The Daffodils are making an early appearance in The Cottage garden already! A record perhaps?…

For our final morning of the year at home, the rains and wind had finally (and thankfully) ceased, and droplets of water hung everywhere as the great evaporation festival began. The ground squelched underfoot as we walked down the track to get the views.

For the first and last time in a while, the skies were mostly clear and the familiar skyline stood clear in the distance…

As we were trying to pack bags for our fast approaching departure time, we had two workers drilling yet another hike in the (substantial) Cottage wall, to upgrade our internet connections. Not the greatest timing to be honest, but they worked hard and quickly, and were gone by lunch, leaving us to do some final checks of the place.

The tops cleared completely and the temperature dropped down to 3.5°C as the sun hit the horizon.

All that was left was to get the bags (and Clare!), carefully into the car and delivered to Manchester Airport. We attempted to use the new ‘twilight bagdrop’, (to save time in the morning), but a huge traffic jam of cars soon persuaded us to abandon that idea and go straight to the very nice airport hotel we had booked for the night.

We had a slow, early dinner in a quiet corner of the restaurant and were in bed soon after feeling semi-ready for the 04:30 alarm call and subsequent travel that awaited…