Coniston

Me, Chris and Dave recently had a trip down to Coniston Water as Chris wanted to go on an "electric" boat. Unfortunately her luck was out as it was out of season so had to board a "non-electric" launch down to Torver instead. The weather was beautiful with clear blue skies all round so the walk back along the lake shore was a pure joy.

We had an amusing interlude at Coniston Hall where the local farmer was attempting to round up his sheep but was having very little success. Instead of them going into the pen as intended, they continually evaded or broke free from both him and his sheep dogs. I don't really think he saw the funny side of things and his sheepdogs certainly didn't judging by his constant bellowing of obscenities towards them. Still we had a good chuckle as we watched the proceedings unfold.

He was still trying as we headed off towards Coniston desperately seeking out an ice cream shop. We tried the Coniston Fudge Shop who didn't sell ice cream but did sell fudge and Chris, unfortunately for Dave, fell foul of the assistant's sales pitch and came out carrying three bars of fudge.We decided on a pint instead just to calm Dave's shattered nerves.

We popped up the hill to The Sun Inn at the foot of the Old Man and had a couple of beautiful pints of Lowswater Gold whilst sitting outside in the beer garden. I can't recall being able to do that this early in the year before.

Sitting out there brought back some lovely memories of last summer when I came across to Coniston to see Sal. We always called into the Sun after out days out and had a quiet final drink here in the late evening sunshine. Happy times.