This morning dawned grey and dreary but, intrepid travellers that we are, we decided to go to the Lake District anyway. It had been a special place when we lived in England and we particularly remembered a visit there in 1970 with Paul and Chris, and my cousin Peter and his wife Jo, who were visiting from Australia. It rained that day too and we have a photo of us all rugged up, with Di (who was about 13 months old) in a little yellow raincoat being carried on Ron's shoulders.
The further north we travelled, the greyer it became but when we reached Keswick (on the other side of the Lake District from where we had gone he previous week) the rain had stopped and we were able to walk around the town and down to the lake. After lunch, we drove on to Tarn Hows, a beautiful, small lake which had poignant memories for all of us. The views on the way were spectacular - I hope we're not in danger of becoming all viewed out! I think we'd both forgotten how very lovely this land is.
We headed home around 5pm and the heavens opened! It was pouring down and visibility was very bad - I think Chris and I were both glad Ron was driving and not us!! As in Australia, there were far too many idiots taking no account of the conditions and overtaking us at a rate of knots. We eventually reached home around 8.15pm and bought fish and chips (and mushy peas!)for dinner (no, they weren't wrapped in newspaper!).
At 9pm we went around to one of the local pubs with Chris's friend, Gwyllem for a Quiz Night and had a really good time (not that we won). We had a lovely surprise when Chris's son, Phil, turned up - we had never met him but felt as if we knew him right away. He is a Police Officer, like his father was, and is a really lovely guy. We'll meet him again on Saturday night at a BBQ Chris is having for us to meet some of her friends.
Another late night!
