Grizedale and Damp

Feeling even grimmer this morning I spend the morning in bed feeling miserable, leaving P&S to walk to Grizedale.

Feeling a little better, I drive over to meet them for a cup of surprisingly good soup at the visitor's centre.

Revived slightly by its restorative powers, I manage to find the energy to attempt the main and fairly easy going part of the sculpture trail (a definite ten-fold improvement on the one at Bolton Abbey).

Heading back to Hawkshead, S is set on a return visit to the Sun Cottage Cafe. Something about the window display caught her eye:



The owner comes across to take S's order and in response to the enquiry about what the cakes are, commences with "well the large one is chocolate and maple syrup...".

P and I feel compelled to splutter "the large one? what as opposed to the other small ones?". But to be fair she has a point; on closer inspection the one at the front is slightly larger than the others. Still when you're contemplating eating something larger than your head, it seems rude to split hairs.



Though tempted by the raspberry and pistachio option, S sticks to her guns and selects the chocolate, cream and strawberry cake.

Or a slice thereof.

Mind you that's still larger than some Latin American countries.



As I go to take a photo, S wonders whether she should put something alongside it to demonstrate scale. I counter that the fact it's bigger than her arm is probably doing the trick well enough.

Though not a cake fan, I had to have one mouthful and most impressively it tasted as good as it looked. P seems to agree and once S admits defeat he doesn't take too much persuading to come to her gallant aid.

Returning to our dank and dingy basement (I'm not saying the ceiling was low, but P kept hitting his head on the beams, I scraped my knuckles whilst shampooing my hair in the shower and had a mild claustrophobic panic attack when I glance up), our suspicions about the level of dampness were confirmed when we realised that half the carpet in the lounge was wringing wet.

Further investigations revealed that the same was true in my bedroom and mould surrounded its external window/door area.

Seems my theories about the bed clothes feeling damp weren't wrong after all.

We raise the issue with the pub, but it feels unlikely anything will be done by the "sorry I'm only covering - this is my first week here" guy in charge.

We escape to Ambleside where a fine curry, vodka and a stroll by the lake is just what I needed.

Back in Hawkshead the only answer we get is "the plumber can't come out until Monday". Strangely we weren't so worried about their plumbing as the fact I've got flu and my bedroom is dripping with damp. Too tired to fight, I head to bed and try and pretend it's warm and dry really.