Today has not been an especially productive day.
In fact, it has taken an entirely unexpected turn, the end result of which was that we were late for work.
We did not mind this in the least.
Almost everything is nicer than sitting on a frozen taxi rank for hours at a time, but some things are very much nicer.
We loafed about in bed with coffee for a while this morning, deciding whether or not we would spend the day cleaning the children’s rooms or bringing in firewood or hoovering the stairs.
I can’t remember what we decided in the end.
Whatever it was, we didn’t do it.
We had just about got ourselves dressed when the telephone rang, and it was my parents.
They had been inspired, I imagine by the glorious weather, to make an expedition up the motorway and visit the frozen north, probably with huskies, and had booked themselves into a very nice hotel in Bowness.
The hotel, they explained, had been very pleased to have some prospective guests, and had offered them a very cheap deal. Included in the price they could have any room in the hotel that they liked, even a suite or the manager’s own bedroom.
They had booked a suite, and the hotel had practically offered to give them a chambermaid for a present and a tenner as well.
This is because, as you know, it is very quiet here at the moment. You could more or less have any room in the entire village, because nobody else wants it. It is what is known as a Buyer’s Market.
We were pleased to hear this, and invited them for dinner, except that in their determination to acquire an actual customer, the hotel had offered to include dinner, so we diminished the value of the bargain by inviting ourselves to dinner with them instead.
Of course, as you know, we should have been at work. It is Saturday night, and the busiest night of the week for taxis, but since all of the hotels are empty and unable to attract customers even when they offer a free chambermaid and dinner, we thought that probably it wouldn’t matter very much.
We had a hasty and fairly ineffectual tidy up, the sort that makes you wish you had started a day or two earlier, and before we had got time to start polishing the bath taps, they had arrived.
This was splendid.
They had even brought a bottle of wine.
We did not drink this immediately. We had a pot of coffee and some biscuits, and sat around telling them things about our Home Improvements, which they admired, dutifully, as parents are supposed to do.
After a while they buzzed off to investigate their hotel, and we had a bit of a snooze.
I told you it had not been a productive day.
At half past six instead of filling our bags with picnics and tea and rushing off to the taxi rank, we washed our faces and brushed our hair, and trotted excitedly off out for dinner. At any rate I brushed my hair. Mark doesn’t really need to bother with this any more.
The hotel, which for your information is called Lindeth Howe, is a rather splendid one set just outside the village. It is an old country house that used to belong to Beatrix Potter, and which fills up with excited Japanese tourists during the summer season. It is elegant and beautiful, and I like it very much. If I didn’t live here then I might like to go there for my holidays.
There were log fires and comfortable armchairs in every room. They were properly comfortable armchairs, not the sort where you collapse down a bit too low and then can’t get up again. We settled ourselves next to the fireside and wished that we did not have to go to work afterwards.
We had a glass of wine anyway, because we supposed, correctly as it turned out, that any ill effects would have worn off by the time we had finished eating an enormous dinner and then pudding and coffee. We waved to the restaurant manager, who gets in our taxis, and whom we have seen in some interestingly intoxicated states. He was not terribly pleased to see us cluttering up his lovely hotel, but very kindly brought us a complimentary starter, so we will leave his own rascally evenings undiscussed here.
It was a superb dinner. Truly ace, with savoury croissants and hot bread rolls and olives and all sorts of wonderful things. I was very pleased to notice that there was aioli on the menu, and things served in jus, which is middle class gravy. This is not the sort of hotel that you would find in Blackpool.
Of all the things I had not expected to be doing when we woke up this morning, eating a glorious sophisticated dinner with my parents in a beautiful civilised hotel must have been in the top few. It w the loveliest, most unexpected evening. We talked and laughed, and Mark told them some fascinating things about boilers even though I was kicking him under the table.
We did not at all want to leave and go to work
…but in the end we did.
Have a picture of the Lake District.
