One Ticket to the Dakes Listrict, please, Hic

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A pretty busy week at work, ended early on Friday afternoon thanks to Dave (my boss) wanting to have a few beers at 1pm. We went and found a pub down the road and had a meal and a few quiets, well they were quiet until Dave decided to get into the swing of things by buying more and more beers and shots of sambuca. 5 pints and 2 shots later I had to get the train back to my flat, pack my bags and get on the train for the Lakes District. I thought I had done well, until I arrived in Barrow five hours later and unpacked to find that I had 2 pairs of undies, 2 t-shirts and about 12 pairs of socks to last me 5 days.

Saturday I went for a walk with Nicola through Barrow, bought a pie (am still missing good New Zealand pies, and L&P), and helped Nic do some last minute Christmas shopping.

The afternoon was spent just chilling out, I spent a fair bit of it cracking up as Nicola’s Dad has a parrot which has mimicked his voice, you would swear it was him talking, he says things like “you right there mate”, asks you if you want a cup of tea when the jug is boiling, tries to count - he can’t say 3, sings when Nic’s Dad plays guitar, but for me the funniest is that he has mimicked his cough, I found it hysterical.

Later on that night I caught up with some of the Rampside lads at my old local The Clarkes, was good to reminisce about our trip to Spain and some of the antics we got up to. After the Clarkes we went into town to some of the more interesting Barrow pubs. After a good helping of the worst karaoke singing I have ever heard we decided to go to some of the more mainstream pubs. I caught up with some of the Barrow Cricket Club lads also so was a good night. Cheese on toast after the pub topped it off.

Christmas eve was a pretty quiet day, it was freezing outside and Nic had the flu so we stayed inside and watched Scrubs on DVD. Tina, Ryan and Nafisa (Nicola’s sister, brother and brother’s girlfriend) arrived back into Barrow, (Tina back from Canada). So a lot of catching up was down. Some of the stories from their childhood were cracking me up. The funniest was when Nic and Tina went skiing and Tina was rubbish to start with. The instructor was going round the group saying “well done”, “coming along nicely” etc until she got to Tina and all he said was “nice jacket”.

Christmas day, I woke up and talked to my family and wished them a merry Christmas, was good to hear from them and what they had been up to.

Mid morning we did the present unwrapping thing (I was stoked as I got some clothes, seeing I had had a debacle with my packing) before having a massive meal of turkey for lunch. For some reason they had bought a turkey to feed 14 when there was only 7 of us, so we gorged ourselves on turkey for the next three days.

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Photos

The Clarkes
My Barrow local.

Greenland Dock - Fogged Over
A whole lot of flights were canceled due to the heavy fog in London.