Lake District - Trip down all the memory lanes at once

As Dad was dying, I promised him I'd take him up to Burnmoor Lodge, SW Lakes.  Burnmoor Lodge was a really special place for Dad - as a late teenager he had been introduced to this place via Covenanters and he was hooked.  He found his tribe, fellow fell walkers/Christians/engineers, where he could add value and was valued himself.

We had a couple of holidays in the Lakes as kids.  This was Dad's choice - not only had he had formative holidays there in his youth, he and Mum became engaged in the Lakes and honeymooned there.   This is Mum, and her car, at their hotel in Thornthwaite in 1965.

It was Dad's special place and mine.  I was the only kid I knew at school that had walking boots.  We would drive to the Lakes, set up camp in the rain, walk a mountain, eat Kendal mint cake (I preferred the brown but Dad usually bought white), dry out in the tent, eat Cumberland sausage, climb another mountain, eat more Kendal mint cake and pack up the tent in the rain.  As an adult I have visited the Lakes with university field trips and at least 3 holidays there.  

Alongside going to Burnmoor Lodge for Dad, I also wanted to visit the campsite at Boot where we'd camped in my childhood.  It was a memorable week's holiday from recollection: I was poorly on the trip north and had thrown up on the carpet of Dad's friends in Sheffield ("Docco Foote", Dad's mentor chez Burnmoor Lodge).  Then Jonathan was poorly during the holiday so Mum spent her whole camping week caring for sick children.  I also recall it rained non stop (which is probably why I can't find any photos of this holiday!).  We thoughtfully passed the sick bug to Keith for the journey home.  Dad was none-too-plussed when he threw up on his seatbelt.  

Our last holiday before Jonathan died was also in the Lakes in 1982. Here he is aged 11 at the top of Scaffell Pike.  And with Dad and Keith on Old Man of Coniston.

Back to the present day, on Thursday, 02 April, JC and I drove north, to get many kms under our belt.  We stayed somewhere north of Manchester which meant on Friday we had the opportunity to visit a long standing RICS surveying friend of mine in Ribchester.  She took us on a grand tour of the places of worship there, explaining the history of the various churches, reformation etc.  Fascinating and thanks Lynda!

We drove to Eskdale Friday afternoon after collecting Caitlin from Blackburn railway station and stocking up on food.  For the last few km of our drive into Eskdale we realised we recognised the car in front of us - tada, Linda and Rob! (my aunt and uncle).  [For info - I'd invited close relatives to join me this weekend  and Linda and Maggie, Dad's sisters, joined us].

Later that evening Linda, Rob, Maggie and Keith swung by for tea and a chat.  Great to see them.  And JC was buoyed that, of the 9 people in the room, he was in the younger half.  I was the median age.

Saturday 04 April 2026

The weather was looking decidedly dodgy, especially as Storm Dave was on its way, so we decided to stay low and have a walk around Boot. We walked up to Stanley Force Waterfall and stood on a precarious (to me) platform for a group photo.  

The becks were amazingly clear.

We walked through the campsite in Boot from my childhood holiday. It looks a lot fancier now. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/holidays/lake-district/eskdale-campsite. 

We saw the local Ravensglass to Eskdale steam train come in.  It actually ran past where we were staying in Eskdale so every hour we'd hear a "poop poop!".  However, at £17 for a single trip we decided to give it a miss.

Sunday 07 April 2026

Today we walked up Miterdale valley to Burnmoor Tarn - the heart is on Burnmoor Lodge.

There was stiff breeze so we wrapped up and, wind behind us, had a lovely walk up with Kirk Fell appearing in front of us.  

Burnmoor Tarn and Lodge came into view and it was wonderful to finally see the place Dad had loved so much.

We stood and remembered him - from left to right Maggie (sister), Caitlin (granddaughter), JC (son-in-law), Linda (sister), Riona (granddaughter), Rob (brother-in-law) and Mark (hidden by Rob, Riona's fiancé). He would have been so pleased.  And then suddenly it hailed on us, which we thought Dad would have been quite tickled by.  Serves us right for loitering.

The squall passed and we walked over the col to see Wast Water.  We were above Wasdale Head with its backdrop of Kirk Fell (Great Gable, the first mountain I summited as a kid, was just out of sight to the right of Kirk Fell). 

We decided not to go up and over Illgill Head as we'd have been straight into the strong south westerly, instead skirting it across Tongue Moor.  Farewell Burnmoor.

It was glorious and we were high enough to be able to see the Irish Sea in the distance.

We got really lucky with the weather.  Aside from the hail shower, we had dry weather and, often, sunny skies.  If the wind hadn't been so keen it would have been perfect walking weather.  

True love.

 

We were home late afternoon and I did my motherly duty of the annual Easter egg hunt.  And Riona did her usual little sister duty by bagging more eggs than Caitlin.  That evening we ate with Linda, Rob and co and celebrated Riona's birthday a little ahead of schedule ;-).

Monday 06 April 2026

I was sad to leave the Lakes today and kind of kicking myself I hadn't thought to stay longer.  JC and I dropped Caitlin off at a random station, Cark, near Grange over Sands.  

As it was Easter Bank Holiday, the trains were all over the place but she trundled back towards London without a hitch.  The rest of us, all got stuck on the M6 - horrible.  As there were so many cars on the road (yes, I know, I was one of them) the traffic was moving slowly.  This meant that people's journeys were taking longer so they needed to stop at more service stations than usual, and there were more people trying to do this.  The service stations backed up, at times onto the M6, and it was horrid.  It took us nearly 9 hours to get home (Cark detour included).

What a memorable weekend which I'll never forget - a lovely way to remember Dad and spend time with family.

March mixing it up

After a busy February, March kind of calmed down.  I didn't really slow down, but it felt more containable.  I also got back into pilates and running rather than the daily work out of lifting and shifting boxes.

First highlight was finding my local trig, TP5329.  I'm a little surprised I held off for 4 weeks but it was calling me.  It's just beside a building site, but looks as if the hedge and trig will remain despite the development.  

07/08 March - The first weekend saw us finish painting the kitchen with its 1001 corners to cut into.  Hurrah, one down.  

10/11 March - Popped up to London and stayed with Caitlin.  Lovely to catch up with her (thank you for the okra) and, Stop The Press, I won Camel Up.  Caitlin is rarely beaten at this game so it was note worthy. 

On the Wednesday I spoke at a panel session at Oceanology International 2026.  The session went well but the audio didn't, and I was seriously winging it most of the time as I couldn't hear the questions off the floor (the panel member next to me kindly repeated them for me).  Not a fun experience.  

14/15 March - JC went to Luxembourg on the Friday and on Saturday I drove to Bridport to meet Riona for Round 2 of the great wedding hunt https://notaguineapigblog.blogspot.com/2026/03/march-weekends.html.  It ended well and I had a bonus that Sunday was the first time in years that I spent Mother's Day with one of my girls.  Lovely stuff.

17 March - Happy St Pat's!  The tights made their annual outing.

21/22 March - The third weekend of March was curtain weekend.  JC was still away so I pushed back the furniture in the lounge and worked up 6 m of fabric into a patio door curtain and roman blind.  The patio curtain was a large endeavour and really heavy to lug around once lined.

It was delightfully sunny on Sunday so, taking a break from tailoring, I went for a 12 km explore around Cullompton.

I headed up a track around the trig (yes, all things are relative to the trig) stopping for a late breakfast at Steamers.  Wonderful pit stop.

Then I headed south and found the Culm.  It is the other side of the M5 to Cullompton and you can't walk along much, but there were pleasant views across to Cullompton and St Andrew's church.

I also started a clothes moth campaign.  The pheromone traps I'd brought enticed them out of the crevices and I slaughtered 30 in one day.  They are easy prey as they don't seem to like moving fast.  I must have the sloth moth variety.

Back to lugging things around, Riona's wedding dress arrived a couple of days later and I strolled down to the Post Office to collect it.  I have more space to store this type of thing than her.  I hadn't realised how large it would be and felt like Ms Small carrying it back home.

JC arrived back on Monday and within a day or two (or was it hours?) was champing at the bit to start on the lounge.  So we emptied most of the contents into the dining room and kitchen and started sanding, filling holes and sugar soaping the walls.  

27/28/29 March - I had Friday off.  This involved a short run, library visit, trip to Ottery St Mary to check the house, see friends for coffee and to spend a large amount on Farrow and Ball paint.  Once home, I dashed to the GP's for a health check and, probably unsurprisingly, was declared to have high blood pressure so am now on daily monitoring.  It's absolutely fine but 2 caffeinated coffees and a bit too much charging around gave it a spike.

Yesterday we joined my aunt, Maureen, and other family members in Swindon, to celebrate her forthcoming 80th birthday.  She'd booked us Ten Pin bowling which was fun but confirmed that I am hopeless at it.  Anyway, it's the taking part that matters (ahem).

Then we ate in a local Italian where we were in a quiet spot so were able to catch up with each other.  She liked the flowers I'd made.

Today, the last Sunday of the month, was lounge's first coat of ceiling paint and gloss.  JC isn't enjoying all the wood in the room.  Aside from the usual skirting, door and window frames, there is panelling and wooden shutters - not to mention the fire place and inbuilt book cases which will be satinwood.  I started prepping the baton to fix the blind to the kitchen wall and finished off the seams on it.  

It's progress but everything takes a lot of time and effort.  It'll be worth it. 

Survival February

The title of this blog was the name coined by Caitlin (I think) in response to my February shenanigans.  The timeline went a bit like this:

mid January (1) - my car windscreen wipers failed and the car mechanic declared my much loved 2010 Renault Scenic pretty ill with a £1500 bill to get it through the next MOT.  So I start to sell it - there is a time to say farewell to everything.  I advertised it with all its shortcomings, but the key one, broken windscreen wipers (they alone were over £700 to fix) put off all the buyers considering we were on day ~30 of rain.  I discovered a world of really weird and unresponsive buyers - I think over 15 contacted me in a week.  General messaging was them asking if it was free (yes), offering a price which I agreed, asking when they could collect and then ghosting me.  The worse culprits were the two sets of people who agreed a price with me and said they'd collect the next morning.  Did they turn up?  Did they read any of my messages?  Argh to human beings.

mid January (2) - tried to organise full fibre internet for new house. All seemed to be organised, then it fell through after an engineering assessment of our local telegraph pole which needed sorting, so we suddenly had to find a partial fibre solution to tide us over.  And they couldn't connect us until mid February.

Fri 30 January - completed on house.

Sat 31 January: got keys. Tried to enter property in the pouring rain.  Long story short, our sellers had changed the locks and had forgotten to mention it to anyone including the estate agents who held a set of their keys.  All the new keys were on the kitchen table inside the property.  We had to call out a locksmith to break into the house we owned but had no evidence for.  Fortunately he believed that we were legit.

Sun 01 February: sold car!  £350 to a happy purchaser who drove it home with a rope attached to the windscreen wipers (I didn't ask).

Wed 04 February: our removals company packed up both our houses.  I forgot that I shouldn't have meetings that day and am being packed up around.  It was fascinating to watch JC's wardrobes being sent out through the windows.

Thu 05 February: final packing and move to Cullompton in the rain.  All went well, although it took the removals team over an hour to reassemble one of JC's wardrobes.

Fri 06 February: return to Ottery to do first coat of paint in JC's lounge and clean his house (we'd had a wall replastered with lime in December).  I sat in the empty lounge with my Mac using JC's still connected internet to do change of addresses, utility transitions etc.

Sat 07 February: drive to Weston super Mare to test drive and buy a car for me in the pouring rain.  Return to Ottery to do another coat of paint and more internet admin, which seemed endless.

Sun 08 February: unpacking in earnest.  This is our kitchen.  I am very in love with our walk in larder ;-)

 

Mon 09-Thu 12 February: back to working.  We both have to drive in (thank goodness I bought a car) as neither of us can work from home.  

Fri 13 February: internet at home - hurrah!  Somewhere along the line JC unpacked his play station.

The rest of the month involved fixing a LOT of snags with the house.  I can hear my Dad singing the Flanders and Swan song the Gas Man Cometh.  We had to call in the boiler guy (twice), electrician, tree surgeon, plasterer and the lovely next door neighbour who tried to fix our TV aerial connection.

I also snuck in a change of scenery with a weekend in Cardiff wedding dress shopping Round I.  And catching up with both girls, Mark and Roger.  Oh, and the rugby.

I came home to find JC had sanded down the kitchen.  So decorating the kitchen was how we spent the last weekend of survival February.  The kitchen breakfast room, with 4 doors, wood panelling and what seemed like 20+ corners to cut into, took a lot of effort but was great to finish!  Just the curtains/blind to do now. 

March may be less full on. Fingers crossed ;0(