Choo choo or doo doo - I'm not sure which is right.......

What can I tell you about today that won't get me into trouble with the political correctness brigade? It was a day when we didn't DO that much, but actually DID experience rather a lot.

The weather forecast had always predicted that Wednesday would be the best day of the week, so we had long planned that it would be the day we did a boat trip on the lake. In the end it was the day we did five boat trips and a train journey for good measure. It was also the day that gave us the most laughs so far, mostly at other peoples expense, but it was a day that proved people watching is possibly the most interesting pastime there is.

We had a reasonably early start for us, and caught the boat from Ambleside to Bowness. This is a trip of about 40 minutes, taking in the northern part of the lake down to the mid-way point. The weather was bright and sunny, though there was quite a breeze which made it a little chilly. As we got about half way to Bowness, there was a definite change, and while the top end of the lake was still in sunshine, the further South you looked, the blacker and more threatening it looked. There almost seemed to be a line drawn between the two areas.

At Bowness, we were able to stay on the boat as it was going all the way down the lake to Lakeside. During this stop over, lots of people left the boat only to be replaced by even more, and there were an awful lot of Chinese people who got on the boat. It is an awful thing to say, but it did feel a little like we had been transported to Kowloon Harbour instead.

The three things that became very apparent about out new ship mates were that they have truly dreadful dress sense, almost like a colour blind person had got dressed in the dark - in a charity shop. They seem to have to take photos of everything - any time a point of interest was mentioned over the tannoy, they would all rush to that side of the boat and takes hundreds of photos. The third thing is that they didn't seem like they could keep still, they seemed to constantly be milling about going from one friend to another. It made me feel dizzy.

The weather was now clearing up a bit more, and some of the views of the surrounding mountains were beautiful.

We now arrived at Lakeside, where we left the boat to catch a steam train for the short trip to Haverthwaite. This is only a 20 minute trip, but being on an old steam train makes it seem more special than it probably is.

I had read that there was a restaurant and a museum at the station, so had planned to stop for a while rather than just stay on the train for the journey straight back. It turns out that it was more of a basic cafe and an engine shed, but we did have a superb home made scone and a mug of tea in the cafe, and a quick look around the engine shed proved fairly interesting.

It was while on the journey to the station that the title of this post came about. As the train was pulling out of the station at Lakeside, the driver blew his whistle, "choo choo" it went, and a lady in our carriage with a young child called out "doo doo", and continued to do so every time the driver blew the whistle. We were in bits by the time we got to Haverthwaite, and it became the theme of the day.

The trip back to Lakeside an hour later was without incident, and I actually dozed of for a couple of minutes, which made the journey seem even shorter than it actually was.

Back on the boat for leg 3 of the nautical part of our trip, and we came across some more characters. There was a school party on this part of the trip, and the children couldn't keep still and were running up and down the boat despite their teachers trying to keep them under control.

It would seem that two of the adults in their party were not exactly teachers of theirs but visitors to their school, as at one point one of the children tried to justify why he was about to go down to the lower deck with the explanation "but the Africans are down there!"

We looked at one another aghast, but I suppose he could have said something worse.

Also, on this part of the trip was a pirate looking old man, who decided that the best viewpoint on the boat was his, and he set up himself there for the majority of the journey, and was reluctant to give it up for anyone else. He did make for some good photos of my own though.

The weather was now fabulous, and the views were even better.

Back at Bowess, we had decided that as the tickets we had allowed for unlimited trips today, we would take the boat that takes you around the central party of Windermere and shows you the small islands.

This was on a smaller boat, and only 45 minutes long.

This was full of American teenagers, mostly female, who spent most of the trip talking loudly and discussing which features of their digital cameras they like best. It seems that the "toy camera" setting is the "coolest", and also the "colour swap" one, which meant that this one girl was able to take a photo which made the lake green and the hillside blue. I gather that this one was also rather "cool" or even "awesome" as one put it. I made a mental note to investigate the more inane features of my camera if ever I felt I was loosing the will to live.......

Finally, on the final leg of our trip, we found ourself back on the first boat of the day for the journey back to Ambleside. The sun was now very hot, so we elected to sit inside rather than up top on this part, which may have been a mistake as this meant there was no breeze to take away some of the heat.

We made it back to port with no further adventures, and back onto dry land. We waved the boat off and set off in search of food, ending up at the fish and chip shop not far from the cottage.

Tired after the excitement of the day, full after our meal, we spent the evening chilling out and laughing about some of the stranger events of the wonderful day we had shared.

Tuesday 10th June 2014

Despite the weather forecast saying it would be a wet day, it was bright and sunny to begin with, and the whole day ended up being much better than they had predicted, with only a few brief showers during the afternoon.

We drove to the South end of lake Windermere to the village of Lakeside. I had gathered that there was a shopping outlet village type thing there, but it turns out that i had that totally wrong, and all there is there is a marina for the Windermere boats. So our stay there was so brief that we didn't even get out of the car!

On our way there though, we had spotted a National Trust place that we hadn't been aware of called Fell Foot, which is a Victorian Country Park. It is basically an area of parkland with some landscaped garden areas, with paths down to the side of the lake. The old boat house has been turned into a cafe, and you can hire rowing boats there if you wish.

We just walked around most of the grounds, including the large "meadow" area, which was all very pleasant. The view across to some of the mountains and up the length of the lake were excellent.

After spending a couple of hours walking around the park, and stopping for a quick cup of tea, we made our way a bit further up the lake to the town of Bowness on Windermere. This seems to be the "main" town along the lake, and certainly has more shops than any of the other towns locally.

As you would expect, it has more than its fair share of eating establishments, and it would have been rude not to have partaken of one of them, and as we knew that there was another branch of Byson's there, we sought that out and parked ourselves in their tea rooms.

Having found out the hard way yesterday that their afternoon teas are a bit too much to handle (we still have two of the cakes left from yesterday!), we opted for the ploughman's lunch, and it was quite nice, although the service was not up to the standard of the branch in Keswick.

We then had a good walk around the town, failed to find anything particularly exciting, but i did ask one of the ladies in the Beatrix Potter shop why Peter Rabbit always looks so angry. I had noticed that all of the cuddly toys of him being sold everywhere have him scowling and looking as though is saying "come on then, i'll have you!!" in the manor of a football hooligan, and i just don't think it is fitting for a children's character.

She wasn't able to give me a definite answer, and she did profess that she had never been asked this question before, but she did agree with me that he does have a certain look about him!

I haven't got any photos of Bowness, hence the image here of the interesting trees from Fell Foot.

From Bowness we moved onto the town of Windermere to the Lakeland Plastics store, which is their flagship store and head office. It looks very impressive, but we were both rather surprised that it is no better stocked than most of their ordinary stores, just better laid out and with room to move between the displays.

Sally did manage to fill a basket with goodies from there that we needed for our kitchen back home.

By now, my back was aching again, and Sally's feet were beginning to hurt, so we headed back to the cottage for tea, and in my case a doze, in Sally's case some colouring.

The flower is one that i photographed at Fell Foot.

Dinner tonight was fish fingers with baked beans and mashed potato, which went down a treat with both us us.

We had decided not to go for a walk this evening, which is just as well, as a few minutes ago it threw it down with rain, and it was so heavy that within a couple of minutes the road was VERY VERY wet.

This storm has now passed and the rain is nowhere nearly as heavy just now, but the sky is still very black, and i wonder if we are going to get the thunder storms that they had promised most of the country today......

We will finish today with an obligatory photo of the two of us i think...... :-)

OMG, now that's an afternoon tea!!

I didn't get much sleep last night. For some reason I just couldn't get to sleep for hours. This is something that I have noticed quite a lot since I came off my medication, and it seems that I just don't need as much sleep. So, I remember hearing on the radio that it was 1:30am, and I know that I didn't fall asleep that soon after that, but it must have been before 2am that I finally drifted off.

This morning, we were confronted with totally different weather - it was pouring down with rain. This wasn't a major problem, as the plan was to go to Keswick, it just meant that the drive there wasn't quite as pleasant as it could have been.

Never the less, the views were still pretty amazing as we took the main road from Ambleside to Keswick, passing a few more of the smaller lakes on the way, the roads being looked down upon by the large "mountains" that stand guard to the towns and villages in the Lakes.

We were able to find the Pencil Museum fairly easily, and parked in the car park by the side of it. By now, the rain was even heavier, and we were very glad that we only had a few yards to dash to get into the place.

The museum itself is basically an outbuilding of the old factory, which is still there despite not having been used for some years now (they have a new factory around 20 miles away), and the old one is simply standing derelict, which seems both odd and a shame.

The museum has a gift shop, cafe, demonstration room and the museum itself, which starts off with a dark, low and narrow entrance to try to give the impression of being part of a graphite mine. Once inside, there is a video screen which gives a short introduction to how graphite was discovered, how it's uses were found, how it became a very desirable commodity (once more valuable than gold!), and how the area became the home to the British pencil industry.





I have to confess that I found it all far more interesting than I had expected to, and did learn a lot of things. For me, probably the most interesting thing was how the Cumberland Pencil Company had been asked to help come up with an "escape pencil" for airmen during the war. It had to look and feel exactly like a real, normal pencil so that it would not arouse suspicion if the airman was captured by the enemy, but it had to conceal both a map of Germany and a magnetic compass.

The project was overseen in total secrecy by the department that made gadgets for special missions and secret agents. This department was the basis for "Q branch" in Ian Fleming's James Bond books. Only a few staff knew of the project, and the pencils were developed and constructed in secret after hours in the factory. Many decades later when they decided to revive these pencils for an anniversary pencil set, they discovered that there was no information about how these were made originally, and they had to find a way to do it all over again. Despite having computerised modern machinery, they just couldn't do it, and ended up drilling the holes by hand, and getting another company to especially roll the maps up tight enough to fit them into the pencils. They also could not find anyone who could make the compasses small enough, and so they ended up making the pencils slightly larger than the original ones had been. Fascinating.

The video room has a 20 minute show on how the pencils are made in the new factory, and despite all the new technology, it is still a fairly labour intensive process, and you can begin to understand why their pencils are the price they are. It is also sad to learn that they are the only company still making them in the UK, and also that none of the graphite used comes from the UK any more.

The museum also is home to the world's largest pencil.

When we had finished our tour and Sally had raided the gift shop (she was actually very restrained if I'm honest!), we went outside to discover that it had finally stopped raining. We decided to walk back into Keswick town centre from the museum to have a look around the shops and find something to eat.

It was here that we found Brysons bakery and old fashioned tea rooms. Having had a look at the menu, we thought, let's go for it, and ordered the afternoon tea.

Well, I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like it, and we were both surprised and pleased with ourselves that we couldn't even manage half of it! Thankfully, the staff provided us with a box to put the rest in for us to eat later on in the day!

The first photo shows what was on the tray to begin with, the second shows what was left when we had given up - talk about the TV show "Man v Food" - we turned out to be a right pair of lightweights when it came to it!!

We managed just over half of the sandwiches, the scones and some of the lemon mouse. This left the rest of the sandwiches and ALL of the cakes to bring home with us.

We then carried on walking around Keswick, trying to burn off a few of the calories, but it had started to rain again by now, so we headed back to the car, and took the A66 towards Penrith before turning off onto the road towards Ullswater. This was an extremely pretty road which leads down towards the lake itself, and then onto the Kirkstone Pass, which is one of the most infamous roads in the area. Narrow, winding and steep, the road signs warn you to avoid it in bad weather. It was now just about dry again, and the sun was doing its best to make an appearance.

I would have taken photos, but they would not have done it justice, and I was also trying my best to keep my eyes open for oncoming traffic to help Sally. It was not quite as hairy as yesterday's route, but even so was not for the feint hearted. It did delve into the realms of terror when we came off the "A" road onto the unlabelled one down to Ambleside. This is know locally as "The Struggle", and you can see why as it is stupidly steep. Thankfully, we were going down hill rather than up, but as it was single track with passing places and walled in on both sides, it was a bit "entertaining".

The photo shows one of the wider and less stressful parts of the road with lake Windermere in the distance.

We made a brief stop in Ambleside itself to have a quick run around the shops before heading back to the cottage for a much needed mug of tea. We had only been back a few minutes when the heavens opened again, and the sky became as black as night.

Sally is having a play with her new pencils, I have caught up on the news via the BBC website, and then set to writing this missive about today's activities. If the weather improves we may go for another walk beside the lake this evening.

I will finish up with some photos of Keswick town centre before signing off for the night.

Sunday 8th June 2014

We awoke to glorious sunshine - such a difference to yesterday! We had both slept well, and the bed is very comfortable I am pleased to report. The shower that is over the horse trough sized bath is a little complicated to use. You turn the handle to make the water come out as one would expect, only to find the water coming out of the "tap" and just making your feet wet! It turns out that you have to also push a button, which diverts the water to the shower head. Once you are aware of this, it's fine, but the first time you use it, especially when you are half asleep, it seems overly complicated!

Our first port of call today was the village of Hawkeshead. We had been there before when we spent a few days in the area ten years ago, so it is not too surprising that it all looked totally different to how we both remembered it. The big Hawkeshead outdoor shop is still the focal point of the village, but it seemed smaller than I recalled, and this time it had very little in the way of special offers, whereas last time the whole top floor was devoted to them. They also now have quite a large cafe area in store, which does make you wonder if that is more profitable to them than sales of clothing.

In fact the whole village is mostly given over to cafés, pubs and restaurants. It is not that surprising I suppose as it is such a beautiful little village.

We did also discover something new to us regarding car parking. There seems to be quite a few in the area that use the "pay after stay" system. Nothing new there you are thinking, except this system involves no ticket being given as you enter the car park. Instead, your number plate is photographed as you drive in, and is logged on their system along with the time you entered.

What you have to do is remember to go to the machine just before you leave, enter your registration number and it tells you how much you owe, you pay this and then drive away.

I wonder how many people get caught out by this and totally forget to pay before they leave only to receive a penalty notice in the post sometime later? The charges also seem a little odd, a standard charge for the first hour, and then a bit extra for each extra 20 minutes you stay. It can work out quite expensive if you stay for a long time, but thankfully, everywhere we have come across this system so far only has a very limited range of shops, so your stay is never likely to bankrupt you.

Next we moved onto the tiny village of Sawrey, where "Hill Top" is, the location of Beatrix Potter's cottage. This is a National Trust property, and i know that Sally was quite keen to pay it a visit. The small car park was full, but we were pointed towards the hotel carpark next door instead. The lady who signed us in told us that we were fortunate that it was very quiet today! Goodness know what the place gets like at busy times then!

The cottage itself is very small, with there being only two rooms downstairs, and four rooms upstairs available to visitors. Virtually everything in the cottage belong to Beatrix at some point during her life, and I'm sure that to an officianado of her work it would have been very interesting, but I am sorry to say that I was a little bit let down by it. Compared to all of the NT houses we have been to before I felt it lacked something. The garden was very pretty, though again rather small. It didn't take too long to see all there was to see there, but I am glad we went, and in its own little way, it was quite interesting.

Next, we had a quick drink in the small pub next door to Beatrix's cottage, and Sally made a new friend at one of the other cottages in the village. I do think that Mr McGregor took quite a shine to her!

We then went on a bit of an "adventure" down very narrow twisty lanes to Grizedale Forest Visitor Centre. If I had know just what the roads were going to be like, I may well have not suggested we take the left turn onto them. Even the in car satnav decided that there weren't actually any roads in the area! Let's just say that it was a bit "hairy" at times and leave it at that.

The visitor centre had another of the Big Brother CCTV carpark systems, but this one made it even less obvious as to what you were supposed to do, so I'm sure they get plenty of people who forget to pay before they leave and get the dreaded knock on the door later.

If we were fitter and more active I'm sure we would have spent more time here, as there are many forest walks, cycle rides (complete with bike hire), zip wires through the tree tops, climbing, jumping, sliding and what have you - all great for kids of all ages, but maybe not for two somewhat unfit oldies!!

The road then took us miles out of our way as we tried to make our way to the village of Coniston. While it was only a few miles away as the crow flies, there simply were no roads to get us there in a direct way, so we had to head South along even narrower and twistier roads until we finally hit an "A" road and were able to go in the right direction. It was a pleasant sight to see roads that actually had a white line down the middle!

We were then able to turn back North and head up the Western side of Coniston Water and finally into Coniston village itself at the North end of the lake. Once there, I realised that we had been there before. I only realised this when I saw the huge sight of the "Old Man of Coniston" towering over the village.

We had a bite to eat here, as we hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast, and it was now almost 4 o'clock. We decided on a bustling cafe and both had pie and chips with mushy peas and gravy. It looked nice, and tasted even better. It really hit the spot and set us up for the rest of the day.

On the way back to Ambleside, I decided that we should take a slight detour along what promised to be a road taking us to nowhere except offering a bit of a view. I should really have known better. Yes, it offered us some stunning views, but the carpark at the beauty spot turned out to not being either much of a car park or be clearly marked, so we missed it, found there was no easy way to turn around, and ended up having to leave the area via a road that even the map hardly marked. It was basically a single track farmers track. It made the roads through Grizedale Forest seem almost like a dual carriageway. It was narrow, winding, steep, and downright scary in places! If only the photos would have given the views justice, but as usual, they just don't convey the true scale and beauty of the area.

Finally back at the cottage in Ambleside we decided to go for a walk while the weather was still so nice, as the forecast for the next few days is not so good. We sat down at the edge of Lake Windermere and watched the boats for a while before finally heading back to base for a well earned mug of tea.

I had a doze while Sally did some colouring with her watercolour pens, which she is really getting the hang of and enjoying very much.

We didn't want anything else to eat until 9 o'clock, and had some crackers, cheese and fruit. We had bought some cheese from Booths yesterday that has apple, sultanas and cinnamon in it, and it is absolutely fab.

As I am typing this, it is just starting to get a little dark (it is almost 10pm), we are both tired, but happy at what we have done today - we got a lot more done than we expected to, and the weather has been lovely which was a nice surprise.

I think the two words that sum up today's experience of the Lake District are "achingly beautiful", and I have a feeling that phrase will re-occur throughout the week.

A first evening walk....

After dinner, with my headache almost gone, the rain having stopped, and the sun having decided to make an appearance, we elected to go for a walk.

What a lovely surprise we had as we turned the corner and found that the view across the lake had re-appeared and was also rather stunning. The photographs we took really didn't do the view justice, and it did make us both feel better for having come out for the walk.

We took the route that i thought would take us from where we are staying into Ambleside town centre. Just as i was thinking that i had got it wrong as we seemed to be heading out into countryside, we did in fact arrive in the town centre.

There were a lot more people about than i had expected for that time on a Saturday evening, but then again, i guess that as we rarely go out on a Saturday evening we have very little idea as to how many folk to expect to see!!

Of course, most of the shops were closed, but there are lots of restaurants, cafes and pubs that were open. There are lots of outdoor shops in the town, but there is also a good selection of gift shops, galleries and clothes shops. We are already looking forward to having a trip back into town when the shops are open!!

We did find a fudge shop that was open, and we felt it would be rude to just walk passed (!), so we did pop in a but a piece of their homemade goodies. (It is absolutely delicious by the way!)

The route we took back to the cottage was different to the one we took into town, and i think that we had walked about 3 miles by the time we arrived back home. It was a very pleasant walk, and we were both very pleased that we had done it.

Holiday time again!

Once again, we get to early June, and so it is time for our main holiday of the year. This year we have decided to go somewhere new for us, the Lake District. We have been here before, ten years ago, but only for a couple of nights at a hotel in Grange-over-Sands, which is right at the southern end of the Lakes, and is not really considered to properly be "in the lakes". We did briefly visit a few places while we were there, but this time, we hope to do it all "properly".

We are staying in a Victorian terraced cottage in Ambleside. It is a two bedroomed place with a large kitchen/dining room, and a huge bathroom with his and hers basins, a large bath with a shower over. The whole place has been well renovated to a high standard, appears to be spotlessly clean and is well equipped, having a dishwasher, fridge, microwave and washing machine in the kitchen as well as the usual oven and hob.

All the floors are solid wood, none of your laminate malarkey thank you very much! It is double glazed, centrally heated and apart from the fact it is on the main road, so a bit noisy, and the parking a bit difficult to access, is ideal. Lake Windermere is about 50 yards away, and we can catch a boat from the pier if we want to. Within 5 minutes walk are several eating places, and I have a funny feeling that the fish and chip one will have to be visited early in our stay!

It poured with rain for all of our journey here, but thankfully, the M6 was not too busy, and there we're no major hold ups along the way. We did pay a quick pit stop visit to one of the service stations for a cup of mint tea and a cake, but apart from that, the drive was uneventful.

Until we got to the town of Windermere itself that is. We knew that there was a branch of Booths supermarket there, and the plans was to get some provisions there, as we know from previous visits up t'north that Booths are a VERY good chain of supermarkets, much along the lines of Waitrose.

We hit the snag of lack of decent signage. It was very easy to spot the supermarket itself, but how you actually got to it was far from clear. Using intuition, lack of patience and bad language, after a couple of times around the town centre (and once around the train station) we finally found the car park. It was worth the effort, and we got all of what we needed there before heading on the last few miles to Ambleside itself.

The office of the letting company was fairly easy to find, and we soon had the keys to the cottage. Finding the parking space was less easy, and made us wish for a much narrower car, as the back alley we had to negotiate was rather tight. Even tighter though was the angle to get into the parking space. Sally eventually mastered it, but I suspect that we may well try to use the carpark down the road in future when we can!

We have settled in now, I've had a couple of cups of tea to try to ease my thumping headache, and as the rain has pretty much stopped now, we are hoping to go for a walk later down to the lake and along into the town.