Having not seen Cecil for 8 years (and Leady for 3 years but that barely counts) this promised to be a weekend of serious catching up. On arrival at the cottage Cecil posed the question, "so what you been up to" to which in good solid taciturn style, "married, divorced and moved to Birmingham, you?" which was about the sum of said catching up.
A night in the pub kicked matters off, not the local however as Cecil has contrived to be banned from that...for life, where they ended up chatting with all the young 'uns in the Lakes to work in the tourist industry...who promptly invited themselves back to the cottage. It would appear from their easy familiarity with the place that this may happen most nights.
Rather sneakily our subject snuck off to bed first to bag the only decent spare bed in the house, well that is what he claimed but we all know the truth.
The next day dawned beautifully
and so they decided to walk up the length of Ullswater and so off they set. Well we say we but Cecil decided he could not be bothered.Ullswater has some quite fabulous views and as we say the day had started beautifully.
Of course in the Lakes one should never expect the weather to hold for long and pretty soon they were trudging up through the snow.
As they trudged they came across a small hotel in a small hamlet and decided to pop in for a drink and possibly lunch. They discovered however some proper walker apartheid as they were directed to a tiny little bar at the back and whilst they saw the residents tucking into a fine lunch served from the gargantuan kitchens, whilst they were offered a selection of pretty uninspiring sandwiches. Clearly our subject was never going to accept this second-class treatment and so off they set again.
They trudged on eventually slumping down in the lee of a stone wall to enjoy their packed lunches.
Eventually 13 miles down they reached the top end of the lake and resolved (after a restorative pint) to get the steamer ferry back down to Patterdale. Sadly the ferry stops about half-way down and despite our subject's protestations they hopped off to carry on walking all the way back.
By the time Patterdale hove into sight it was getting pretty dark.
A turn round was quickly ruled out and so they just walked up to the next village for supper (taking the daily total to 20 odd). Coming out of the pub after supper (just to change pub you understand) they were met with the snow plummeting down at a vast rate of knots promising a real blanket the next day and they were not disappointed.
Our subject was keen to set off and throw his car around the high hill roads (obviously sensible in the snow) and off he ventured early doors finding a fantastic road through a high pass and proceeded to behave like an utter child.
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