WESTMORLAND: Snow or frost, they say, is quite likely in the fell country during the coming weekend, but it will hardly be more splendidly seasonable than three years ago when we had skating over Christmas, skiing over New Year, and a fortnight of crisp, sunny days. I remember that year eating my Christmas dinner - or at least chicken sandwiches and mince pies washed down with a bottle of wine - with my skates on, sitting in the sunshine beside the wonderful black ice of Tarn Hows. And on Boxing Day we were out in the fells and looked out from a little snow-covered hill to see perhaps 30 peaks stretched out along the horizon like fairy castles in icing sugar, each one sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. But other open-air Christmas Days also spring to mind. There was one, about 30 years ago, when five of us struggled up Coniston Old Man in a blizzard and through snow so deep that every feature of the mountain, including the quarry workings and huts, was completely covered and the tremendous summit cairn of those days buried out of sight. Icicles yards long hung from the crags while Low Water, heaped with great ice-floes, looked like some remote corner of the Arctic. Before we got down to our dinner that evening we took off our ice-plated jackets and trousers - there were no anoraks in those days - and stood them up like suits of armour against the walls of the hut. Even more distant Christmas Days, too, when we went out, washed and combed, along quiet lanes, to exhibit and exchange presents, or days when we went adventuring in the woods in the thin wintry sunshine to try out new bows and arrows or cowboy outfits. But most outdoor Christmas Day memories of the Lake country are of mild, rather misty days, with the few car headlights peering through the fog, and a great stillness over a sleeping countryside.
