112 - sun aug 20 - the lake district

we drove to another corner of the lake district this morning, to the township of coniston where we found a lake. the weather was holding itself together so we hired a rowboat and headed out onto the lake, which became more successful after i remembered which way you row a boat and we stopped going backwards. we rowed around for about an hour. then we headed to nearby 'holker house' which is a marvellously ugly name for a grand aristocratic mansion. this big old house belonged, or still belongs?, to the duke of cavendish. from the tone of our tour guide, we really out to have known who that was, and also who all these other dukes were, and what about the prince of so and so, and did you know that lady such-and-such stayed here? oh yes. our tour guides supplied us with a few hilarious pearls of wisdom and comments, our favourite being the lady who said, wandering around this rather lavish mansion, 'yes it is a grand house but its very liveable'. for some, perhaps. one of the weird things about the mansion, and this we were informed by the ticket lady when we arrived, is that the cavendishes (or whoever) actually still live there. so you wander around one wing of the mansion, while behind those doors there is actually still an aristocratic family wandering around doing whatever the hell it is they do. except that they weren't in this day, they were probably off keeping one of their other hundred houses warm. oh how jaded and cynical i am. but yes, it was rather liveable, and i suppose i could live there if i had to, if for no other reason than to have the chance to go to the toilet on the same bowl as used by mary, queen of scots.

we had some lunch at the adjoining cafe, investigated the adjoining food hall (a rather incongruous but not unwelcome adjunct to the mansion) and wandered the gardens. back in ambleside we bought groceries, and went to the local cinema's cafe for coffee and free wireless internet access. back at the campside we had wine with our homemade hamburgers.

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