Tuesday and I wake up in a strange place. My phone alarm wakes me with Eric Sarte. We have an hour to get ourselves up and ready for breakfast, which a coffee helps us towards. We go down to the breakfast room, check in and then go at the buffet breakfast. We dine well and store calories for the day to come. A hearty breakfast indeed, so much so we take a coffee into the lounge and sink into large armchairs to relax and wait for our extensive breakfast to digest a bit. We decide to walk down into Bowness but we are thwarted by rain so we delay till it appears that the rain is abating.

We sprint into Bowness and find postcards, papers and a map. Down at the quay we size up the sky and decide to do the “island boat trip”, the shortest non stop available. We buy our tickets and go and look at the birds mugging people for food.

At the appointed time we go to the embarkation pier and queue to get on the tour boat. As we are let onto the quay to get onto the boat a load of pushy Asians who clearly have no idea how to queue just bowled down the side of the queue and barged their way onto the boat at the front, much to the annoyance of my partner who pointed out their rudeness. They of course took no notice.

We board the boat and take the decision to go aloft in the uncovered seats, because we are an ocean going nation and hardy, plus it was not raining. Almost as soon as we let go fore and aft the rain starts, drizzle first and then an increasingly heavy pour. The lake itself is awesome with some interesting sights around it including the odd cormorant diving for fish and young ducklings paddling for their lives. We had waterproof tops and a waterproof over our knees but the small children with a family had none of these and got soaked during the trip.

The trip comes to an end and we head back to the hotel for refreshment. Coffee and a mini afternoon tea is very welcome as it continues to rain heavily. We of course do what any good Brit would do in this situation, we head for the hot tub on the balcony of our room. Its a warm massaging bliss and we wallow for a long time before having a shower and resting.

We laze and slowly get ready to walk into town in search of an Italian evening meal. While we do this I am content that the water proof over trousers that I ordered today will be delivered to the concierge tomorrow along with some braiding tools and beads for my hair. Its rains again and we briefly opt for an in hotel option but as we wait to be served in the bar the sun comes out and we leg it into town. We cannot find anywhere that has room for us or is open. Restaurants close at 8:30 or do not open till 5pm on a Wednesday. Eventually we find a pub with food and chat to a couple of locals about the situation. According to them food places cannot get staff and therefore restrict opening times. The food at the pig was okay but nothing to rave about and the local people we were talking to were no impressed with their food and complained about it.

We finish our meal and walk back in the evening sunshine to the hotel. Silence Witness is on so we watch that and I then go back to drafting the blog. It feels like a full day and I’ve run out of spoons and run on the muscle memory of routine. I shall charge up the Kindle and find something to read till I drift off.