The Lovely Lakes District Seeing as it was a long weekend, Lis, Joel, Craig and myself decided we'd head up to the Lakes District in North Western England. Thanks to Joel's connections as a travel agent, we were able to hire a car very cheaply, with Joel and I being the designated drivers due both us having manual licences. The car was brand new, a Renault Laguna, with only 9 miles on the speedo when we got it. And call me crazy but I was excited that it was so new it didn't even have keys! To start the car, you put a card in the slot and pressed the start/stop button. Pretty cool I thought! We found ourselves up and out the door by 5:30am on Saturday, warned by many people about how terrible the traffic would be. With Joel at the wheel and an A-Z (street directory) in my hands, we found our way out of London with no problems. By 8:30am we were stopping for breakfast and a change of drivers. I was nervous about driving again but with no problems I'd got us out on the motorway and heading northwest across the country. By 11am, we had arrived in Arnside, the little town where we would be staying. Unable to check into the hostel until later, we got back in the car and drove into Windemere and Bowness, two of the major villages. We didn't think our prospects for the weekend looked good as it was pouring rain by the time we'd parked and were heading up the main street of Bowness. You could barely see Lake Windemere, the largest lake in the district. After a very bad meal at a local pub and a wander around both Bowness and Windemere, the weather had improved and we could see how beautiful Lake Windemere really was. We got back in the car and decided to drive on a little further, making it both Grasmere and Ambleside that afternoon. These were probably my favourite two villages as they were very small and quaint - just how you picture English villages to look. We were pretty tired that night so we headed down to the local pub in Arnside for a great meal and then crashed out relatively early at the hostel, all of us exhausted from the very early start. Sunday was a beautiful day so we bypassed Windemere and headed further north to Keswick. After wandering around Keswick, we discovered a great bakery so armed with fresh rolls (this was a treat as everything in the UK is pre-packaged) and some bakery goodies, we found a lovely park and had a picnic lunch. By the end of lunch, Lis and Craig had convinced Joel and I that yes, we wanted to play Crazy Golf, the course being right next to where we were eating. After a round of Crazy Golf, we decided to keep going, heading south to a place called Ravenglass. Here we went to the Muncaster castle, a castle that is open to the public but lived in by a family. Inside the castle wasn't the most exciting one I've seen but the gardens and views were amazing. Well worth the visit for that. We headed back to Arnside late afternoon, stopping briefly in Kendal, the largest town in the region. After the beauty of the little villages we'd been visiting, Kendal didn't hold any appeal so we left and returned to Arnside and the pub for another lovely dinner. Monday morning we sadly farewelled the Lake District, heading across country to visit Slingsby, the village where Craig's family had come from (his surname is also Slingsby). This took longer than planned and unfortunately wasn't as exciting for me as it was for the others as the roads were very windy and narrow and driving them was quite stressful. The scenery was beautiful thought so the other 3 enjoyed that aspect of it. Craig appeared to be very pleased to see Slingsby but truthfully, by the time we got there, it held little appeal for me as I was tired and just wanted to get back to London and beat the traffic. We, surprisingly, had a great run back to London, with little traffic and the journey back into London itself was easy and fast. I'd handed the driving over to Joel by then as driving through London wasn't what I wanted to be doing. Armed with the A-Z again, we arrived back at Victoria to return the car, having put 900miles on it! Not bad for 3 days! I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend away with a great group of people (loved travelling with you guys!). The Lakes were everything I imagined them to be - and more. It has become my favourite place I've been to in England (even beating the gorgeous Cambridge!) and well worth the 5 hour drive to get there.