Sunbathing

Me, H and Miss L had a long weekend [8th to 11th] in the lake district to visit friends. It has been the first break I have had had since Christmas and the first break we have had altogether for sometime. Our friends live in Cockermouth. The town was devastated in the flood of November 2009. The town is recovering but it still eerie quiet. Half the shops are still closed as are most of the pubs. The town has rallied with shops being relocated to the auction house. The town has the look of a model town since all the insured premises have to repaired however there are a number of smaller business that are no longer trading. Lack of insurance or simply having insufficient funds to maintain the business without customers has seen a number of shops go to the wall. We went into JB Banks, an ironmongers in the town which is run by my friend's sister. We had a look round. As you might expect there was a mark to record the height of the flood water. I measured myself against the mark. It came up to my shoulder! Whilst in JB's I found what I had been looking for a long time. That is a small Adze.

I leant a hand with the little jobs round the stables, stacking haylage mainly but managed to dodge the mucking out. Miss L spent all her time with Miss A and Miss C, my buddies girls. Miss C is the same age as Miss L and Miss A is a little younger. We only saw them at feeding time.

We had an outing to see our other friends Nigel, Sue and kids over at LowMoresby. Nigel's girl, Miss H got on like a house on fire with Miss's L, A and C. The lad, Master W was not interested in a gaggle of teenage girls and old fogies and who can blame him. We took a spin out to Whitehaven and Maryport for a look round. Whitehaven had had a lot of money spent on it. We even sat outside in a dockside cafe for tea and cake. Driving home in the dark from Nigel's took us over the hills. Looking back we could see far out to sea the air being so clear. A huge off shore wind farm built and the red warning lights reflected off the sea. Here and there the navigation lights of boats could be seen and coast was marked by the lights of the seaside villages. It was all quite moving.

Sunday we took a spin out to Allonby which is a seaside village just up the coast from Maryport. We took a picnic and having found a comfy spot on the pebble beach we sunbathed in the British manner i.e. fully clothed. The sun was warm but the air was not. Allonby is on the side of the Solway Firth. The views are extensive across the firth to Scotland over to the Isle of Man and back south to the Lake District. As you can imagine there are not that many people about. We took turns throwing a stick for Jack the dog; took a long walk, had an ice cream, snoozed, chatted, watched the birds. Not a bad way to spend a day.

We left Cockermouth about 6pm and had a quiet drive home. I am not sure why it was so quiet on the road but it suited me.