Yesterday, Helen and myself looked at the weather forecast and it looked quite promising so the prospect of a trip to the Lake District in the Morgan seemed assured. How wrong we were, we awoke to rain which the forecasters said would clear by 9am but this wasn't the case so we decided to go instead in our 2002 Volvo V70, our everyday transport. Yes we could have gone in the Morgan, disregarding its propensity to leak a little, but it would probably entail a major cleaning operation on our return if it got really dirty so we decided on the easy option. I have no problem in setting off in the Mog in fine weather and then for it to rain but I don't like setting off in the rain unless it's the start of one of our trips away. Neurotic I suppose with a fair measure of pride of ownership thrown in!!!!
The V70 has almost done 100,000 miles, in fact I was almost expecting the mileometer to trip while we were out today. Normally when my cars have reached 40-50,000 miles I have changed them, but on every occasion I have questioned my sanity and thought to myself, what was the matter with the car you've just sold and the answer has always been nothing, so this time we'll continue driving our lovely comfortable, economical Volvo until it drops to bits. Encouraged as I am by hearing from a dealer in Warwick who said that the highest mileage car they had seen was an S40 with 460,000 miles on the clock!! Granted the engine was knackered but....!
As we approached Lancaster the skies cleared and we have had wall to wall sunshine since then, ah well.
The real reason for the visit, apart from the pleasure of visiting for visiting that lovely area for the thousandth time, was for Helen to visit the 'Lakeland Shop' in Windermere http://lakeland.co.uk/stores to buy some Christmas presents. While in the shop I had cause to visit the Gents, which is always an experience there because there is a VDU at head height in front of every user, proclaiming all the benefits of shopping at Lakeland but doing nothing to help concentrate your aim! Anyway there was a nice chap of similar age to myself who suggested, quite rightly I think, that the inclusion of a waterfall into the video would help encourage success in what we were both trying to achieve!
Next stop was up a little country lane to eat our butties and to look upon the glory of the fells and then on to The Hawkshead Brewery at Staveley,near Kendal http://hawksheadbrewery.co.uk/ to quaff some of their wonderful beer in their Beer Hall, a true shrine to the real ale drinker. They also have a great food menu, interesting weekly evening entertainment which includes, what sounds to be, a terrific 'Jam Session' every Sunday. So take your ukulele, violin or guitar and get down there. We commented that if we could find a good pub with rooms nearby it would be good fun.
It was also interesting to note on the return drive that the numbers of cars lined up at a car cleaning operation on the A6 had not declined, regardless of the so called recession. What's wrong with a bucket of water and a sponge?!!
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