Windermere With Rob
I’m writing this exhausted but happy after a long day driving to and walking around Windermere with Rob. The day started slightly earlier than usual to give me time to drive to Caffe Nero Lytham and spend an hour there waking up. As I was leaving I saw the most wonderful sunrise and re-parked the car, jumped out and ran to the prom to capture a picture (above) and by the time I’d returned to the car it had gone. People occasionally ask me why I make a fuss about amazing sunrises as they are so common, “f you miss one, just wait until tomorrow”. But that’s not really the case, a good sunrise often only exists for a few minutes and of course it occurs at a different time each day and it’s fairly rare for the clouds to be in just that perfect configuration, so my guess is that I’m lucky to photo a really good sunrise once every two weeks and every one is different. Anyway it was good today and the world a better place for it.
The 80 minute drive was uneventful, except that I was listening to the superb Sam Harris podcast (close to my favourite) and I arrived about 20 minutes early, so I went for a pre-walk and arrived at Number 4 cafe at 10am and chatted to the owner for 30 minutes while I waited for Rob to arrive, we had breakfast, walked to the ferry in the rain, but by the time the ferry landed it had stopped raining and it continued dry for the rest of the day. We stripped off to T-shirts and spent a very pleasurable 3 hours doing the easy west shore walk to Ambleside and then got the cruise back to Bowness. I was wearing my summer shoes and waterproof socks, Rob was wearing his waterproof shoes, so predictably by the time we got back to the car, my feet were perfect and his were soaking wet, very badly wrinkled and sloughing skin all over, he’s wearing waterproof socks next time too!
It’s always my preference to finish walking at about 2pm and we weren’t too late this time. We’ve planned our next walk to be on Rob’s stomping ground on the west Lakes, on a dry, wintry day next year which I’m really looking forward to as I’ve never walked in the west lakes before, Buttermere being the only exception and that’s such a short walk it doesn’t really count.
The drive back was excellent and I arrived home at about 4pm, just in time to make a couple of big Pizzas and a roast meal for myself. I was expecting 5 for tea, but in the end no one turned up! Debbie decided to eat the sandwiches that I made her yesterday that she’d forgotten this morning, Anna stayed in bed with a Migraine, Tess was at work, Thom stayed home because Anna was ill and Jennie had to pick up a friends Mum from hospital – so two big Pizzas are cooling on trays – at least I won’t be cooking tomorrow!
I really love these walks with friends, but it’s a little sad to listen to all of the work time woes that they all still have to endure, although it’s also surprising how many of them are now planning their own early retirements!
