A Wicked UK Tour, Part 2 - The Lakes

After our awesome 4 or 5 days in London with Chis and Bec, Bel and I jumped into our bloated rollerskate of a hire car (Fiat 500) and headed out towards Bristol to visit some other friends of ours. We met Mark and Nikki in Athens last year and they had said that if we were ever in town that we should drop on in, so we did.

But before heading to Bristol for the night, Bel and I took a little detour to Cheddar Gorge. Cheddar Gorge is where the cheddar cheese comes from, and it is here that the cheese is ripened in the caves that are buried in the mountains. By time we got there it was getting late in the afternoon, so we decided not to do the tour, but to have a quick look around the "town" instead. We found the shop in town that is the only cheese factory in cheddar, which was already cleaning up and shutting down for the evening (they all close early in winter because they have to work so late in summer), so we grabbed some cheese to take to Mark and Nikki's and got back in the car for the drive through the gorge to Bristol...which was kick-arse fun in the red rollerskate.

From A Wicked UK Tour, Part 2

When we arrived at Mark and Nikki's place we got to meet their 2 great daughters, 2 crazy dogs, 1 cat, and Belinda even got to meet the hamster. Nikki cooked up and awesome dinner for us - the first lasagne that I have had in AGES - which was a nice distraction from the news that Mark gave me, that my company was going to lay off a large part of its workforce. This ALWAYS happens when I am on holidays!!! The next morning we kept Mark away from his work until lunchtime, chatting, eating cheese, and eating more cheese, before strapping on the rollerskate and heading off to Keswick on the shores of the Derwent Water (where the pencils come from) in the Lakes District for a couple of days R&R.

From A Wicked UK Tour, Part 2

After a full Cumberland breakfast the next morning, including fried bread, Bel and I headed out for a hike through the hills surrounding the Derwent Water. The owner of the B&B had suggested a hike for us that had a required time of about 3-4hrs, but he made it clear to us that this was the time required for old people who walk really slowly. Little did he know that over the next 5 hours someone, who is not the author of this post, was going to take in excess of 200 photos of the scenery. :) But it was worth it...and we really needed the walk to work off that full Cumberland and the great Indian dinner that we had the night before.
The next morning saw us tackle another full Cumberland (again with fried bread - YUM!) before leaving Keswick and driving to Hilltop, the farm home of Beatrix Potter. This was a little treat for Bel, who has all of the Beatrix Potter between herself and her sister. After taking our time to look through the house and seeing where a lot of BP's inspiration came from, we had a picnic on the banks of a lake and then laced up the skates and left England for the land of the dress wearing men.

Tschüß,
Brushy.