Lake District – Penrith

by Alan Cole · Published Wednesday, April 13th, 2016 · Updated Sunday, April 10th, 2016

After our walk up Place Fell yesterday we had a slower start to the day today. I left the cottage just after 8am leaving Anna and Morgan in bed and walked into Great Strickland and on to the canoe workshop. It was a nice little 45 minute walk that will have earned me some Bounts points. It also gave Anna and Morgan some time to chill, and the pied wagtail some more time to look at itself in my car wing mirrors. It spent every minute of the entire holiday doing this. Whenever the car was parked next to the cottage, the pied wagtail was there going from mirror to mirror and making a mess of the car. Silly thing!

: Looking in the Mirror

: Pied Wagtail

: Pied Wagtail

Once there I checked over our canoe and started giving it a second coat of varnish. Most people do the painting and varnishing once they get home as the workshop is only 3 1/2 days long. We turned ours into a holiday by staying in the Lake District until the end of the week so had decided to make the most of it as far as the canoe build was concerned by getting some extra coats of varnish on. The more coats the better really, and even with the best intentions I just know that it won’t get done once we are at home. We’ll be busy with work, the bees will need inspecting, the garden will need weeding, the lawn will need mowing, we need to build a fence, the fish tank will need cleaning and trimming, and a whole host of other things will need doing which will mean the canoe will take a back seat. On top of that, if we get some time and z nice day with it, we’ll want to get it on the water. So, getting some varnish on it now is a good thing.

Steve turned up at the workshop at around 9:30, so I chatted to him whilst finishing off the varnish. As planned Anna and Morgan arrived in the car at 10am just as I finished and we all headed off into Penrith for a ‘inflatable fun’ swim session at the leisure Centre.

Rheged Centre

We then headed off to the Rheged Centre where we had a nice lunch, wandered around the shops and the Harris Tweed exhibition and Morgan made a sword in a wood workshop.