Two get sleeted on

Let’s go to Ambleside for our daily walk, we said. It’s quiet, the weather’s not too bad, it’ll be nice, we said.

So off we toddled. By the time we’d got a mile up the road, it had clouded over. By the time we were parking up in the main car park, it had started to spit. And by the time we got a ticket, put our coats on and were ready to set off, it was heaving it down.

Never mind, we said. It’s just a shower, we said. Let’s go through the park and along Under Loughrigg, we said. But the further we went, the heavier it got, with sheets of sleet that rattled on my umbrella and stung if they hit skin. In the distance, we could see the fells rapidly turning white, and even at valley level it was cold and thoroughly miserable.

Walking really wasn’t much fun, so we chose a path that looped back towards the town and trudged round the shops instead. I found a nice purple dream-catcher keyring in the Handicrafts Shop and we treated ourselves to tea and wonderfully sticky cake (warm, in my case) in the blissful warmth of Mr H’s Tearoom. And by the time we got out onto the pavement again, the sleet had stopped, the clouds were blowing over and the sun was peeking out. Just in time for our parking ticket to run out so we had to come home again!

Never mind, we enjoyed it really and the cake was an added bonus, as were views across a choppy Windermere on the way up. I only managed one photo while we were walking as it was just too wet. It shows the view north towards Rydal from the footpath heading east from Miller’s Bridge – and you can see how dramatic and stormy it was!