The trip North

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen were up early. Much of today would be spent in the car. Much of the Ellie-stuff was loaded overnight, but we still had our stuff and the groceries to load. It was pointless leaving too early as we would just have sat in traffic, so we waited until a quarter to nine. The Sat Nav immediately contradicted logic and tried to send us up a somewhat bizarre route. The Gorse Fox knew better and just ignored her until she finished her tantrum and saw sense.

We had a very clear run - A27, M3, A34, M40 and then a comfort break at Warwick Services. Thirty minutes later we were back on the road and carried on, M40, M42, M6 Toll road and M6. The M6 was a dreadful, but expectedly so. We soldiered on and stopped at Lancaster Services for a tea and a stretch. Then we were on to the final leg. Sliding into the Lake District from the South we headed through Windermere then up over the Kirkstone Pass towards Ulleswater. Our cottage is in Patterdale and we arrived at about four-fifteen. We had done some 340 miles, the last 40 of which had been through some spectacular scenery - though the Gorse Fox didn’t have much of a chance to take his eyes form the narrow winding roads.

Urban-Cub and Pistol Pete were already in the cottage. We soon got the car unloaded and the Gorse Fox wet out to stretch his legs. He bumped in to one of the locals who had lived in the village all his life. He stood and chatted for about half an hour, relating stories of his childhood during the war, his career in haulage and mining, the lead mines, the aircraft that crashed on trains missions, the old army camp and the problems of actually living in a National Park. He was a lovely old chap and the Gorse Fox is sure we will chat further during the week.

Pistol Pete and the Gorse Fox went for a walk with the dog, Scrumpy. It was still bright sunshine, but the sun was heading down to drop behind the fells. We walked north toward the next village, Glenridding. We stopped at the ferry landing to check the ferry times. The ferry plies up and down Ulleswater and makes it practical for walking parts of the shoreline without having to go all the way round. Glenridding was very picturesque. It’s amazing to see it now, having seen the news footage of the devastation caused by the floods after Storm Desmond in 2015.

Back at the cottage we had some supper - appropriately a cottage pie. This had been cooked earlier in the week and frozen. Despite being in the back of our car it stll hadn’t defrosted on the way up so we had to wait for a while while it cooked. Finally, we settled down for a quiet evening watching the football - Malta-v-England, the 0-4 result was quite satisfactory, though the game itself was uninspiring.

It had been a long day and we look forward to seeing what the week will bring.