Monday 15 July 2013. Haydock to Windermere. Calgarth Cottage, the Lake District..

Posted Tuesday from Barrow-in Furness where we got 3G temporarily.

Despite the warm stuffy room, this was our first good night’s sleep at the Ramada Haydock meant we were refreshed ready for our trip north to the Lake District.

We packed and went down to reception to hand in our access card and the receptionist made the mistake of asking us if we enjoyed our stay! Since we had had no response from our requests to speak to the manager we had decided to just get out of there so our response was “No we hadn’t enjoyed our stay..” to which the lady said if you would like to leave your phone number ( which they already had) the Manager would be in touch. We told her not to bother.

Before we left we called into Tesco which is a huge supermarket chain here and includes petrol stations. We needed to stock up on groceries for our self catering cottage overlooking Lake Windermere in the Lake District and as Windermere and the surrounding towns do not have any of the big name supermarkets, this would save us quite a bit.

 After spending £86 we then had a voucher to get 5p per litre off our fuel so we tanked up with diesel.

Also before leaving we called in to an O2 store to top up our mobile phone and Internet accounts. At the shop they told us that we could top up our phones but not our internet. We asked why and were told Internet top ups can only be done over the Internet. Does that make any sense?

It turns out that we were able to pay for our phone top ups using our ANZ Visa travel card but on the Internet it doesn’t allow the use of non-UK credit cards. Does that make any sense.

We then headed north, remembering to keep the sun behind us as unlike Australia, the sun is always in the South. (The Tropic of Cancer is south of the British Isles).

Once we hit the motorways we gobbled up the miles at a great rate and after passing through light rain, we arrived in Windermere, where we had to pick up our keys, to brilliant sunshine. Windermere is quite a small place and the town centre was full of people sitting outside restaurants having eating and drinking.

After picking up the keys we looped back out of the town to our little cottage about 5 minutes away.

We both gasped when we saw the view. “This will do…” we said to each other as we unpacked the car and settled in.

In the evening we walked down our private road to the Lakes edge seeing a few rabbits and a Deer in the trees.

Lyn cooked a nice meal (when doesn’t she?) and we watched the news which is all bad over here. If you reckon Australia has problems with its politicians, you should see it over here. The conservatives had to form a coalition with another party that they hate to get into power etc etc.

Tuesday AM.

This morning we received a phone call from the manager of the Ramada Hotel at Haydock apologizing for not getting back to us and asking us to detail our problems.

She listened intently to our story and apologized profusely over and over again for the lot of it, made no excuses for the poor service we felt we had received  and offered us a £40 refund which we accepted.

View of Lake Windermere from our cottage

Deer we saw in the woods. Got this snap before it ran away.

 Path down to Lake Windermere