Plucky Louise Pickles ran through four miles of deep snow to cook up a tasty lunch for Abbeyfield Ilkey care home residents.
Louise, 29, who lives in Silsden, works in the kitchens at Ilkley’s Abbeyfield Residential Home. She usually takes a bus to work but the service ran into difficulties on Tuesday morning 5th January following the heavy snowfall the night before. Louise then attempted to make the 4.4-mile journey by car but was forced to abandon the trip after getting into difficulties on the steep hills of Cringles.
Determined Louise, a member of Wharfedale Harriers, made the snap decision to dash home and change into her running gear before setting off at a steady pace across the hills.
She said: “I needed to get to work because I knew that they had no cover for that day. My boss was away on holiday and the other cook had the day off. There was nothing for it but to run to work.” It took Louise an hour and 15 minutes to reach Ilkley where she then set about preparing the day’s meal.
She said: “Thankfully the other cook, Moi Mwita, who lives in Ilkley, had gone in to start everything off for me so by the time I got there a lot of the preparation had been done.I have run home from work on occasion so it was not totally new to me but it is a bit more difficult in the snow. It did give me a nice start to the day, I suppose. I just needed to be at work somehow so I ran.”
Louise, who started running when she was just ten years old, has been working at Abbeyfield for the past six years.