For Christmas my parents gave us a night in a nice hotel in the Lake District. It sits on the western bank (at the southern end) of Lake Windermere. We went last weekend and had a marvelous time.

Firstly, because it’s so near to the lake (literally lakeside) it’s also near to the jetty-type place where boats leave a few times a day to go to Bowness (a town on the eastern side, halfway up the lake). So on Saturday morning we took a cruise to Bowness sitting on the top deck of a nice little boat and almost had our faces froze off by the strong wind that picked up almost as soon as we got onto the lake.

We wandered around Bowness for a few hours, had a tasty cumberland sausage in a restaurant, bought Kirsty some gloves, and saw a couple of minor celebrities from Corrie!! Then we got back on the boat and had, what turned out to be a far warmer and relaxing trip back.

The hotel had a swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room all of which we made thorough use of before going down for a meal in a very swanky looking restaurant. The food was delicious and we ended up spending more on one bottle of wine than we’d ever done before. Then we had a brandy in the drawing room don’t you know.

The following day we got up packed our stuff and then, leaving out bags in the hotel for a while, we did a walk up the hill and around a small lake (High Dam). Then we stopped for a pub lunch on the way home.

All in all it was a thoroughly pleasant weekend.

We took a load of photo’s, the best of which are here. They all have a slight yellow-ish tinge because I got a bit bored and started experimenting with filters in Paintshop Pro. I thought it made them look kind of cool. In fact I think it makes this one look a bit like a Bruegel painting.