Oh Yeah...I Forgot About That

I was playing around on Facebook and just realised that I have some lovely pictures from our April trip up to the Lake District that I never shared.

That was a fantastic weekend. We loaded up the car to the brim with camping gear we'd borrowed from the in-laws. Bagel sandwiches were assembled, clothes were packed, and iPods were readied with an assortment of fun listening. We were set. What we weren't set for were that weekend's gale-force winds. It was the weekend of the Royal Wedding, and while Wills and Kate were very publicly celebrating their I-Do's, I was off to see some mountains and Lake Windermere with my husband of nearly a year, and our almost-four-month-old fetus (who eventually became our unbearably adorable Ethan).

Those aforementioned gale-force winds were the reason that - on the last night of our trip - we slept on a half-ruined air mattress. I say half-ruined because the thing was thankfully constructed with two air pockets; allowing you to inflate it either as a double mattress or a single. I had gone off to use our campsite's rather dubious shower facilities (cleaning yourself in a sketchy shower was - I reasoned - better than not cleaning yourself at all) and the Husband was making ready our lovely tent for the evening.

The tent itself was brilliant. A family-sized affair; we used the back "bedroom" to store our luggage, threw down the giant carpet (seriously; our tent had wall-to-wall) and set up our bed, chairs, and dining table in the main compartment. We had a thick duvet, fluffy pillows, a lamp, a board game (hello travel-sized Settlers of Catan...), dishes...I almost felt like we were cheating. Almost. After all, I had hammered in guy-ropes and held down the waterproof tarpaulin while being buffeted by winds that nearly ripped the tent from my hands (and undid half of the guys in the night). These winds were what ripped the newly re-inflated mattress from Sebastian's grip as I was off getting my shower on. In such conditions, taking the mattress out of the tent to get it close enough to our car to use the plug-in fan inflater was a two-man job. Alas, by halving those numbers, the wind managed to wrench the mattress away and blow it into the path of our trusty gas lamp...which promptly punctured a huge hole in one side of the mattress, rendering it nothing more than useless fuzzy plastic. Bummer.

scoping out a fort on Hadrian's Wall

One of many stunning vistas

arm's-length photos prove that we were there...and had no friends.

heading back to our tent for the night

Otherwise, the hiking, and Lake Windermere, and Hadrian's Wall were all absolutely amazing and one of my favourite weekends away that we've had. In fact, the best lunch we had was parked in the car on the side of a road. The sun was shining spectacularly for our journey home (which would begin shortly) and we had an amazing view of one of the lakes. It was a bit too chilly outside to set up the camping chairs, so we rolled down the windows and played a game of Catan. We don't play this game often because I always lose. Always. And usually in a pretty spectacular fashion.

Really, now that the weather is on its way back to being decent again, we need to start taking advantage if all the awesome historical sites at our disposal, what with living in England and all. That weekend in the Lake District was definitely an experience that needs repeating.