Thwarted

The day didn’t quite turn out as planned. Smithers and I were going to take the bus to Ambleside, where I was going to have a blipmeet with fellow blipper ‘litl’ as I did last year, while Smithers went for a browse round the shops (mainly in Rohan for walkers’ gear).

Unfortunately he didn’t feel all that well this morning, so I set off on my own. I was all togged up in waterproofs because it was raining heavily, and arrived early at the slate bus shelter in the village. Two couples were already waiting, which surprised me because the bus wasn’t due for 15 minutes. We waited, and waited, and more people arrived, but still no bus came. I sent a hasty text to litl to warn her that there was no sign of the bus. Eventually, when there were ten people crammed in to the shelter (or just outside it), one of the party made a couple of calls to Stagecoach to find out what was happening. It was ascertained that the bus had been cancelled, and the next one wasn’t for over an hour.

I reluctantly sent another text to litl asking if we could postpone our blipmeet because I needed to get back to see how Smithers was doing. I felt bad that she’d come out in the rain for an aborted meet up.

As you can see from my blip, the beck which runs behind our property is now raging, having had a lot of overnight rain. There’s a shot in extras showing a wider view of the beck, but it’s very hard to capture just how much water is roaring past our lodge!

The Traveller arrived this afternoon, a day or two earlier than expected, to stay with us until he drives our luggage back, and he reported that the fields either side of the river on the route from Ambleside to Elterwater were flooded. I think we’ve seen the last of the fine weather for our holiday now, and the rain looks set in until Saturday at least.