A Wet Ride Up to The Lakes

Sunday July 18th
Hello to all the children in Room One. I see you are now back at school and following my adventures. Hope you all had a great holiday and are now enjoying being back at school and are working hard for Mrs Little. Don’t forget to leave me some comments.

This morning it was time to pack me up and get on the road again to head North West to the Lakes. Joyce had invited her friend Pam for breakfast to see Mary and Alan whom she had met on a visit to NZ with Joyce last year. It was a good opportunity for Mary to Skype her mum in NZ so that everyone could have a chat together online.

The Tom Tom gave us great directions, but the journey took longer than it had calculated due to extremely heavy rain and the need for caution associated with the conditions. Mary found the spray on the road caused a huge mist and the sheer volume of traffic made the driving quite tricky. These are conditions they never see in NZ as there is never this much traffic on the road kicking up so much water all at once. However, being Sunday there were a few less trucks on the road than during the week.

After a stop at a very busy wayside Costa Moto, it was only a short way to Lowick Green near Ulverston in the Lake District. They have come up here to visit Peter Bell, one of the cousins Mary’s mum has kept in touch with. After a cup of tea and a chat, Peter took them next door to meet Tommy where they are staying as Peter has a tiny one bedroom cottage. In spite of its size, apparently in the past a family had brought up seven children in it, and that was before the kitchen and a room above that had been added on! The cottage probably dates from the 17th century and has very thick stone walls and a slate roof. The first picture is of Peter's cottage; Ivy Cottage, the second one is of Tommy's Lowick Farm.

Tommy was very keen to take Alan to see the local lodge room, so he took Alan out and Peter took Mary out. Even though it was still raining, both got a look around the local area and some history of the place. Ulverston was where Stan Laurel (Laurel and Hardy) was born and there are lots of references to him in the town and a bronze statue of them both outside the local theatre, known as Coronation Hall.
Alan tried to back me up the drive at Tommy’s but the ground is too wet so I am parked just outside the gate on the edge of the village green. I am all locked up and alarmed so I should be safe over night.

In the evening Peter drove us all to a local pub called the Royal Oak where we had a lovely meal. Plans were made for an outing tomorrow before they drive me on to a campsite at Ravenglass. Seems they are going camping at last.