Network went to Cumberland Cottage over the weekend 25th – 27th November to prepare the Cottage for the visit of Cobden Scouts and the Explorers the following two weekends (2nd – 4th & 9th – 11th). Over the course of the weekend Cumberland Cottage was turned into a Christmas Wonderland!! (Photos to follow, don’t want to spoil the surprise)
6 Networkers left the Scout on Friday evening and headed to Tesco in Mac. to stock up on supplies for the weekend. It was then off to Wildboar Clough and Cumberland Cottage. We arrived at the bottom of the hill at about 8pm and proceeded to carry the equipment and food the 600 metres up the hill to the Cottage. We then started a fire and barricaded ourselves in from the wind and cold for the night.
After breakfast on Saturday morning, two of our company left for a wedding (Greevy) and a 21st birthday party (Statham). This is when our struggles started.
The first issue we had was that we had no tea bags, only coffee, most people weren’t impressed. The second problem is linked with the first, the spring for our fresh water wasn’t a spring anymore, we had no drinking water! So we decided to press on with collecting wood for that night. This is when problem three arises, the two-man saw had disappeared from stores and with nobody we asked knowing of its where abouts we were resigned to a weekend without it. We thought we’d be alright with the two bow saws and two big axes we had taken, this proved not to be the case. With plenty of wood that would have been easy going with the two-man was inaccessible because with axes and small saws it became far to time consuming and hard work.
With some wood collected and the arrival Mark, Nippie and I thought we should get some drinking water and tea bags. We tried the farm at the bottom of the hill, but were told by the old lady that she had used her spares and couldn’t afford to give us some. She did however suggest trying The Crag Inn, a pub not far away. This was a good bit of advise as we managed to get water and tea bags for free by saying we would be there that evening for a drink. On arrival back at the Cottage to our disappointment, issue four, the milk hadn’t come with us, so it was black coffee or tea with no milk that we had to make do with 🙁 . Mark left and we were down to 4 Networkers again and not much wood with the sun going down too quickly. With just under an hour of daylight remaining a big push on wooding was made and with the sun setting and darkness setting in we were moderately satisfied with our woodpile and the fact it would see us through the night.
Tea on Saturday was fish fingers, peas and home-made sweet potato chips (I bought the wrong potatoes), this was a success. Then we got down to the serious business of the weekend, Christmas decorations. Disappointingly Nippie banned listening to Christmas tunes because it brings bad luck (apparently!), however, all the Christmassy decorations soon got us in the mood, who needs Christmas Songs?, and we were soon dangling baubles and draping tinstle to our hearts content. We all thought the finished product look AMAZING, and for the rest of the night we all sat in our mattress sofas and admired the decorations, getting a bit excited about Christmas!!
Nippie wanted to be home for 1pm on Sunday afternoon, this did not happen. This was what time we got up, instead! Due to the fact that we board the windows up with spare mattresses to keep out the wind, of which there was a lot of on Saturday night, the room was pitch black. As a result of this none of knew what time it was. It was only when Nippie got bored of lying in bed awake and got up did anyone look at the time and think oops. After a quick tidy up we left Cumberland Cottage and headed back home. On the way home we spied Mr and Mrs Sigley outside Poynton looking at cars for Andy Sigley’s sister.
Looking forward to Christmas @ Cumberland Cottage (Part 2) with Cobden Scouts and (Part 3) with the Explorers!
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!
Jonathan ‘Nippie’ Nolan 023
Mark Ridgway 028
Chris Greevy 033
Ollie ‘Hibbo’ Hibbs 034
Andy Statham 042
Gaz ‘Gibbo’ Hibbs 044
Julian ‘Frodo’ Taylor 045