Saturday, January 14, 2017

FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS


13 January 2017

Snow 3 degrees

Well, not very much snow by Derbyshire standards, where it was easily capable of snowing a metre during the morning and I would have to ring OH who was happily ensconced in his office in nearby Cheshire, and tell him that the decorative frosting which was making his office view so delightful, was feet deep of the sodding stuff back chez nous.  Being near the sea, it is a delightful sparkling on the rooftops and a little bit of slush on the ground. The sort of thing which drives anyone south of Manchester into cardiac arrest.  North of Manchester, the newscasters suggest you wrap up and go out to break a few bones.  South of Manchester, you get evacuated to school halls.  Get your big girl knickers on Southerners.  Try a winter in Derbyshire....  or thirteen.

So, eldest has a try out in a hotel near Keswick and we set off into a glorious early afternoon.  How on earth can it take so long to get to Keswick?  The Armathwaite Hall eventually appears and we drop him off.  Notably, the car park is still full of the sort of cars which make pubescent children shriek with delight.  We stayed here fifteen years ago.  On getting to the room, I opened the curtains and was dismayed to see just a view of the car park.  The boys were thrilled to bits.

The road back to Windermere gave us a display of colour and drama which you only get where the sea meets the mountains
















I particularly liked the effect of the trees whipped horizontally along the images.  We arrived at Windermere and did a quick bit of shopping and OH rejected every bar because it was poncy.  I had to be dragged away from the prospect of mulled ginger wine.  Bugger. All of the beer came in little bottles and OH wasn't disposed to finding out how much one of them might have cost.

He suggested we went to Bowness.  I said we had sheets.  This went right over his head. He said he had been in a brilliant pub, covered in scaffolding.  This proved hard to find. When had he gone in?  November....  Unsurprisingly, the scaffolding had been taken down. We sat down by a tiny fire, burning sticks, and OH ordered some really horrible beer.  This is sodding awful, he said.  I had to drink my half to make sure.  He downed his.  People were drinking like they had never seen alcohol.  It was 6 pm and livers were being ruined. Women were drinking 1/3 of a bottle of wine in huge balloon shaped glasses.  Men with shaved heads and stretched jumper stomachs were downing beer.  Everyone was cackling madly.  We went home to swordfish and stir fried veg and I had two tiny glasses of wine and woke up feeling like hell the next morning.  Obviously, beer is not very good for me.

No comments:

Post a Comment