Wild weather - and wild women.....

     

Not fit to turn a dog out....(Click to enlarge)

      It's been a wild week weatherwise but the old Runningfox appears to have survived it well to clock up 18 stormy miles! Temperatures have hovered around freezing, a nithering nor'westerly never dropped below 20mph and numbing showers of horizontal rain puckered my face to render me almost speechless. Taking the wind chill factor into consideration at 900ft I reckon I was stop/starting along in 20ºF. It was impossible to run in a straight line. The wind, from the left, was blowing my raised foot against the opposite leg, and sometimes behind it, like some playful puppy trying to trip me up. At my time of life I suppose I can count myself lucky I still regard this as fun, though my wonderful partner has other words for it!      

Strange goings on at breaking dawn.....

      On Sunday the wind had bated a little, but still a wee bit blowy as I plodded up the lamplit road to my beloved high point. Several cars had passed me and turned up the narrow road to Castle Hill car park, which I thought rather odd for a Sunday morning, and well before sunrise. Then I heard odd bursts of music blown on the wind and recall thinking "I wish they'd turn their bleedin' car radios down".  But as I reached the summit, there in the lee of the Tower was a motley gathering of musicians and dancers cavorting around celebrating the winter solstice. And the beginning of longer days.

      My run got somewhat interrupted. Close at hand the music was most acceptable and their dancing

I avoided mixing with this lot....

very entertaining. I ran around the hill a few times waiting for it to come light enough to take photographs. In Facebook the group describe themselves as : 'a mixed border morris side who like dancing, waving big sticks about and yelling. We sing as well. We were formed in 2006 and ages range from 9 to 69'. They call themselves 'Thieving Magpie'. In their strange black tasselled garb, hats with fairy lights, painted faces and armed with stout sticks they made a fascinating addition to that sombre landscape at breaking dawn. They can come again!