Sunday's long, snow, steady

As a tabloid headline "Birds ate my snowman's mouth" might not be a bad offering, but it is precisely what happened yesterday to our neighbour's fine creation. He, and his two-year old son, laboured mightily to create a stunning 1.7m high snowman complete with cricket bat (in honour of the Ashes), a classic carrot nose and a very Raymond Briggs' Snowman-ish hat. But, crucially, the mouth was made of currants. Which is why, when my brother-in-law Pete and I returned from our run, the homme de neige was very much sans bouche and was left with a rather gummy smile.

End of local neighbourly bulletin. To the run. And what a glorious run it was too. I've no idea how far we went (I really must get my Garmin back up and running) but we were out for 1hr 27 minutes in about -3 degrees C, in dazzling sunshine. We ranged along the foothills of Potter Fell (our local fell) then turned and ascended its broad flanks, up to Potter Tarn and then along to Gurnal Dubbs and down. The snow was about 6cm deep - drifting to 2m or so where it blew against the stone walls. There were boot tracks, fell running shoe tracks, X-country ski tracks, toboggan tracks, rabbit, sheep, chicken, other unidentified bird and dog tracks. But we only saw two other people; he walking purposefully and happily, she trailing behind carrying her coat and looking as if she'd rather be anywhere else but out in the sparkling sunshine.

It was, in short, a fabulous run. It was made harder by the soft snow necessitating a higher knee lift with every stride, but it was brilliant. I'm only sorry that I forgot to take my camera so I can't show you any beautiful shots, but if you imagine opening any coffee table book of 'The Lakes in Winter' - it looked exactly like that!

Smileyrating 10/10