Why doesn't Santa eat junk food? Because it's bad for your elf!
It's back... At least 3 people have asked when the festive edition of Birtley News is online. So relax readers - here it is.
Your correspondent (YC) and Emma have been on their travels this year, as well as welcoming folk to Braithwaite. May saw us dodging the showers in Poolewe (north-west Scotland) and enjoying several dips in the sea and lochs. No eagle sightings this year, but we did see a pair of black-throated divers at Firemore Beach.
In October we headed 'down south' to Oxfordshire. We found some (gentle) hills to run up in the Blenheim Estate and caught up with friends including Andy Angel (last visited 20 years ago).
YC has been keeping up his fellrunning. He returned for an 11th completion of the Old County Tops race (37 mile epic), enjoyed a low key Buttermere Sailbeck race, and finished 3rd with Keswick V50s at the national fell relays (podium finish - crumbs).
In church news, here are 2 stories to brighten your day - a sell-out traditional carol service at St John's, Keswick; and inclusivity in the Newcastle diocese through the work of the LGBTQI+ chaplaincy and their lead chaplain Emma Duff.
YC rounded off the year by running the Simonside Cairns race in Northumberland, then heading to Tynemouth for 'beer and carols' - a splendid occasion. It did exactly what it said on the tin, with much enthusiastic carol singing washed down with real ale in a local pub. The locals thanked 'the opera singers in the corner' - otherwise known as YC, sister Emma, and Luke from the Salvation Army - as we ran through our repertoire of harmonies and descants.
Altogether now...
O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.
Happy Christmas!
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| Emma on Baosbheinn (near Poolewe) |
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| At home with The Smiths |
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| Keswick V50s at the fell relays in Wales |
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| With The Angels in Oxfordshire |
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| the opera singers in the corner |