St James The Great, Ruscombe

Today was the final day of the Tour de Ski - the most exciting race of the whole tour! 9km of track, the second half going UP an alpine course, some of the gradient being as much as 28%. Cross country skiing certainly isn’t boring! Ebba Andersson from Sweden got the gold today - a first World Cup win for her. My favourite Jessie Diggins from the US got the silver but she won the overall Tour title because of all her wins earlier in the Tour. It was a big career goal for her to win the Tour - the first time it was done by an American!

See here for a video of the whole race - commentary not in English, but take a look at least the second half to see that amazing climb!

The men’s race was exciting too, won again by Alexander Bolshunov.  

After the skiing was done I went out for my walk and ended up in the nearby village of Ruscombe. This is the village church, St James the Great. It was featured in I think my second ever blip a few years ago. You can see it was another grey (and cold!) day. This was taken at 430 and I’m surprised it’s as light as it is as it FELT like a dark walk. January IS dark, isn’t it?