Out of office on……

Saturday 16 April We packed up the Gherkin (Vectra) and left Edinburgh at 10am, heading down to the Lakes enjoying a mixture of sun and snow on the way! After stopping off at the Gretna Outlet Centre we then made our usual pit stop at the Rheged Centre in Penrith where we had some lunch. We then headed on over to Keswick, planning on taking the A591 south past Grasmere and on to Ambleside. However, we failed to plan in advance and check local traffic news as we found out only when we found a ‘Road Closed’ sign near Grasmere that the main road has actually disappeared due to the flooding in December and they are still working on rebuilding it now. So, we retraced our route back up to Troutbeck and then heading south towards Ullswater. We stopped at Kirkstone to stretch our legs and decided to head up the hill to Red Screes…this was a short, swift uphill climb with great view over towards Windermere. We didn’t quite make it to the final trig point as a snow shower was fast approaching and I was keen to not get caught in it! This was a great little walk to get some fresh air into our lungs. We then headed down ‘The Struggle’ into Ambleside and found our holiday cottage (Juniper Cottage), just minutes walk from the centre of town. The cottage is perfect – an open plan kitchen/dining/living area with a bathroom and good-sized bedroom upstairs. It’s well equipped and has DVDs, books and maps, wifi and is dog friendly (and despite what some of the reviews said, it didn’t smell of dog to us!). After freshening up we headed to The White Lion pub in Ambleside where we had a couple of drinks and some grub. We then retired to the pad for a chill and good night’s sleep.