Trip to the Lakes
Written at 12:59 p.m. on 2006-05-22
A weekend in the Lakes.
Have just come back from a weekend in the Lake District! My family have a mobile home up there (I know that sounds like a sardine can that leaks but trust me, it isn�t!) and so M and I decided we�d go up for the weekend on the grounds that I�d had a truly shite week and was beginning to get annoyed at everything. Never let it be said that I hide my feelings. So off we go, in the pissing down rain with a very disgruntled looking Geoffrey the dog in the boot of the car, laden down with enough stuff to go camping for a week. M is even worse than me at traveling light. Not 100% sure why golf clubs were necessary but in they went.
So we get there and switch everything on. Well actually we spend 40 minutes reconnecting cables and replugging things in because whichever member of my increasingly bizarre extended family that was up there last has some sort of obsessive compulsive thing about disconnecting every single cable in the place and has left a War and Peace style guide to how to switch stuff on (for example �Switch electricity switch to ON�. �Learn how to use fire extinguisher before a fire starts and ensure you read and commit to memory the fire procedure I have put together�, I�m not joking,). Then we notice something that is bizarre and creepy in a finding-a-box-of-latex-gloves-in-someone�s-cupboard sort of way. My uncle�s Gwyneth Paltrow video collection has grown again. And they have been moved from the video shelves to the glass fronted display cabinet in the living room. Coz we wouldn�t want the lovely Gwyneth getting dusty would we? He now has every film she has ever made and (and this is no joke I promise you) a framed picture of her mounted on the wall in his study. How creepy is that? He�s Welsh, perfectly round, balding, sports a facial twitch and has a marvelous line in beige clothing and he is obsessing over a woman 30 years younger than him. If I was my aunt I�d have words. We also discovered (hidden behind the telly) 2 VHS tapes labeled �For recording from the TV at caravan � Do not remove or use�. For the love of god, you are in one of the most popular and beautiful places in the British Isles and you are going to spend your time watching Gwyneth Paltrow films and recording shite on the telly? Get a bloody life. I wouldn�t mind but you can hardly ever get a free weekend in the place because my aunt and uncle are always up there and all they ruddy well do is watch the tv. They could do that at home.
Anyway, on Sunday we decided to go for a walk. So off we go. 5 minutes into our walk it started to rain but we thought we�d carry on anyway. We ended up doing 6 miles in the pissing down rain. It was great fun anyway, especially watching the dog�s face when a sheep made noises at him. I thought he was going to have heart failure! About 3 miles in I was dying for a pee so I climbed over a gate and went in a field. Which seemed like a very good idea until the dog got alarmed that I�d vanished behind a wall and took a flying leap over the dry stone wall, landing flat on top of me mid-pee and knocking me into a patch of stinging nettles. And I can officially tell you that nettle stung hands and arse is no laughing matter. It is also about as far from elegant as it is possible to get. But a good time had by all, especially when my arse stopped hurting. We are going up there for a week as part of our honeymoon so am looking forward to doing some more walking and hopefully losing the small pot belly that I have cultivated over winter!
