you come walking in the hills, either learn how to use a map and compass (or GPS), acquire a decent set of maps, or, alternatively, get in touch with us (or someone else who knows what they are doing) and we'll sort you out with what you need in terms of recommended routes, maps, route notes etc.

Enough moaning. It's always great to be able to show people our part of the world, and to give them some idea of what it has to offer. We spent yesterday morning with Collette Devlin from the Irish Independent, so if you have access to it, look out for us somewhere in the Travel section - we may get a mention - you never know. Sadly, we didn't have too long with Collette, but the Lakes put on one of its misty, moody mornings, which are just as attractive as bright sunshine. Maybe she'll come back again and we'll be able to take her on a longer and higher walk.

We wonder whether winter may be over now. The fells are quite dry for this time of year, but you never know what will happen in March. Don't forget to get in touch if you need a brochure, or if you fancy one of our self-guided or RTL (Routes less Travelled) guided holidays.

Nearly the end of January!

Nearly the end of the week, and what a busy one it has been. Booking up self guided holidays, a bit of reccying, a new website up and running and writing a new newsletter - yet to appear, but coming soon.

Highlight was going out on Wednesday, doing a bit of the Dales Way - see photo above. A beautiful winter's day, with a bit of mist to start with, but turning out quite warm in the end. the ground is sodden (no, not soddin' anything...) and one of us took a dip from some stepping stones, but no harm done.

Look out for the newsletter, and there will also be some new pictures on the gallery on the website soon.

If you're walking this weekend, have a good one. In fact, have a good weekend whatever you're doing. For us, it could just be the Burns Night we neglected to celebrate last week in favour of the Chinese New Year. Och aye and all that - apologies to our friends north of the border....

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Year of the Ox! Statistically, a large number of people reading this should be Chinese, so it's just as well that we at Knobbly Stick are really multi-cultural. What's more we did celebrate the start of the Year of the Ox in fine style. By the way, did you know that anyone born in the Year of the Ox should wear some kind of red garment to ward off bad luck - red underwear is particularly effective, and, as year of the Ox - ers, we both look particularly fetching in ours, although the writer can only speak for himself of course!

The last blog attracted the usual avalanche of comments, but we'll resist an attempt to be controversial in order to attract more. As usual, we've been busy - redecorating and doing some gardening, and even tidying up the Knobbly Stick nerve centres, as well as the more serious business of getting the website up and running - it should appear around midnight on 26th/27th January - and of writing a new newsletter. It's not online yet, so don't go rushing off, but it contains valuable information and advice about all sorts of walking related matters. At the time of writing, it's at the proof reading stage, but we'll let you know by email when it appears. Can't wait??? Sorry, you'll just have to - you'll enjoy it all the more. The other thing has been booking people on to the Dales Way and the Cumbria Way, ready for their summer expeditions. More about that on the newsletter, so we won't repeat it here.

Current Lake District conditions - a bit of snow still on the fells, but it can be avoided except on the highest fells. Not really too inviting at the moment, and you need an early start at this time of year to get anywhere, but the upside is that a bright day in winter really is spectacular, and well worth waiting for. Here's hoping!

Keeping up our New Year's resolution

It's been 2 days since our last addition. Since then we have had zero comments on our previous effort, and we've also sent out a notification that the brochure is now on the website.

This second initiative has been more productive, in that we've had a number of requests for a brochure as people have failed to open it on their systems; we don't think it's a problem with the brochure, but if you think it is, please let us know. It might also be handy if people let us know that they've been able to open the brochure without any problem...We're really quite proud of our efforts this year, so we'd really like pople to be able to have a look at it.

Arising from this, what with the weak pound and credit crunch etc., our local paper is predicting a record number of people visiting the Lake District this year, so, if you are thinking of doing one of our holidays, particularly one in northern England, either self-guided or Routes Less Travelled, it might be as well to get it booked sooner rather than later before all the accommodation disappears.

We'll be sitting down tomorrow to discuss our next moves in 09. We'll probably be out in the cold this week battling sub zero temperatures polishing up the self guided notes, so think of us while you're in front of your warm fire with a cup of cocoa, or something stronger. We'll be all right, though, don't worry too much about us!

Finally, if you haven't heard from us for a while, if could be that you have changed your email address and have forgotten to tell us. Every time we send out a round robin email saying that a new brochure or newsletter is appearing, we always have a number that bounce back. Often, it's simply that people no longer want to hear from us (strange that, though, isn't it?) but if it's because of an oversight, for example we had a work email address, and you've changed jobs, do let us know!

Happy 2009

It's been over 6 months since our last blog, but there again, no one has asked us where it has been, so we can assume that not too many people have missed us...which is a shame.

For those of you who don't know yet, Knobbly Stick is undergoing quite a radical shake up in 2009. Firstly, we are not offering the kind of whole year calendar of guided walking holidays which have been our standard "product" since 2002; instead we are offering mainly a self guided service on various routes in the English Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, including "tailor made" holidays if anyone would like one. Those of you who have seen them know that we take a good deal of care on the preparation of our self guided walk notes, and we hope to see plenty of people striding out with their Knobbly Stick notes, confident in the knowledge that they have been written by walkers (i.e. us) for walkers (i.e. them.)

This doesn't mean that we have entirely retreated into our shells, however. We will offer a guided service to anyone who wants us to show a pre-formed group around our "patch" - assuming we are available, of course, and we already have a couple of groups lining up for this in the summer, which is very gratifying.

The other innovation is the formation of a sort of twin operation to Knobbly Stick, called Routes Less Travelled. These are holidays in the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, northern France/ Belgium, the Loire Valley and County Mayo in western Ireland. They will be combined walking and sight seeing tours, with an emphasis on looking out for the historical, cultural and seldom seen, with some fairly light walking - usually half days. We hope that these will appeal to those who want to gain an insight into where they are going - local products, traditions, anecdotes and generally going a bit below the surface as experienced by the tourist either, at one extreme, in a large party, or at the other, just in a small family group or couple (or even by him/ herself.) Once again, we won't be expecting large parties, and the aim will be to have groups who enjoy each others' company, want to find out a bit about where they are visiting and who want a modicum of healthy exercise.

If you want to find out more about any of these holidays, the new brochure has just appeared in its printed form, and will shortly be posted on our website - we'll let you know when it's up, which should be imminent. For various reasons, we aren't sending out tons of them; for example they won't go to everybody who has ever contacted us, so if you haven't got one yet, and you would like a printed version, let us know and we'll organise the Knobbly Stick elves (just back from the North Pole after a stint doing their holiday job) to get one in then post to you.

We'll also be preparing a new newsletter soon, including some more of our highly acclaimed wild life notes, so look out for that.

All good wishes for 2009 from Pete and John at Knobbly Stick.