Homeward bound

Day 6 Saturday August 22nd. Homeward Bound.

It promises to be another beautiful sunny day. Unfortunately it's homeward bound for us today so we breakfast and pack all our luggage and purchases into the car, with great difficulty and head off.

Our first call was to the large new 'Lakeland' store in Windermere. This shop is modern, very spacious and stylish. The lower floor is devoted to all the Kitchen gadgets you could think off and the upper floor has a comfortable coffee shop. It's reached by a grand sweeping circular staircase with a grand piano playing on the half landing

From a store that started as a small mail order enterprise some years ago this is a fantastic large airy modern store. If you’re a kitchen gadget fan this store is to die for. We all mooch around the store happily for over an hour. There’s far more items on sale here than in the much smaller Peterborough store. Conscious of the lack of space in the car we restrict out purchases to a few small items. Shame.
The lakeside tourist town of Bowness is our next port of call. Dave and I spend a pleasant three quarters of an hour on a tourist boat ride around the Islands on Lake Windermere. The sun is warn but the breeze on the lake is quite cool. The lake is heaving with boats of all shapes and sizes.

Nancy and John walk around the little town and it’s heaving with summer tourists. After a late light lunch at ‘Costa’s’, the only franchise chain eating/coffee place we’ve encountered in the area we head off for Kendal where we have been given an address for a wool shop.

Kendal is a fair size town on the edge of the Lake District. Mr Tom eventually helps us out with directions to the shop we wanted to visit. It was located down a narrow cobbled street just off the small market place.
I can honestly say I’ve never seen another shop like it! It consisted of two rooms, one behind the other and was stuffed with the untidiest jumble of knitting wool you can ever imagine. Balls of wool are mixed up in the pigeon hole storage on the walls. Balls and bags of wool are heaped untidily on the floor so there is the narrowest of pathway through the shop. The owner appears to have drastically lost her way and direction and was quite unhelpful. There was so much ‘Old Lady’ wool with none of the modern exciting new wools and yarn to be found in the whole store.
Nancy and I decide to try our luck at the Chocolate and Tea shop next door. It’s a very ancient shop. To reach it you climb had a dozen narrow stone stairs set sideways to the outside wall and into the small door of the shop.

This is the main shop and tea shop part of the building but to the see the chocolates they sell you then need to descend down an incredibly narrow circular stone staircase to an windowless airless room with the chocolates on display. Not the best of chocolate shops we’ve seen. There was a much better one in Ambleside.
We gave up on the wool quest and headed back home to Cambridgeshire

Sunshine at last

Day 6 Friday August 21st
An earlyish start this morning as we’re now staying in a Guest House. Breakfast is served between 8 and 9.15 am. Full English breakfast is on the menu this morning. The Guest House is supposed to be 4 stars but I think it fails a little on the 4* qualities but its clean and comfortable if a little disappointing. It’s close to the town centre and all the eateries.
We’re going in search of wool today so we head for the north of the Lake District today to Cockermouth. The poet, Wordsworth’s birthplace. The Lakeland Sheep and Wool Centre is our destination. It’s supposed to be an award winning attraction. We didn’t get much chance to judge as we discovered there are no shows held on Fridays. The gift shop albeit very large is crammed with the usual array of tourist gifts. We were quite disappointed with the place especially as it had very little in the way of knitting wool. There was nothing about the spinning, carding dying and weaving of wool.
We weren’t the only ones to be disappointed as ‘Titus Pullo’ of ‘Rome’ aka Ray Stevenson was telling his girl friend the same as he past us on his way out of the gift shop. John had been the first one to spot him with his mother and girl friend looking around the gift store. With his height he’s a little difficult to miss but there were very few people around so he could shop unnoticed.
We decided to try our luck in Ambleside next, as I remembered a lovely wool shop where I bought some gorgeous natural Arran wool when we were there last many years ago. Again unfortunately we were to be disappointed as the shop was long gone and by the time we found the other only wool shop it was closed but we found a studio where two women designed and made the most exciting hand made carpets and rugs from Swaydale and Herdwick wool from the local Lakeland sheep. We spent a little time looking around the town. It’s like all the other Lakeland town its developed very much for the tourist industry over the last few years. The development has been strictly regulated though and the whole area had kept it quaint and rural character.
For our evening meal we decided on a promising looking Ambleside restaurant that had a delicious sounding lamb dish as it’s special of the day. The meal was OK but not as good as the Lazy Daisy and the service was strange to say the least. I mean who’s heard of a restaurant with no tea on the menu? We eat up paid up and headed back to Windermere where we went for a dessert and drinks at Lazy Daisy.

From Islay To The Lakes

Day 4. 19^th August Wednesday.
Rain on the bedroom window wakes me this morning. While drinking a wakeup coffee, Breakfast Telly informs me the day is going to be damp and wet. So no change there! The Lagavulin distillery is our first destination of the day.The rain has lightens a little. We’re welcomed in the distillery tasting room at the visitor’s center to taste their amber nectar. Samples downed we carry on to Ardbeg once more. Nancy wants to buy a blanket woven from highland wool. They are actually cheaper here. We have lunch in their excellent Café before back tracking across the island to the Islands ale brewing plant. There are several craft studios on the site as well that we wandered around. The whole site was a little run down with no on site tea shop. We’re all quite surprised about the lack of facilities for tourism and missed opportunities for the Islanders considering all the Whiskey and Birding tourist that arrive on the Island every year.

We carry on our tour buy driving to the north of the Island to Port Askaig and on to the Caol Ila distillery. The rain is still coming down so we decide on an early evening meal at Duffies in Bowmore where we had eaten an excellent meal before.

Day 5 Thursday August 20^th
It’s a wet rainy start to the day. We pack and leave the Bungalow and Hotel, and head for the ferry through some flooded roads.

The ferry crossing was uneventful and we began the journey back to Glasgow through the wet narrow windy roads. Road works with traffic lights slowed us at times so we stopped at a lovely old pub called The George in Invernary for a delicious meal. More slow moving road works through Glasgow slowed us once more. Once through these the road was clear and fast until we reached the north area of the Lake District. The narrow windy roads through the Lakes have to be taken at a sensible pace. ‘Mr Tom’ guided us to the Guest House where we thankfully unloaded rather travel weary. Just around the corner from our Guest House is a lovely welcoming restaurant called 'Lazy Daisy'. The food here is just wonderful. It's only been open a year and has done well from day one so it must be good.

Its Wet Wet Wet!

Day 3. August 18^th Tuesday

This is our first full day on Islay. It doesn’t bode well weather wise. It’s raining. John went for a jog first thing. In a damp but non rainy start, he returned looking like a drowned rat.

Our first port of call today was the Ardbeg distillery. We dropped John and Dave off for their tour. The Ardbeg distillery is the last of the three big distilleries along this road.We headed north to visit the ancient ruins of an 8th century church and Celtic Ring headed Cross. We’re heading for a small village called Ardtalla. The church should be about halfway along this road. The signpost tells us the church and cross is six miles. I called it a road. Maybe this is an over statement. It’s classified as a B road. I’d probably call it a badly neglected farm track. This narrow single track road was twisty, up and down, cracked, full of potholes and for most of the way had grass growing in the center. Most of the turns and hillocks were blind. The By the time we found the tiny church and cross the rain was pelting down. Great. Undaunted we got out and paddled through the soaked long grass to explore, cameras tucked under our rain jackets.

There are only so many atmospheric photos one can take, so rather damp we climbed back into the car, decided to miss the village which was several miles further on and head back for the distilleries café. A warming pot of hot coffee was called for while waiting for the men folk to emerge from the tour.

Sustained by a leisurely lunch of Bangers and Mash in the café we turned the car back and headed south to the town of Bowmore and the Bowmore distillery. Another tour and samples for the men folk. Nancy and I took in the limited shops of Bowmore. The craft/tourist gift shop looked very interesting from the window displays but inside the most interesting items in the shop were in the window displays. Luckily for us the rain had stopped, but it remained dull and overcast.

The men folk returned and were not so impressed with Bowmore experience. The Islay Woolen Mill was our next stop. This collection of old mill buildings had been making cloth since the mid 1500’s. The present owner renovated some of the old weaving machines and they weave tweeds and tartans to order. The tartan for the film ‘Braveheart’ was designed and woven on this site.

A rather damp scenic drive around the southwest part of the Island was our next tour. Passing the Bruichaddich distillery Dave and John decided that despite the lateness of the afternoon it was worth going into the visitor’s center for a look see. This turned out to be the whiskey drinkers most welcoming experience for despite being too late for a as they were given samples and made welcome.

The Croft Kitchen at Port Charlotte was our stop for an evening meal before driving on to the southern most tip of the Island to Port Na Haven. This is a pretty cove surrounded by white painted cottages small fishing boats anchored in the sheltered bay. A lighthouse perches on the rocks. Seals swim into the bay to bask on the rocks. In sunny conditions this would be a ‘chocolate box’ scene. Back at the Hotel we finished our evening with a drink in the spacious comfortable residents lounge.

Scotland Ahoy!

Day One August 16th. Peterborough to Glasgow.

It was an early start today for us this morning. Car packed to bursting point with enough items for any eventuality. Well that’s what it seems like. A bit of fiddling with our new toy, a GPS Satellite Navigation gizmo and we’re off. Three short pit stops later and we’re whizzing through Glasgow with no hesitation. 'Tom,' the Sat Nav's male voice, gives the driver clear instructions right through to our hotel for the night. The whole journey was fast and uneventful . Not a traffic jam or road work in sight until we reached Glasgow. Nancy and John even managed to sleep for a good few miles of the route.

Our hotel for the nights was in Erskine just north of Glasgow on the banks of the Clyde River. The hotel is a large ugly modern square blocky building. The rooms were adequate but the on suite bathrooms had obliviously been recently refurbished and were dazzlingly pristine white. Shame they had forgotten to paint the door.

The weather up to Yorkshire was pleasant and sunny the further north we traveled the duller the weather became until we hit heavy drizzle in Scotland. Looking out of the hotel window at the darkening evening sky I can actually see wide stretches of blue sky. Hopefully it bodes well for good weather in the morning when we head for the ferry to Islay.

Day Two. August 18th. The Road to Islay

Last nights blue skies were definitely not a foreteller of the weather. The morning dawned dull and rainy. We were reluctantly up and away by six am all tired after a bad night’s sleep in noisy rooms. The road to Kennacraig Ferry Terminal was long and winding. The road, approximately 100 miles, took us past Lock Lomond, through the Trossacks and along the banks of Lock Fyne. It should have been a beautiful journey if only the rain had stopped and the sun had come through.

The Ferry Terminal is small with just a coffee dispensing machine in the waiting room. The ‘new toy’ now called ‘Mr. Tom’ worked well and took us straight to the terminal. Once we thought he had directed us the wrong way but we were proved wrong and arrived in very good time. After boarding we headed straight to the onboard restaurant and ordered four full Scottish breakfasts. The black puddings were discarded but the rest wolfed down The ferry journey was sooth and uneventful.

Port Ellen.

Once on shore in Islay we head for the hotel. This is where ‘Mr. Tom let us down, The post code we put in took us to a farm camp site that although was quite close to the hotel cross country was quite a distance by road. We tried a keyword this time with better success. The two bedroom, self catering bungalows proved quite surprised us. They were peaceful, roomy with every thing we needed including coffee, tea, milk and toiletries. From the front of the bungalow we can see the sea and sheep greet us at the back.
After unloading we headed for the first of the distillery tour we were booked on at the Laphroaig distillery one of the oldest on the island. No time for lunch a Kitkat biscuit had to suffice. At the distillery a group of thirty plus people had gathered for the first tour of the new season. This year’s crop of barley had just been added to the first vat to begin the process of turning it in to a peaty single Malt Whiskey.
The weather had by now taken a turn for the better and the sun managed to break through through the clouds to give us a pleasant evening.
After a delicious evening meal at Duffy’s restaurant in Bowmore, Nancy John and Dave headed to the Ardbeg distillery for an evening of music. I feel really tired headachy and my face hurts dreadfully so I elect to stay in the bungalow. I’m hoping the peaceful situation of this cottage helps to promote a goods night sleep.