Bob & Betty go British

The lovely Lake District

After a rather stressful start to the weekend (Robert only just made the train to Carlisle with seconds to spare) we did manage to have a really nice time.

Virgin trains delivered us safely to Carlisle on time and in relative comfort. I managed to get a lot of crochet in and wondered if I should have brought a second ball of wool given how much progress I was making on the scarf.

We stayed with Robert's cousin Vega and her husband Mark. They love to go wandering in the Lake District so after a good sleep in on Saturday morning and a huge fry-up (including black and white pudding) we headed off for a small and not too strenuous walk in the lake district. We went to a place called Haweswater. This is not one of the natural lake but a man-made reservoir. It seemed to be a popular spot given the number of cars parked at the start of the walk.

It was the perfect weather for walking - not too hot and not to cold. While it was sheltered on the way up the hill, it was blowing a gale at the top. We encountered quite a few wild things on our trek. We saw lots of sheep in various states of being sheared and 3 mountain-bikers who seemed to enjoy carrying their bikes up the hill and then riding down again. Not exactly my idea of a good time. I keep calling it a hill, but I guess it was probably more a mountain as you can see from the views. The views were spectacular, especially when the sun came out later in the afternoon. At the top of the hill, there is an old roman road - mostly inhabited by sheep. But very cool.

The trek down the mountain was a little more trecherous. There were lots of unstable rock and Robert managed to step on a bit of grass which gave way under his weight and he hurt both his hands. His left hand swelled up a little and was bruised but he seems ok now. Perhaps he should have been using his walking stick after all! He very kindly offered it to me, the uncoordinated one. Aside from splashing myself with mud, I didn't fall over at all, even if I did slow things down.

We actually had to go cross-country at the end of the walk as we had to get back to the pub for dinner at 8pm. We made it with minutes to spare and had a nice meal complete with lemon meringue pie.

Sunday we went to see castles but i'll tell you about that when i've sorted out the rest of the photos!

posted by Elisabeth @ 11:09 PM