Gifts and the raft.

I suspect it will be diffcult writing a blog entry while a needy labrador is sitting on me, and I'm waiting for a cake to bake but I'm willing to give it a go.

 

I've been living in Witham for about a week and a half now and its all going well. It's very different to Kendal but it seems like a nice place. D came to visit last weekend and we had a good explore of the area.

There's a town nearby on the Blackwater estuary called Maldon which is one of my favourite places in the world. I have lots of memories of sunny summer days spent there with Grandma and Grandad, playing in the tidal swimming pool and at the fairground next to the Hythe and when I was a bit older, going for walks with Grandma and her dog Lucy. D and I went for a visit last weekend and it was a bit different to how I remembered - the swimming pool is now a pond; the fair is now a play area (no trampolines!) but its still a lovely place to go for a walk.

We also found a really nice walk along the river in Witham with lots of little fields and wooded areas. I'm hoping the weather improves sometime soon so that I can have a proper explore of the fields and footpaths around my house.

 

Today I went on a bit of a nostalgia trip and visited a lot the places in Chelmsford that we used to go to when we'd visit Grandma. I started with Hylands Park which is just brilliant and there's so much more to it than I remember. It's an 18th century country house with landscaped gardens. The parkland is lovely. Especially on a muddy, rainy day when your walking boots decide not to be waterproof anymore.

 

 

Work's going well. I've got three weeks of induction to start off with which is great in terms of meeting staff and things but it still feels slightly like being chucked in at the deep end. I think this is mostly because I'm a bit daunted by the amount of money I'm expected to bring in. But it seems good and I think the change from youth work to fundraising will keep me motivated for a while.

Keswick & boring moving stuff.

The move is creeping ever-closer...

After my initial burst of activity (packing some stuff, moving some stuff to the parents, buying a new car, writing the old car off and finding a new place to live), I've not really done anything for a week or so and I still need to work out how to fit the rest of my worldly belongings into a Nissan Micra - I have a policy of "if it doesn't fit, it's not coming". But equally I'm a total hoarder so I should really start packing and make a more concerted effort to sort my things out.

I think now I'm on the home stretch, I'm less stressed out about the move and am focusing less on what I'm leaving behind.

Last weeked was hard, however. D came up to visit and we met up with some of my friends from Lancaster, Carlisle and Kendal. We went to Keswick on the Saturday and met up with my friend Jenny and her lovely dog which was amazing - snow on the hills and lots of fun exploring around the Bowderstone and tea at Temporary Measure - but I felt bad that I've found all these really incredible places around the county that I want to share with D  and, well, everyone in the world really and I might not get that chance. I know we'll be back, but coming up to visit for a few days at a time means that the little places might lose out to big day trips.

But that's fine. Because travel is fun, especially jaunts up and down the country to visit friends. And I'm starting to get really excited about the new job and the move. As work Oop North is quietening down it's giving more time to think about possible shenanigans with the new job. I don't think I'll really appreciate exactly what the new job entails until I've gotten started but from what I know of it so far, it's just really exciting. And as much as I hate leaving places that I love, I really love moving to new places and all the possibilities that come with it.

Guy Fawkes Night was excellent. This is the view of the castle fireworks from my roof. Lovely stuff.

also...

I also came across this amazing door on the lighthouse in Whitehaven harbour.

I want to know what's behind it. I hope its not zombies.

Strong and courageous

It's hard to know what to do with my time now that I don't have to spend a stupid amount of it applying for jobs and preparing for interviews. Packing probably makes sense. As does reading all those books I haven't read yet and going for nice autumnal walks. As the queen of procrastination I'll probably end up doing none of that and will just waste away the next 5 weeks sitting on the sofa looking slightly bemused at how scarily soon I'll be leaving Cumbria and moving back to the south to do a job with a lot more responisbility in a field I have some (but maybe not much) experience in.

It'll be great. It's three and a half years since I last moved across the country to a job I'd never done before in a place where I didn't know anyone and it was amazing. And excitingly I'll be living so much closer to the Chappy which is great. Of course it is mildly terrifying taking a big step careerwise and moving somewhere where I don't have any friends, but I keep getting a fantastic passage from Joshua 1:9 turning up in my head every time I start feeling a bit worried about the whole thing:

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

Isn't it a great verse? Write it down. Stick it on your fridge.

I went for a jaunt around West Cumbria today. It felt a bit like the last Dr Who episode with David Tennant as the Doctor where Russel T. Davis has his saying goodbye to everyone and it just goes on and on and on. I said goodbye to Whitehaven and the beach at St Bees. I also went to Workington and Keswick but didn't say goodbye to them as I'll be heading back to them before I leave. West Cumbria is a weird place.

"Beware of Doors.”

When I first moved to Kendal, about a year ago, I fell well and truly in love with the architecture. The town is very higgledly piggledy with lots of windy streets and “yards” – passages that look like they don’t lead anywhere until you head down them and find amazing shops and an unexpected pub and things. It looks quite chaotic and unplanned but a lot of the street layout has been the same since the town was established so there’s a real sense of continuity.

One of the things I like the most about the town’s architecture is the number of interesting doors. I was really stuck by this when I first moved here. I’d read Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere a few months earlier and was paying close attention to any interesting doors I came across in case they led to  a secret underground world. Kendal has tonnes of lovely but anassuming buildings with doors that look like they lead somewhere. When I moved here I decided it’d be fun to get photos of as many as I could. Almost one year later, I’ve made a start. It’s surprisingly awkward going up to a building and and taking a photo of someone’s door. There’s the worry that people will think you’re sizing it up for an elaborate burglary and such like but at the moment Kendal’s full of crazy tourists so it kind of feels ok at the moment.

I thought I'd start with some doors I walk past on my way to and from work.

This is the door to Dower House Antiques. Very nice and Georgian. It feels a bit like something from a period drama.

The shop front still has original (I assume) window frames and they are lovely. As are the fluted pillars and the duck egg blue paint. I've not actually been in there to have a mooch around yet as it's slightly too far to go on my work breaks.

I'm assuming the Dower reference might imply the building's origianal use as a home for a widow or dowager somehow linked to one of the large Kendal families (as in the Castle Dairy's heritage)

Next up we have the delights of Kendal Parish Church. Which is apparently only slightly less wide than York Minster. Which is why I did a rubbish job of fitting the whole thing into the picture.

(Just as an aside. This is the writing on the very ornately carved cross in front of the church.)



Oh no, Instagram!



More Instagrammyness but this door is just wonderful. Its just to the right of the big main door (above) and looks like it probably leads to spiral stairs or a tiny medieval broom cupboard.

  

Once you see one interesting door, you start seeing them everywhere. This could become quite a fun obsession.