A little luxury!

This is our home for the (long) weekend, a traditional Lakeland house. It’s fabulous inside and we’re just getting cosy whilst waiting for the family to arrive.

It’s my ‘ official’ birthday weekend, well if the king can have one so can I! My actual birthday is next week but in July and August you can only book the house for full weeks. Booking a weekend earlier means we can also celebrate John’s special birthday yesterday.

We came via Kendal to do bit of last minute food shopping. We walked along the river and were surprised to see a Shag drying its feathers sat in the middle of the river. Works still going in from the floods a few years ago. Sad to see many empty shops too. Warm with a bit of sun but I was glad of the increased cloud as the last couple of days have been too hot.

Went on to Ambleside to eat our sandwiches. We went down to Rothay Park where we used to take the children. Still a nice park and play area. Noticed the toy shop where Alex always spent his saved holiday money on Lego had gone on our walk down. This always caused trouble as Grace had spent her money at the beginning of the week!

Still killing a bit of time we drove up to Holehird Gardens and it was there it started to rain, they were very pleased to have it.. Not for long, we just thought it was shower. We’ve been here many times over the years and we checked out the National Collection of Astilbes. They have a little way to go but still look good. 
We walked all around the walled garden and the rockery. A lovely place in the grounds of a Leonard Cheshire home.

More persistent rain as we arrived here.  It has just lightened a little and we can now see the ferry crossing Lake Windermere. Not long ago Chris spotted two deer in the woods behind us from the landing window. 
Think there could be some falling out over bedrooms but we were here first!  All the bedrooms are lovely with bathrooms so it should be ok but we’ve definitely bagged the best one!

Alex should be here just after 8.00,  the Bath family later but coming straight up the motorway it should be no longer than getting to us in the centre of the country.

Think I might just have a glass now, let the celebrations begin. Cheers!