It feels like just a few days ago that we were talking with manager Paul Simpson about the fact that three of the next four games were at home, but that situation has changed dramatically following the postponement of the Barrow fixture last Saturday.
That little anomaly means that the Blues will have just the one home match between now and 14 January – Bradford City on Boxing Day – as away trips to Northampton (rearranged for this Tuesday), Crewe and Doncaster beckon.
“It does appear to throw a spanner in the works when you look at it that way,” the gaffer said. “As I’ve said before, we just continue to control the controllables.
“We certainly can’t do anything about the weather, but I don’t remember it ever being this cold in Carlisle. The freeze we’ve had has been incredible, and it’s over a prolonged period as well.
“Thankfully we’ve had no snow yet, which can be a major disrupter, so we’ll just deal with it. As I’ve said a couple of times, until somebody chucks a load of money at us to build a lovely indoor dome for us somewhere in the city we just have keep working and doing what we have to do.”
With the next home fixture on Boxing Day, it could see a bumper festive crowd with two sides who are always well backed.
“We hope so,” he agreed. “We want to deal with Northampton first, let’s get that one under our belts, let’s deal with it properly and get a good result.
“If we do it right we’ll be setting it up nicely for the Bradford game. Whenever you play Bradford you know you’re going to get a good away support coming with them, they’re fantastic and fanatical supporters … but we have that as well.
“I want us to do what we need to do to make sure it’s our fans who are making the noise on the day. Hopefully we can give them something to cheer about at Christmas, with a performance and a result to back up what we do at Northampton.”