The Lake District – Mother Mary you were right.

We have now crossed over into UK and spent a few days wandering around The Lake District. Can these little country villages get any more beautiful? The little country lanes with the houses and rock walls edging the road, abit too narrow for the motorhome at times, but gorgeous to sightsee through although perhaps more comfortable in a Fiat 500?

By the way I have fallen in love, completely head over heals in love, with the Fiat 500 and have tried wistfully to twist Doug’s arm into shipping one home.

I can just picture it behind the motorhome.

The shop fronts with their window displays are outstanding, the pubs with their window boxes of summer colour, the stone cottages with their cottage gardens all in bloom, the paddocks of wheat coloured grass fenced in rock, the wooden boats on the lake….

The Orchid House is hands down the best shop I have ever encountered with fabulous displays and replicas of everything from a bygone era.

We stayed in Keswick in a long stay carpark with the lake just beyond view and the town a 2 minute stroll away so it was a perfect location and all for £10 overnight. We even drunk a bottle of wine on the grass verge of the carpark sitting in our deck chairs.

The lake itself is vast and takes around 5 hours to walk around however we took a smaller loop out to the rocky beach where summer holiday makers basked in the summer sun with their families. The view was out to Owl Island where Beatrix Potter set her book Squirrel Nutkin.

These lovely wooden ferries will take you for a spin around the lake for £10 a person.

Speaking of Beatrix Potter, we visted the town of Windmere, home to The World of Beatrix Potter, I feel her spirit no longer visits here anymore. The town is over run with tourists, hoards upon hoards. Needless to say I feel her spirit would be much more at home in Hawkshead where she bought several farms with the proceeds from publishing Peter Rabbit and where her husband worked as a lawyer.

Hawkshead is a divine piece of Lake District real estate. It’s only a tiny village but it’s soooo soooo beautiful. As is Ambleside and what I can recommend in Ambleside is the local pie shop. I haven’t had a pie in years but these handmade pies are truly worth breaking the drought for. Served in a large pottery dish on a pile of soft fluffy mash with lashings of tasty gravy and I could have had peas as well.

We have had 2 days of sunshine but as we leave The Lake District the drizzle has set in again. Still we have sampled a taste of summer and it’s hopefully just a taste of what’s to come.