So it’s now coming to the end of April and I have officially declared summer, well it is England and the sun is out and the layers of clothes are being peeled off and the white English skin is being reintroduced to the delights of the UV rays tanning our skins. At this point I should probably add that this is not Jon writing and that it is in fact the penning of his sisters wife, as we are up visiting the happy couple in Cumbria for the weekend.

We had a happy introduction to these parts in the name of ale and pie in the Gosforth Hall Inn. This was followed by an unnecessary journey of excess in to the dessert world with Jon and Penny selecting the chocolate indulgence (to share) and my wife, Bex choosing the passion fruit cheesecake. With no room for coffee we headed back chez Lynch for the necessary espresso, port and scotch and a fun game of “Logo”.

The following morning the promised English breakfast was put on hold in favour of toast and porridge as we were still full from the previous night’s shindigs and talk was focussed on the activities of the day. Us city folk agreed to a walk with a maximum time of 3 hours and as flat as possible please. After much head scratching from Mr and Mrs Lynch it was agreed to set out to Emm… something walk which was described as a pretty lake walk which follows the valley and river so we were sold, my only concern was the lack of pub mention but as this is the Lake district I was convinced that there would be time for ale at some point on this walk.

So after windy roads to get there and a car sick Bex and Penny, we rocked out of the car and headed on our walk. The nice wide paths made us city folk feel abnormally confident about the task ahead, and we set off at a brisk pace-akin to marching down Oxford street. Happily 10 minutes into the journey we stopped off for our lunch break and I was thinking this is my kind of walking plenty of stops, little did I know we were being tricked slowly. We followed the lake until it thinned down to a river and crossed a bridge to the far side, here Jon the encyclopaedia pointed out various routes that him and Penny had walked the big tall bit of rock and the smaller one to its left hand side. We crossed several small babbling brooks one of which for some unknown reason we stood in to take a group snap, although it is quite a fun picture. It was then that I realised that Bex was ingenious in demanding breaks from the walk to take pictures, clever wife . Jon also filled up the water bottle with fresh stream water which Bex and I were unsure about as it had not been through chemical plants!

After a polite request on where to deal with our calls of nature the Lynch’s laughed at the city folk and pointed out a pile of logs, needless to say we were not the first visitors to the latrine area. With all the distraction of the pretty surroundings I had not realised that my feet were hurting and I was not even half way, happily I had been a brownie when I was little and had packed some blister plasters which soon dealt with the issue. So onwards and upwards-yes this is not a typo or a phrase there was an unplanned hill on the horizon but Penny managed to lure us up the hill with a promise of snacks, gladly Bex found plenty of places to take photos on that particular hill. To be fair to the wife the views were pretty stunning with the trees being a multitude of different greens. Penny true to her word found us a rock in the river which she named Banana rock where we enjoyed the well earned (only halfway…what! rest) and Jon took the chance to cool his feet in the chilly water.

With bananas consumed we started our return leg at quite a pace, the city folk had returned to their London pace which the Lynches easily matched, personally I was dreaming of a beer… mmm beer. Our return leg was less exciting than the journey up, however a group of Galloway cows on the side of the path took our interest and we stopped for another picture break, but did not hang around for too long as they were a bit whiffy!

We finally dragged our tired limbs back to the car and after a few stretches led by Bex entered into the car where I floated the idea of beer, happily my bruv-in-law is easily persuaded to enjoy a cheeky one we popped in for an ale, happy days.

All in all a great weekend, and the Lynch’s have been instructed to find walks with at least two pubs in for our next visit up north. In the mean time we shall be returning to our urban jungle and racking up our miles on the treadmill rather than the rambling countryside.