So, this is a quick A4 watercolour of Gandalf, his old grey cloak in rags covering his new white garb as he shuffles and stoops his way to the presence of Theoden. Now I really want to paint the full hall, with shafts of light picking out different details, and the other characters in place.

To date I have made numerous requests to Cumbria County Council for the grit piles to be topped up, I’ve had assurances from Tony Markley (Cumbria County Councils cabinet member for highways and economic development) that the lack of grit issues had been passed to a highways officer who would get in touch with me directly – that was a week ago now. I also contacted my local parish Councillor, who did not respond, a local County Councillor who would look into the matter, never heard from again; and my local MP Rory Stewart, who is obviously too busy to respond

So, here’s an invitation to Andrew Moss and all the other Councillors who believe the grit piles and bins are all topped up, come and drive around some of the minor roads in a normal car and see how far you get without sliding along at 45 degrees to the road before hitting the verge.

I know they’re all busy at this time of year, heck, I’d like to be busy to, but not busy trying to free my car from roads that are untreated and are untreatable thanks to the lack of grit. This is the second bad cold snap in twelve months, and the second time the Councils have left us high and dry.

Today was one of those winter days where all you want to do is build up the fire and and watch the World slide by. Slide being the relevant word here, sadly we had to go out early this morning so we wrapped up and set off in the car. Halfway up the hill the tyres held up a white flag and we were stranded, a careful three (or was it six) point turn later and we were sliding downhill hoping that at some point the car would either slow down and stop or that whatever we hit was nice and soft.

A couple of hours later I went for a wander with the dog and a shovel in search of the grit piles Cumbria County Council claim to have topped up around the County. My intention was to throw enough grit onto the road to make them safe again, a simple intention, but one doomed to failure. Unfortunately all the grit piles the Council had supposedly topped up were no where to be seen and so I had to leave the road like I found it looking like this -

A few hours later and I went for a walk up the hill, the road had seen a bit of 4×4 use and the snow has compressed and frozen into something you’d normally see Torville and Dean dance the Bolero on. I was about to turn back when I noticed something odd, in the distance I could see the road surface, not just a little clear patch but the whole road. When I got closer it was obvious the road had been cleared and treated, the line between the treated and untreated areas was quite obvious -

So, I started to wonder, why would the Council clear half a road? Has someone with a bit of clout moved into the area? If someone has a better idea of why the Council would take the trouble to drive up the hill and only clear a portion of it I’d be interested to hear it, but for now the word ‘nepotism’ is running through my head

Here’s a little map of the road with the treated section marked in yellow and the untreated section in red.

I’ve made a number of requests to the Council to have the grit piles topped up, the requests so far have fallen on deaf ears.

Have you ever stood outside on a crisp clear night and looked up at the night sky and found yourself lost in wonder? A few years ago in a rural location as the Sun dropped beneath the horizon the sky became a source of inspiration not only for astronomers but for writers and artists everywhere. Now as the Sun vanishes for the day you hardly notice as factories and houses become illuminated by a myriad of lights. Some factories need hundreds of lights even when they’re closed, and householders have taken to lighting every nook and cranny of the houses exterior either through vanity or a misguided attempt at increasing security (I say misguided as lighting the outside of your house normally gives burglars more of an opportunity to gain entry than a normal house. Standing in my garden this morning I took the following photograph…

That white glow above the tree line on the right is Burdens depot, the yard is illuminated by more lights than a football pitch even when they’re closed.

Looking further East we see the glow from Langwathby…

All those pools of light in the valley illuminating the sky above, for a relatively small village the light pollution from Langwathby is perhaps the worst in the area. It’s made worse by horrendous security lights on a property located on the edge of the village (opposite Frank Birds factory another source of light pollution). The house is so badly illuminated at night that the security lights blind drivers approaching the village.

It’s worth remembering that all the light that pollutes the night sky is energy that has been wasted, in a time when we are trying to reduce energy consumption many people appear intent on wasting energy every night. Perhaps people are content to throw money down the drain?

Without the pollution interfering too much the night sky really is a source of wonder and inspiration, it’s just a pity that the next generation will never see it as it should be seen but through a haze of light from every other house and factory in the Country.

Oh yes, this morning was a partial success with the camera as I managed to capture three planets in one frame…

Labeled version link.

I’ve known about Hopton House Bed & Breakfast for some time and it’s one of those places where, once you browse the website and read a few reviews that you know you have to visit one day. As usual good intentions and plans to visit often turn out to mean you stay at home doing all those exciting jobs such as repaint the kitchen or clean out the chickens. The good intentions and plans were still there, we just kept putting them off, then one day Karen (who owns and runs Hopton House) announced on Twitter that she was holding a competition to win a night in the new Loft room. It was a challenging competition, with a difficulty level well suited to me, simply retweet the original message regarding the competition and Karen would pull a name from the hat after a day or so. Not expecting much I entered the competition and kept my fingers crossed, the next day I checked my tweets and discovered I’d won So the good intentions and plans for the future changed to a quick search of available nights which matched up with our time off work; then a few short weeks later and we were in the car heading south.

The drive to Hopton House was the perfect build up to the bed and breakfast with quiet roads passing through some outstanding Shropshire countryside. Having stayed in the past at those roadside lodges where you turn off a motorway, park up a hundred yards later, and step into a room that is so identical to the other thousand or so throughout the hotel chain that you could be anywhere the difference couldn’t be more pronounced. The trees were almost glowing in their Autumn glory as the Sun started to drop beneath the horizon as we turned off the road and into the driveway at Hopton House.

Karen came out to greet us with her dogs Murphy and Mitsi (both dogs were nice and friendly especially if you arrive armed with dog biscuits ). After a brief “here’s where you’ll find…” she led us to the Loft room

The Loft room is located away from the main house and gives you a more secluded feeling, sometimes when you visit a bed and breakfast you feel a little like intruders in other peoples houses, with the Loft room you get your own front door and more importantly no one dancing above your head at 2 o’clock in the morning (something that has happened at a couple of places in the past). One of the first things you notice in the Loft room is how light the room feels, despite being as the name implies, in the loft space with the sloped ceilings and exposed beams you don’t get the cramped feeling I normally associate with lofts – well the loft in our house requires a ladder, head torch, and the desire to wander around bent double for a while As Karen shows us around the room you know they have not skimped on anything, the room oozes comfort and I can’t wait to kick my shoes off and relax.

After the brief tour of the room Karen leaves us to get comfortable, it doesn’t take long, the room has a huge bed, and I mean huge. Yes I did resist the temptation to throw myself back onto it, but it was difficult; besides, I did not wish to disturb Ted who was keeping the bed warm for us.

To one side of the bed is a two seater sofa, and on the other side an armchair, it would be difficult to choose which one I’d sit in to get the best angle to view the HD TV and Blu-Ray setup from but some trial and error soon sorted that quandary

Turning from the bedroom to the bathroom and you are faced with a bath that you’d expect to see in a magazine – free standing beneath a skylight which on a clear night allows you to lie back in the bath and watch the stars for a while.

It would be easy to pass over the little details that makes the stay so special, from the little soap by the sink…

to the comprehensive refreshments area

The room also has a silent refrigerator, now I’m one of those dubious people about advertisers claims of ‘silent appliances’ but this really was silent. It also had some bottled water inside and a bottle of fresh milk, so no trying to prize open a plastic carton of year old milk.

I know you don’t go away just to sit in a room watching TV and having baths, but the Loft room really does make the time you spend inside a pleasure. The bed really is as comfortable as it looks, to the point where I can hardly remember sleeping so well. The first morning we woke to mist filled valleys and a distinct chill in the air, always being ones to wake early we went for a wander in the garden to say hello to the chickens and look at the views.

Now we come to the breakfast, as we are both vegetarian finding a bed and breakfast that can cater for us is certainly getting easier but there is often a limited choice as to what we can eat. Hopton House provided us with not only a choice but a menu that was free from any meat related options all together. The breakfasts on their own are worth staying for, with just enough food to fill you up and keep you going throughout the day and of course it’s really good to know that the eggs you are eating have come from the chickens that enjoy wandering around the garden outside the dining room window.

I can’t fault our stay at Hopton House, it was a break in the lap of luxury, the only real draw back is you never want to leave

Remember you can follow Hopton House on Twitter @HoptonHouseBnB it’s well worth it

The Truth About Faeries from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Lord of the Rings

10th July 2010 to 12th September 2010 – Tullie House Art Gallery, Carlisle

“From the Golden Age of illustration from the 1860s to 1920s up to the present day, this exhibition explores the prevailing interest amongst story tellers, artists, film makers and illustrators in the world of fairies.”

When I first heard about this exhibition my intent had been to visit on day one, real life of course has a way of putting small hurdles in our path which means plans sometimes go out of the window Anyway, today we managed to visit this exhibition, and I’m glad we did. My main reason for visiting had been to see some of Alan Lee’s originals; I’ve been looking at his work in printed form for years but this was my first chance to see an original or two.

We’ve seen quite a few exhibitions at Tullie house now, some of them I had to leave fairly quickly before I fell victim to pretentious-crap-syndrome, that horrible condition where you start to think the artist really did have something in mind when the gathered together a load of old junk and called it art. The Truth About Faeries exhibition makes up for all the bad experiences we’ve had there.

What did surprise me was how some of the paintings affected me, I was looking forward as I’ve said the the Alan Lee originals, what I wasn’t expecting was how Brian Froud’s works would hit me. Staring at Brian’s Green Man and Bluebell Fairy made me realize how far I have to go with a paintbrush, I must admit that looking at Sword by Alan Lee gave me a slight sinking feeling that I’ll never be able to paint moving water in a way that I’ll be happy with now

As much as looking at the delicate works of Brian and Alan made me want to sit down with some watercolours and paint for the rest of the week, looking at The Source of the Anduin by Paul Raymond Gregory made me want to run out and buy some huge canvas and vanish whilst I found part of Middle Earth hidden there. When you enter the gallery to view this exhibition you are greeted by a combination of faeries and green men, turn to your right and look down the length of the room and you are faced with this huge canvas by Paul, it took a fair amount of self control to visit the paintings in turn and not walk straight to this oil painting.

So, why is this a must see exhibition, well really look at the list of exhibitors to start with and then if that does not stir you to action think back to your childhood, did you ever read a Ladybird book, The Elves and the Shoemaker perhaps, well tucked away near the doorway are a small collection of original illustrations from a number of Ladybird books. They are quite simply a delightful glimpse at the art that affected so many of our childhoods.

This is an exhibition we’ll have to visit again, it’s so rare to see art like this in the far North of England that to miss it would be a shame, and once you’ve seen it once you’ll want to visit again

As the theme I was painting for was cloud orientated the clouds needed to be prominent, sadly my first clouds looked a lot like a load of blobs and held no resemblance to any clouds I’ve ever seen.

My solution was to paint another sky and photoshop it into place, not something I am prone to doing but it saved me painting the whole piece again.

Okay, the decision was not that hard to make, my mind has been lost in Middle Earth for a few days and so the Lonely Mountain was a fairly obvious choice. The sketch was just supposed to be a rough outline for me to work from in paint, but I was enjoying the sketch process too much that I had to fill the sheet (if you’ve not tried the Derwent Pencils Onyx range you should, they make sketching so easy). Now that I’ve started with this one image of the Lonely Mountain I really want to try it in paint, maybe later.

As many people will know it snowed recently in many parts of the UK, which is all nice and seasonal; looking out over the snow covered Pennines certainly puts you in the mood for hiding inside by the fire and watching terrible Christmas TV but there are times when it would be nice to get in the car and go for a few essentials. To many people this is a fairly simple task even in winter, because for many people the council have been around and treated their roads with layer after layer of grit. Outside of the UK where people have snow on a regular basis then they know how to handle a bit of snow, either their local authorities clear the roads or they have snow tyres or snow chains on hand. Anyway, back to Cumbria and the lack of action on behalf of Cumbria County Council.

For some reason there is a policy in place within Cumbria County Council which states they’ll clear priority routes first and then secondary routes when they get round to them (I don’t know the wording, I have more interesting things to do with my time other than reading through reams of legal speak from the Council). The upshot of Cumbria County Councils policy is that small roads are ignored; yes, they provided a pile of grit some time ago, but this grit has been subject to weeks of rain which washed half of it away, flattened by farm vehicles, used as a toilet by every passing dog, and finally covered in snow.

This is the view up and down hill from our lane end…

It would not be so bad if you thought the Council were actually trying to deal with the roads and would get round to these little roads eventually, however you only have to read the Council Chiefs comments in the local newspaper “…but also that people moving to rural Cumbria know what they are letting themselves in for.” So essentially everyone that lives out of town should be prepared to look after themselves as the Council don’t want to know – they do want to know of course that we’ll all be paying our taxes to keep them employed, I’m sure if everyone who lived in these rural locations that Cumbria County Council actively ignore decided to withhold their taxes then they would soon notice we existed again. Perhaps that’s the solution, someone should work out how much of our taxes go towards services that we’ll never benefit from in rural locations and we can have a rebate. After all why should I pay for the Council to clear roads if I can never reach them?

Perhaps all the people who live in rural locations in Cumbria should contact Cumbria County Council and ask for the Council Chief who made the above comment to explain themselves, or maybe our local MP’s could spend some time in the area and put some pressure on the Council to actually recognize that routes other than the priority ones may need some attention at times. Oh yes, before anyone says I should grit the road myself, the grit pile is now totally flat, no one is answering at the Council to request more grit (and the last time I spoke to someone, last winter funnily enough, it took two to three months for the grit piles to be replenished).

One quote of a rural resident on the News & Star website regarding the Councils inactivity says it all really “When we complained to the council, they told me we shouldn’t have moved in here if we weren’t going to be able to get out.”

It’s my last rant of the year, honest.

Quotes taken from News & Star
Photographs were of the road between B6412 and Stagstone Road, Penrith.