This is England

From high edges of empire, we headed west along Hadrian’s route to Carlisle, then turned south to the Lake District. Our last foray here had been a bit swift and dismissive … Joe and I arrived, it was raining: so we pushed to Scotland without a backward glance. This time we wanted to give it a fairer chance. We settled in a campsite aptly named The Quiet Site. I hand-picked this one due to its internet, bar and – most importantly – its baths. My birthday would be here and I wanted my comforts in these late autumnal days. Most especially, I wanted a bath. There is nothing wrong with standing and letting (preferably) hot water run over you. It’s practical; it’s clean. Yet nothing compares to submerging your body in a deep, hot bath of bubbles, preferably reading and definitely with the a glass of wine, for many hours. OK, you go a bit crinkly. Yes, you need to add a nice hot supply of water every half hour. I know you lie in your own dirt, but to me, the whole experience is delicious, solitary and peaceful and it’s one of the few things I miss when travelling.

Though the campsite was even better than I hoped, days were pushing into winter and the bath was NOT the blissful experience I had dreamed of. I tooled up for an eve-of-birthday soak to challenge the world record for human immersion time. I ventured through the dark to one of the private – yes, private mark you – huts containing a proper bathroom complete with cast iron bath. Alas, the concept of heating had passed it by. The hut was very well ventilated with open, out of reach velux windows. Still, I reasoned, the hot water would soon warm things up and I could be like a Japanese monkey blissfully submerged amidst the snow and ice. But less hairy. Though I desperately added more and more hot water, the cast iron construction sucked any warmth without delay or consideration. Bubbles didn’t help. I sat forlornly slooshing water around my blue feet, shivering and looking longingly at my wine and book, before admitting it was never going to get any warmer. Now any sensible person would hot foot it into the shower – but not being one of those I had doused my skin with mud and hair with dye requiring 45 minutes to take root, literally. So I sat and shuddered until I was free to make a mad dash for the mercifully hot, pounding showers.

My birthday was truly lovely with presents galore and much lavishing of love and attention. My family know me pretty well now as every present was perfect, badly wanted and urgently required! An excellent mix of practicality and pampering. Perfume to make me less smelly. Plenty of good books to enable me to escape into my own little world. Personal GPS so I could stop getting us lost on mountains. A tip-top but easy camera so I would hopefully start taking some great pics of us all. A premium Spotify account so I could indulge in my favourite music everywhere. We had planned to climb Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain, but the weather was just too manky. Yes we could have done it, but what is the fun in scaling what is, at the best of times, a pretty thankless pile of slate and shale, when winds are dangerous, the visibility next to nil and the rain horizontal and blatty? We wanted to complete the three peaks, but with three kids we had to be sensible. Still, over the days we did walk and saw amazing views. We visited Aira Force Waterfall on foot … hang on. Aira Force? Is this a bad pun? Apparently not. We drove around the lakes – and that is no easy feat. There are all these inconsiderate mountains in the way, forcing you far west or way over to the east. One darkening evening we drove to the nearest shop to buy an onion. Yes, a single onion. We ended up on a sixty-mile round trip through high mountain passes dotted with sheep and blind bends (often blind sheep ON the blind bends) with Joe battling the inevitable sheeting rain and autumn leaves assaulting the windscreen. But we got our 19p onion. I hope the spag bol that ensued was worth it.