Pan Cosmo Drama

We woke this morning to clear blue skies and sunshine. Fully expecting the weather to have turned by the time we were ready to get on the water, we headed up the lake to Grasmere and paid a quick trip to the Gingerbread Shop and the Cotswold Rock Bottom store.

I treated myself to some thermal socks and a head torch amongst other things, and Claire bought some very sexy thermal long johns to wear in her sleeping bag.

To our surprise, the weather had not changed when we arrived at Waterhead, right at the top of Lake Windermere. After battling through the traffic, and some car park tactics we finally managed to get a parking space not too far from the lake, and were soon on the water.

The lake is even more picturesque at the top end looking towards the hills, and was, in the main, very peaceful with the exception of a few rowdy canoeists who clearly had no idea what they were doing but unfortunately didn't fall in once.

We returned to the camp site to await the arrival of Rachel and Dave, some Cotswold friends who were coming for a barbecue.
Unfortunately, almost as soon as they had sat down, Barry the campsite manager turned up and informed them that they were on private land and if they wanted to stay they would have to pay £3 each! After explaining that they were not camping, but merely visiting us for a couple of hours, the price went up to £5 each plus £3 for the car. And I don't he'd even spotted Charlie the dog, who no doubt would have incurred some sort of additional fee.
Dave informed him that in that case they wouldn't be staying a moment longer, to which Barry said (in true managers talk) he was sorry they had reacted that way but that he wasn't prepared to give his services away for free.
A short flounce down the hill to the lake and we all had a lovely barbecue overlooking the lake and the hills. We were briefly interrupted by a National Trust warden who took Dave to one side and (we found out afterwards) explained that we shouldn't be there after hours, we were outside the designated barbecue zone, and we shouldn't really be drinking beer. The only part of the conversation we overheard before he left us to it was "you look like responsible types". Thank god all Cumbrians are not the same.

Claire and I were both most unimpressed and slightly embarrassed about Barry's attitude. We've never had that problem before and have had visitors whilst camping previously. We had up until then been very impressed with the camp site although did think it was a bit pricey. But now we don't really feel inclined to come here again. Which is a shame, especially for Barry's bank account.
Fortunately we have spotted a number of other sites on the opposite shore of the lake.

Tomorrow we're planning a long day on the water and hoping for more of the same weather.






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Location:Lake Windermere