Hey hey,
Hope you’re all good!
You know that classic old phrase ‘home is where your hat is’? Yeah? Well, I’ve been hanging my hat in the Lake District for the best part of a week.
The lakes are very lovely. Just the perfect place to relax, unwind, be calm, and simply forget aaaalll about the small matter of my Greek visa. Ah yes, my visa. My naughty little visa. My damn bleeding stupid visa. Which after 3 weeks, STILL hasn’t faacking gone through. Oh Brexit. First you normalised xenophobia, then you made us all poorer, and now, oh the cheek of it, you’re trapping me in Britain. Fantastic. But at least we have bendy bananas now, eh? I WANT MY VISA, IT RAINS TOO MUCH HERE.
It really does rain a lot here, you know. In fact, in the lakes it rains for 200 days of the year, so on any given day there is a >50% chance you’ll get soggy. So it’s waterproof jacket and trousers at all times pretty much. But once you’re gore-tex’ed to the teeth, you can rustle around quite comfortably rain or shine.
Our base was Derwentwater, and from here, Mum, Dad, Lucy and I spent a merry few days exploring the fells and rivers. Since Dad has a motorhome, we stayed at a proper caravan club, which was new to us. It was quite pretty, nestled in a wood of enormous pine trees. But a caravan club attracts a certain type of clientele. And by that I mean, analy retentive jobsworths who love getting everything set up, then spending time maintaining and generally obsessing over their caravan or motorhome. Mum even overheard two men debating the merits of caravan-specific toilet paper. Must be something about getting older when you become more interested in the kit than anything else. Reminds me of all the rich middle aged blokes in Vasiliki who come on my bike rides wanting to talk about the carbon fibre parts they’ve got on their bike at home. Who cares?
There are lots of old people knocking around in the lake district, and the places we ate were geared for that audience: old fashioned interiors, english food, vanilla music etc.
The Borrowdale Hotel was the worst for it. First time I’ve ever seen a dress code for a dining room. Since we were a walk in, we hadn’t dressed to standard. We were ushered through to the conservatory, where we were seated with the rest of our kind.
These days, most waiters are more like a friendly host – have a chat, stroke the dog, recommend a few things. At this place, the waiters scuttled around in waistcoats and ties, trying to act completely invisible. You’d be sitting there and your cutlery would silently appear in front of you. When ordering, the guy just walked up to us, stood bolt upright and said ‘yes please’ with a notepad and pen in his hand. Very uncomfortable. All that formality makes you want to push back. I found myself plotting a mini-rebellion. After a few minutes considering options, I put both my elbows on the table, as brazen as you like. Feeling like a true revolutionary, I scanned the room to gauge the reaction. A waiter walked past and I’m pretty sure I rocked his little world. Mission success.
But of course you go to the lakes for the walking, and on that front we had a superb few days. Derwentwater and the surrounding area is very beautiful.
After receiving some promising emails about my visa, I rushed back to Nantwich on Thursday to receive anything that came in the post. Somewhat predictably, nothing has shown up, but I’ve had a pleasant weekend here with Stanley the cat. He is very noisy when he wants to be fed and drinks many saucerfuls of milk every day. It’s a wonder he manages to keep his slender figure.
Hoping I can get back to Vasiliki soon.
How’s your week been?
Love
James
