Out of office on……

Using up the last of my holidays and taking advantage of a lovely spell of weather, Glenn and I headed down to the Lakes for a 3 night trip in the van. We stayed in the Hawkshead Hall campsite - a nice small site just 5 minutes walk away from Hawkshead. On our first full day we drove up to Tarn Hows and had a lovely 8 mile walk around the surrounding area taking in some great views. That evening we walked into Hawkshead for a few drinks and a meal at The Sun Hotel. The nights were pretty chilly as we had clear skies - a layer of mist settled after the sun went down and would stay until early morning which made for some nice photos. The next day we drove to Ambleside and had a chilled day - having brunch in The Apple Pie cafe (tasty!) and then wandering around the shops (I bought a Ayacucho fleece for the colder nights!) and down to the shore of Lake Windermere. That evening we had a couple drinks in Hawkshead before returning to the van for a deli tea. On our final day we had a 2 hour walk from the van up to Latterbarrow - a hill behind Hawkshead with great views over Lake Windermere and the surrounding mountains. It was a nice walk with a short steep climb up to the summit but we were definitely rewarded with the views from the top. After returning to the van we packed up and headed off. We intended to stop off in Windermere for a short walk however just before Ambleside our van decided to play up again, this time making a strange acceleration noise followed by a loud bang. We ended up driving as far as Ings service station just outside of Windermere and calling AA. After an hour the AA guy came and diagnosed a problem with the driveshaft (something to do with the 4 wheel drive) and further 'probing' revealed we weren't safe to drive the van home and we'd have to get it to a garage to get the parts replaced. After waiting another 1.5hours (luckily it was still nice and sunny!) we got picked up by Eden Garage tow truck and were towed to Kendal where we dropped the van off at Lakeside Car Centre. Although a massive annoyance, all the guys we dealt with were really helpful and genuine so we had no qualms leaving the van at Kendal and then return to collect it once it's fixed. The tow truck guy even gave us a lift as far as Penrith so we could get a direct train back up to Edinburgh which meant we eventually got back to our flat at 10.30pm feeling slightly bittersweet - we'd had a really great few days in the Lakes but obviously the end of the trip hadn't quite worked out as planned!