VACATION POST: The Lake District

See how now that I know that I don’t HAVE to post about our vacation that I suddenly want to?  Oh Caitlin, you are a character!

This breakfast that we had at the B&B we stayed at our last night in Scotland was hands down the best breakfast we had the entire trip!

(That sausage Brian has on his plate is Haggis- which is basically made from sheep heart/liver/lungs mixed with spices and oats and wrapped up in a sheep’s stomach.  No, seriously!  He knew this and ordered it and liked it.  I tried not to look.)

If you ever happen to be looking for a place to stay in Scotland, I would highly recommend the Shepherd’s House!

The owner also did a load of laundry for me!  Hooray!!

Our first clean clothes in NINE days! 

I went through our laundry duffel and only gave her the most essential items that we needed washed (read: undies, socks, and “blankies”) and oh, it was heaven to have some sweet smelling clean laundry! 

(Especially since we all ended up not wearing any of one of those items the day before because they were all dirty.  Ahem.  Let’s say that it was socks?)

We loaded up the car, waved goodbye to the B&B owners (yes they stood and waved!) and we headed to the Lake District.

This also happened to be the day that a hurricane hit the Western UK- although I think by this point it had been downgraded to a tropical storm.  But lets stick with hurricane shall we?

Which- in case you are keeping score- means that we have been through two hurricanes in the past month!

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The high wind gusts coupled by the rain made for a some iffy driving conditions, so we decided to stick to the highway and get to the Lake District as quickly as possible!

(The B&B owner had packed us a delicious lunch which included Black Current juice-a first for us! Yum!-, so we didn’t even need to stop!)

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We arrived in the town of Keswick, which was about 15 minutes away from our next B&B, by early afternoon and we decided to look around a bit. 

We didn’t take any pictures, for some reason, but it was charming place! It reminded us a lot of a beach town with lots of cute shops and ice cream parlors!

Also, wonder of wonders!, we found a Laundromat (they call them a launderette over there, fyi) and we were able to do the rest of our laundry! (3 industrial-sized washers worth!)

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The wind gusts were getting so strong that they were making Isaac cry and want to be held all the time.  Which NEVER happens!  But, that didn’t stop us from eating some fantastic fish and chips (with some curry sauce to dip the chips in.  It was DELICIOUS OH MY GOSH!!!) and having ice cream cones.  You know, we had to wait for our clothes to dry and all that.

Then we headed to our next Bed and Breakfast- Ashness Farm.  An actual working farm that you had to cross this ridiculously narrow bridge over a waterfall to get to.

This farm was completely idyllic.

Just gorgeous!

And the boys stopped crying about the weather and ran around the farm!

“Mama!  Look at this worm!  Isn’t he a cutie?!”

(not so much to me!)

Hellooooo wind gusts!

 

Joseph loved the owner’s guinea pig, Toby, and he now asks for one almost daily. 

Our room had a gorgeous view

and it was quite cozy despite the loud wind gusts and rain we heard outside our window all night!  And our loud children, of course!

The next morning, while I took the boys back down to the creek to throw rocks, Brian climbed up the steep hill behind the farm and snapped some photos.

In case you are wondering what heaven looks like…

and then another rainbow appeared!

We picked up our packed lunches (this one had FANTASTIC egg salad sandwiches with cress and Mars Bars!), took a quick spin on the farm’s toy tractor

(despite the

residual

wind

gusts)

and we ventured into Wales…