In the bleak midwinter

“Aye,” says the postman, after dragging the heavy gate to one side and before driving on through. “Delivering Christmas cards to Uldale House farm can be an expedition.”

Christina Rossetti’s carol In the Bleak Midwinter says it all. Drifts. Shot ice. White-outs. Though today only the frosty wind is making moan, and what in effect is an asphalted lane across a moor powdered white with snow and marked by the diamond-shaped footprints of a fox – forboding, as its bends merge into the peaty mosaic – is ice-less.

I follow, alighting to close the gate after I have driven through, under a metal sign stating “Uldale” with a sheepdog silhouetted above. Over the bridge across the deep wooded rift of Needle House Gill, I continue, engaging bottom gear to ascend the steep banking to Harry Hutchinson’s farm below “Bo Fell” (actually Baugh), 2,224ft (678m).

Mary, Harry’s wife, brews coffee, telling me of Christmases past. Their children once built a snowman-guarded igloo. There is always a tall Christmas tree in the farmhouse with red-berried holly sprigs from the fell. On occasion the traditional feast of roast turkey and Christmas pudding with white sauce has been interrupted when her husband has had to pull on boots and set out with fellow farmers, dogs, shovels and crooks to free sheep buried behind walls.

“Though generally,” breaks in Harry, returning from the farmyard, “if bad weather is forecast, we ensure the sheep are safely gathered in before the blizzards break.” The farm is one of Cumbria’s most remote: “In 1983 we were stuck behind snowdrifts for 10 days. And in 1963 another family was snowed in for 13 weeks.”

Mary adds: “When the weather looks bad, we park either the car or Land Rover by the gate under the tin Uldale sign. That gives us a head start, as driving down the icy hill below the farm can be hazardous.”

Harry, who is also a Methodist preacher, ponders caring for two flocks, a four-legged and a two-legged one. Both can be tested come a white Christmas.