A NORTH-EAST woman is spending the festive period in a tent battling freezing temperatures in one of the most isolated places in the world.

A normal Christmas for Ruth Richardson, from Ovington, near Barnard Castle, would be spent with her family enjoying the usual festive food and plenty of wine.

But after jetting off to Mongolia in August to work as a volunteer for a year, the 24-year-old spent Christmas Day in her circular tent, called a Ger, without running water or electricity while the cruel Mongolian winter raged outside.

The main religion in Mongolia is Buddhism, so most of the natives do not celebrate Christmas, but Miss Richardson said her and the other volunteers will make the most of what they have.

"We will try to recreate a traditional Christmas dinner with what we can manage to get here,"

she told The Northern Echo last week.

"Things like stuffing, gravy granules, turkey and parsnips will be missing but I can get potatoes, carrots and maybe chicken.

"I will miss my friends and family. I will miss the traditional Christmas dinner. I don't miss the stressful lead up to Christmas though."

Miss Richardson lives in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, where she works for two charities, the Mongolian Women's Farmers' Association and a children's organisation called Equal Step.

New Year's Eve will also be a new experience for the former student at Darlington's Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College.

She will take a 16-hour off-road journey to travel to the east of Mongolia to an area called Dornod, where temperatures quite often drop to minus 25 degrees Celsius.

"As Dornod is so remote there are no nightclubs and only a handful of restaurants, so I'm not sure what the evening will entail.

But people are very friendly so I'm sure I will have a wonderful greeting to the New Year," said Miss Richardson.

The official Mongolian New Year's Eve event, called Tsagaan Sar, is in early February, when young people pay respect to adults and families drink traditional milk tea and pastries.