Minus 2 and Factor 20

What a great day! Cold, crisp, bright and sparkly. Eno* take note. I just had to get out. So I did. I went up to Sadgill and did a familiar route around an area of moorland called Green Quarter. It starts just to the right of this lonely farm and wends its way up a stony path.

Well, commonly it's stony. It's a bit different after it's dropped to minus 5 overnight!

The route soon tops out and heads across beautifully runnable moorland. It was especially runnable today because it was frozen.

Along the way, there were beautiful views of the fells around Kentmere.

Dropping in towards Kentmere I got a bit tangled up with a young golden retriever called Tarka. She came bounding out of a holiday home to see me, so naturally I made a fuss of her. Big mistake. I managed to get her to 'Stay' - but not for long. A minute or so later she was back by my side, full of the joys of the day. So I ran back with her, got her to 'Stay' and set off again. Three times. Eventually I gave up, and just tried to ignore her as I ran off.  It took her half a mile to realise I wasn't playing any more and to run home!

As I turned for the final legI realised that the ice on the path formed interesting abstract shapes and, by reflecting the sky, was a striking blue. What a painting this could make:

The final leg tends gently downhill, back to the icy path near the start, down past the farm and to the car.

 An absolutely tops run. Gorgeous day, gorgeous sunshine, gorgeous terrain. Bet Eno, in her air-conditioned studio in Salford, just goes on about how cold it was!!

Smileyrating: 10/10

*Our regional TV weather presenter has the magnificent name of Eno Eruotor. Trouble is, she's fixated on the temperature to the exclusion of almost any other meteorological criterion. We had a similarly cold, sunny, utterly gorgeous day yesterday. In her report at 2225 she kept banging on about how cold it was. Never once mentioned how magnificently sunny and DRY the day was. At the weekend, it's going to warm up and, probably rain. It'll be 6 degrees, grey, wet and utterly miserable. Bet she mentions how good it is 'now it's warmer'. Eno, we love it cold and bright!